Why I’ll Always Have Casablanca

I first watched Casablanca on a twelve-hour flight at what must have been about three in the morning. Unable to sleep, it seemed like the perfect antidote. I’d heard it talked about as being iconic, important even, and thought it might be a sort of dull educational experience, watching something I thought better suited to an archive than an aeroplane film selection. By half past four, a stewardess asked me if I was alright as I cried quietly into a complimentary airline blanket. The old film I had started watching on a whim, expecting a slightly rigid piece of cinema history, was the most heart-breaking depiction of love I had ever watched. Ever since that early morning I’ve come back to it time and time again, each repeated viewing only enhancing its power.

Which is strange, really. It’s hardly a perfect film, with its sweeping melodrama, its ever so slightly underdeveloped characters, and its frankly propagandistic tones. And it’s not as if it's unique in its subject matter - it was one of a flurry of love-through-war films that naturally were mass produced in the early 1940s, a flurry that included the cinematic highs of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and the saccharine lows of “Mrs Miniver”. At times, it’s hard to escape the film’s propaganda. Bar-owner Rick is a terribly on the nose representation of America’s involvement in the second world war, and certain lines tend to really sledgehammer that point home. One of Rick’s rivals chastises him saying “isolationism is no longer a practical policy.” No points for subtlety there. And it’s not as if its plot is genre-defining. It’s a remarkably simple premise for a film so adored; as the second world war rages, a classic love triangle occurs between the cold and fiercely neutral Rick, his former lover Ilsa, and her resistance leader husband Viktor Laszlo in the refugee hotspot of Casablanca.

So why am I, like so many others, still hooked?

This is where I could talk about its cinematic qualities. How director Michael Curtiz’s blend of Hollywood Noir and German Expressionism make each frame a reflection of its characters. Or how his use of a camera practically dancing through crowded bar scenes makes sequences sing with an energy so obviously lacking in the stagey static shots of the contemporary “Mrs Miniver.”

I could go on about its technical triumphs, its iconic dialogue. And frankly, I could go on just as easily about its shortcomings; exterior sets are a little flimsy. Supporting actors are a little hammy. But I don’t want to. That’s not the point. Casablanca is not great because of its technical nous or loveable failings.

Casablanca is as great as it is because of its depth of feeling. Roger Ebert called the plot and characters of Casablanca “trifles to hang the emotions on”, and, unsurprisingly, Ebert nails it. The two central performances of Bogart and Bergman, performances that could so easily have slipped into exaggerated self-pity, remain so tender, so delicate. Their restrained passion is agonising to watch, and the shots of Bergman as she listens to the now iconic “As Time Goes By” number are like a whole short film within themselves, her eyes flashing reminiscence then pain in rapid succession. And of course, Humphrey Bogart is effortlessly cool, slouching through the bar in his double-breasted tuxedo. It’s to Bogart’s Rick that the story really belongs. We watch him grow from a cynical loner, living by the adage “I stick my neck out for no one”, to what the resident Chief of Police has always accused him of being: a rank sentimentalist, a romantic. There’s a brilliant sequence towards the end of the film as German soldiers sing rowdily of the Fatherland. Victor Laszlo, incensed, implores the band to play La Marseillaise to drown them out. The band leader looks to Rick. He would never allow such partisanship. The camera lingers on Rick’s face, and you can watch the wheels turn. He gives a small nod. The Germans are thwarted as every patron joins in La Marseillaise and finally, Rick has truly chosen a side. It’s such a simple chain of events, but one of the most stirring pieces of film I know of.

The central dichotomy of the whole picture is the choice between duty and love. How can two people stay together when the world falls apart around them? It’s something that (and I hate to bring it up) seems prescient now as we reach enter our second year of pandemic life. How can love win when the world is intent on keeping people apart? As the film reaches it climax, the real genius, the real reason I keep watching it, becomes apparent. Of course the ending is heart-breaking. Rick forfeits his guarantee of safe passage to America in order to save Ilsa and her husband, sacrificing not just his love, but perhaps his freedom too. If she stays, he warns her, nine times out of ten they will end up in a concentration camp. It’s heart-breaking, how could it not be? Yet it is never hopeless. In picking a side, in finally fighting back and relinquishing his island status, Rick embraces the romantic.

I think, looking back on that long flight when I first watched Casablanca on the back of someone else’s headrest, it’s that which so moved me. Yes, Rick and Ilsa’s love is lost, but he chooses a hill to die on, and he chooses well, and with passion. It’s a constant reminder that in a world tearing itself apart, to embrace the romantic, to have a cause and to fight for it, might be the best thing you can possibly do. The film closes not on total despair, but on quiet hope; Rick turns to his new found ally in the Chief of Police and murmurs that this could be “the start of a very beautiful friendship.” And it’s this hope that means I, along with so many others, will always return to Casablanca.