Casablanca Viewer's Response
1. Discuss the resistance activity featured in Casablanca. How would you describe it? Is it presented as heroic? Purposeful? Desperate? Does it achieve anything?
2. What does the film say about collaboration?
3. Research question:
Strasser: Rick is just a blundering American
Renault: Well, don’t underestimate American blundering. I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918.
Which historical event does Renault recall in the above quote? Why is it significant that Renault was with the Americans in 1918?
4. In Casablanca, isolationism is equated with selfishness. Is this fair? Imagine being a conservative politician in America in 1941 – how else could you justify staying out of the war?
5. “Once we knew that Bogart was going to play the role, we felt he was so right for it that we didn’t have to do anything special. Except we tried to make him as cynical as possible”
Julius J Epstein, Casablanca scriptwriter
What do you understand by the word “cynical”? How are audiences meant to respond to the cynicism of Casablanca?
6. Why, in Casablanca, does Rick eventually stick his neck out? Plot the incidents that show him becoming increasingly involved – for instance when he lets Jan win at roulette.
7. What do you think President Roosevelt means when he says that the motion picture must remain free “insofar as national security will permit…”?
8. When four members of the Bureau of Motion Pictures saw Casablanca on October 23, 1942, they gave it a glowing review. From the standpoint of the war information program, it could hardly have been better. The film shows that “personal desires must be subordinated to the task of defeating fascism.” It “graphically illustrates the chaos and misery which fascism and the war has brought.” America is shown as “the haven of the oppressed and homeless.” In touching on Rick’s antifascist background, audiences are helped to understand “that the roots of aggression reach far back.”
What situations and dialogue in Casablanca illustrate each of the four points listed above?
Casablanca (1942)
Directed by
Michael Curtiz
Writing credits
Murray Burnett
Joan Alison
Julius J. Epstein
and
Philip G. Epstein
and
Howard Koch
Cast (in credits order)
Humphrey Bogart - Richard 'Rick' Blaine, Owner Rick's Cafe Americain
Ingrid Bergman - Ilsa Lund Laszlo
Paul Henreid - Victor Laszlo
Claude Rains Captain Louis Renault, Prefect of Police
Conrad Veidt - Major Heinrich Strasser
Sydney Greenstreet - Signor Ferrari
Peter Lorre - Ugarte
Madeleine LeBeau - Yvonne, Rick's Girlfriend
Dooley - Wilson Sam
Joy Page Annina Brandel, Bulgarian Refugee (Renault Exit Visa Affair)
Oscars
Best Picture (won)
Best Actor Bogart (nominated - lost to Paul Lukas Watch on the Rhine)
Best Director (won)
Best Supporting Actor Rains (nominated - lost to Charles Coburn The More the Merrier)
Best Screenplay (won)
Cinematographer black and white (nominated) - lost to Arthur C. Miller The Song of Bernadette)
Editing (nominated - lost to George Amy Air Force)
Score (nominated - lost to Alfred Newman The Song of Bernadette)
Ranks
#2 on AFI Top 100 American Films
#1 on AFI Top 100 Romantic Films
#3 on Entertainment Weekly’s Top 100 Films