Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) Influenced by Circumstances

[K Bonnington]

Often times it seems that people will do whatever it is that circumstances drive them to do due to desperation. Being stuck in a situation as precarious and unpredictable as Casablanca has lead all of the characters to develop quirky personality traits designed specifically to either help them escape or help them survive. While watching the characters scurry around looking for an escape, one cannot help but think that they wouldn’t necessarily be acting like this in another situation. There is a lot of backstabbing and conniving in this place than there might be in a more optimistic setting. Yet, in a lot of ways Casablanca isn’t the worst place in the world. The only activities any of the people engage in are drinking, flirting, and gambling. There isn’t a whole lot of responsibility required of them other than to not upset the authorities and to get out as soon as they can. In a way it’s a little like the college world, only without any classes.

For some in the movie it is very clear why they operate the way they do. For Renault it is readily clear that corruption is not something he has a problem being a part of. His participating in the very things that he’s happy to bust people for poses no real moral dilemma to him perhaps because he knows that his corruption facilitates situations such as the escape at the end of the movie. In the case of Ilsa, no one can really blame her for trying to manipulate Rick’s heart with the intent of getting those papers. Even the Ugarte character’s motivation is completely understandable when he has Rick hang on to the papers. He is so desperate to do what he wants to do with them that he’ll hide them in the most absurd place imaginable.

Of course there is one character that seems to have confusing motivations and dissonance between actions and words. Rick is the type of person that seems to rely heavily on no one but himself in order to minimize risk in such a tumultuous setting. His cold statement that he doesn’t “stick his neck out” for anybody else really shows just how much being in Casablanca has forced him to become the person he is today. Consistently he indicates that perhaps the only thing he might change for would be Ilsa. Every scene between these two shows a very passionate love story that feels genuine. The scene in which he makes the remark about his friend being a “real democrat” towards women shows how much Rick is willing to wait forever for the exact person he wants. It’s very clear just how much Rick cares.

In line with this trait of Rick’s is his willingness to risk quite a bit and help Ilsa to run off with her husband to live in a perfect new world. While frequently overused, the phrase “If you love something then set it free” applies in this situation. It is not entirely remarkable that he would be willing to do this for her while stuck in a place that so many people hate. His aim is not to be with her at all costs by sacrificing Laszlo to the police. Rather, he is perfectly content to see her simply happy by getting her out, even if that means he isn’t a part of her life. His exit in the end is telling of the fact that he feels freed from Casablanca himself by doing that. He doesn’t have to be the same Rick that came on screen at the beginning of the film because through freeing the love of his life, he has freed himself. In any other place he wouldn't have to have made such a sacrifice, yet here the circumstances have forced him to something he might not otherwise do in the pursuit of proving his love for Ilsa.

[tdiamond]

Indeed, Rick undergoes a change throughout the film that is sparked by the return of Ilsa. At the beginning we don’t know why Rick is such a neutral drunk, but the flashback of him in Paris explains it all and gives us a more in depth look at his troubles. As he is constantly reminded of his life with her and how she betrayed him, Rick evolves from a drunken neutral guy, to a drunken man with a purpose in Casablanca.
However, Renault is the one who doesn’t seem to have this kind of change, even as he watches Rick do witty circles around him. Renault is kind of the opposite of Rick. For him corruption and good ole’ fashion French snootiness will suffice. He dances around the Germans while running Casablanca with a corrupt fist. Renault experiences almost no change as he sides with the one that will win. However, he sides with his feelings as well, although he bends to the will of the Germans at times, he still retains his French snootiness and at the end reveals that he knows of the French resistance as he offers it up to Rick.
Rick and Renault are two very different people. The only thing that they seem to have in common is the wit they exude, their love of alcohol and cigarettes, and they are both stuck in Casablanca limbo. At the end where Rick makes his decision to send Ilsa away and Renault joins him seeing as Rick is now the winning side, we see that Rick and Renault can indeed be friends through the power of shooting Germans.


Also, if someone wasn’t drinking in this film they were smoking, and if they weren’t smoking they were drinking. Or they were doing both.
TL;DR Casablanca: SMOKE AND DRINK NOW

[A. Dickinson]

Personally I felt a little confused at Rick’s comment at the end when he said “I think this is gonna be a beautiful friendship”. Although Renault is a likable buy, he is so because of his snootiness and just how much of a bastard he is. Renault, in my view, never really showed any redeeming qualities as a character I would look up to. He “blows with the wind” and that is still apparent at the end when he rats out Rick at the end to the German officer. He still holds true to this creed when Rick and the German officer have guns pointed at each other. He’s just waiting to see who comes out on top so he can side with them.

Maybe what Rick meant by that final line at the end was that he knew Renault was a back stabber and would go with the wind, but by that token it would make him predictable. This might be very important for Rick because he just went through a series of relationships that ended in heart brake or back stabbing from people he didn’t even expect it from. With Renault there is consistency and in that consistency he will be able to tell what his actions might be next. I personally would trust that person a lot more than anyone else.

[ADeMeo]

I also understand the connection between Casablanca and Purgatory, but I’d have to agree with the initial poster; Rick’s Café looked like fun! I know they all wanted to escape for obvious reasons, but if you’ve got to wait for true freedom, Rick’s isn’t the worst place to wait it out.

I believe Rick was a very noble character, with a strong sense of what is really important. By insisting Ilsa get on the plane, he was allowing her to “grow up”, in a sense, and at the same time, as the original poster said, allowing himself to move on.

I’d have to disagree with some of the posts on here saying that Ilsa was Rick’s true love, and that he’d wait until she came back again and all that…I think Rick needed to see her a second time in order for him to realize that she was not for him. Ilsa, being way younger (was wearing braces while Rick was job-searching!), might not have known what was best for her yet, and Rick was just steering her in the right(ish) direction.

I can see why Casablanca is seen as one of the most important films ever made, and I’ve definitely heard a lot of the “famous lines” before (“We’ll always have Paris”, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, etc.), but I can’t for the life of me figure out what Rick meant when he’d say, “Here’s looking at you, kid”. Seriously, what does that mean? It doesn’t even make sense!

[aburns]

Most of the characters do seem to be “scurrying” in search of something, whether it be a way out of Casablanca, a girl to sleep with or just a very strong drink. I don’t know if I would say that the characters wouldn’t be acting out of desperation in any other situation, though, because there is always a possibility of desperation. What were these immigrants, who were giving up everything to get to America, going to do once they actually got to America? They would have desperately been trying to make a life there. I would agree, however, that Rick is very indifferent as to where he is and what he is doing. It seemed that as long as Casablanca was a neutral territory, he was also neutral to his whereabouts. That is until he sees Ilsa.

What Rick and Ilsa had in Paris may have been an epic romance (although I choose to disagree. He didn’t even know that she had been married). But their romance was over the day Ilsa ditched him at the railway station. Letting Ilsa leave with Laszlo was a way of freeing himself from the memory of her (Renault was the first person Rick had considered a close relationship with since Ilsa). But why did he let her leave with Laszlo? If he cared that much about her, why did he send her with a man whom she didn’t appear to actually love? That wouldn’t have made her any happier. That being said, I do see how Laszlo may have been the better match for Ilsa. She needed someone to tell her what to do and make her difficult decisions for her (as shown when she asked Rick to tell her what to do). She acted on what others wanted and was just as apt to “go with the wind” as Renault. Ilsa didn’t put up a fight when Rick sent her to America with Laszlo. She just went. Laszlo would always have his job and responsibilities to determine where he and Ilsa went and what they did next. With Laszlo, Ilsa would live a comfortable life, fairly free of choice and responsibility.

In my personal opinion, there isn’t much more to the line “Here’s to looking at you, kid” than it actually says. The line was often spoken over a glass of wine or champagne. To me, the line was simply a toast to how pretty Rick believed Ilsa to be and how much he enjoyed having her around.

On another note about Sam: Did you know that Hal B. Wallis, one of the producers, originally wanted Sam to be a female character. Ella Fitzgerald was considered. Would that have changed the characterization and the relationship with Ilsa and Rick?

[A. Bengel]

Rick Blaine is a mystery. The one question I couldn’t help but ask myself throughout the entire film was “What in the heck is Rick doing in Casablanca?” He fled Paris to avoid Nazi imprisonment just like everybody else. And by the time the movie takes place, he has enough influence to get out of town any time he wants. Rick is clearly annoyed by the presence of Renault, consistently insulting him and undermining his flimsy authority.
But when asked why he came to Casablanca, Rick only answers with a sarcastic joke about the waters. So what is his motivation for staying? To develop a social status? The fact that he doesn’t drink or converse with his customers begs to differ. Could it be to make money and take advantage of the poor refugees who must come to Casablanca? Maybe, but Rick doesn’t seem to be living the high life. He lives in a one-bedroom apartment, barely furnished upstairs from his bar.

Personally, I think that Rick came to seclude himself. In a place like Casablanca, where traffic is constantly passing through and the population is growing ever larger and more diverse, Rick is able to disappear, hiding in plain sight. Everyone in Casablanca knows who Rick is, but no one knows him. His identity is perfectly established in the first shot of him. The camera moves through the hustle and bustle of a crowded, lively bar, and finally stops on a seated, solitary figure. By the way the camera looks up at him the audience can assume that he is the most important man in the room, and yet he is alone.

Blaine has managed to secure for himself a little hole to crawl into. Only a cause of his reclusion can and does draw him out from it. Ilsa is the first customer he has ever had a drink with in his bar. He is willing to change his well-placed status for her. Once she is there, Casablanca no longer serves as a place to hide, and Rick must once again do something he hasn’t done in years: act.

[jwong]

It seems straightforward and intuitive that individuals adapt to and maximize the situations in which they find themselves. Whether in a situation purposefully or by some other roundabout sequence of events making the most of what you have is usually the best option. As the saying goes: “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

Casablanca, as the opening thread makes evident, is a film in which the majority of the characters are making the best of what can be qualified, at least in the perspective of the majority, as a somewhat “sticky” situation. Just south of Europe where the largest armed conflict of the century is fully underway and its ramifications are in the process of affecting the entire globe laid French Morocco and its port city of Casablanca. Often characterized as an “in between” city – neither the starting point nor the ending point of any journey – Casablanca acts as metaphor for the biblical notion of purgatory but on earth. And, as such Casablanca seems to have some very interesting affects on its inhabitants. Corruption, albeit in a friendly manner, is permitted as displayed through Renault’s character. Rick’s cold and self-serving demeanor are almost idealized and Ilsa’s “love games” are accepted with little questioning of her objective. Each of these character traits display self-interest based, utility-maximizing mindsets likely brought to the forefront of each’s personality because of the harsh realities of life in Casablanca while waiting for the next chapter of life to materialize