In contemporary culture, a classic is a work of art that can be endlessly re-experienceable, with all its pleasure intact. A classic rewards the second viewing. And, quite contrary to the law of diminishing returns, a classic enriches and expands its meaning with every subsequent viewing.
Undoubtedly, Casablanca is one such Hollywood classic. Here I must admit that although I’d grown up with the refrain of “As Time Goes By” sounding from my dad’s piano, and for a time I dined frequently at a wholly Casablanca themed Mexican restaurant in Venice, and that inevitably, scraps of dialogue had already been imprinted into my subconscious from a young age, I had not, until this week, ever watched the film.
What is surprising too is that I’ve lived as long as I have in LA without succumbing to the cliché that maybe I have at least one screenplay in me. And so to explore this only mildly embarrassing impulse, I enrolled in Robert McKee’s Storytelling Seminar, which took place over three, ten hour days at the Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel. I’d signed up the night before, and so, seated amongst 200 of acolytes, resolved to maintain my objectivity. By the the third and final day, McKee paced the stage, and asked the question that would serve as the course’s capstone. Why stories?
So, proud of my diligent note-taking over those three long days, I roughly patched my bullet points into a lazy college-style essay so as not to forget, and emerged on the other end with this.
Life, as we know, is complicated. In the shadow of death, life is frightening too, when we take a moment to really think about it. We want to live forever, but know that in time death will take us all, McKee lectured on.
As Joan Didion wrote, “We tell stories in order to live.” And this we must do, because we live in a world of good and evil, and life can be truly frightening. A good story can help us square the two extremes.
How exactly?
Humanity invented the hero myth in which we can mediate the contradiction of good and evil by creating a distinct and new third invention: the hero. In the hero, life and death merge together to create a new idea. Life after death. In my mind, that’s particular to film too, as film can literally project its hero to life, long after the star has perished.
Casablanca is a modern hero myth.
A hero is one who does good with the means of evil, takes the means of evil to destroy evil, and then goes back to his or her quotidian existence. Constantly, we live within this contradiction between good and evil. While striving to be good, we nonetheless see so much evil in the world and the potential to be evil, even within our own hearts.
In Casablanca, its writers have tapped into some of the oldest ideas in Western Civilization.From the pre-Socratic philosophers to the modern day scientists examining the Higgs Particle, we grapple with the question: What is the essence of reality? The moment that question is raised, it becomes apparent that there are two contradictory responses.
One notion is that the essence of reality is being; being is eternal and therefore, the essence of life is unchanging. The second, contradictory notion is that the essence of reality is becoming; therefore nothing stays the same — and in life, the only permanent is change.
This ongoing paradox confused not only the classic philosophers. We are all, in fact, philosophers! As humans, we experience, in the most every day manner, from moment to moment, the tension between being verses becoming. In one instant, for example the early morning light may drape across the crosswalk and the cypress tree just so, and we see the universe as beautiful, infinite. In the next moment, a dead crow enters into the frame of vision, a more cold reminder that the universe is full of constant, change decay.
Again, the question becomes, how do we solve for an existence in which we live with the full knowledge of the final humiliation, of death?
Casablanca meditates on precisely this conflict, the tension of being verses becoming, a juxtaposition which, in the film, directly relates to identity. Specifically, one’s identity depends on being; identity defined by an inner sense of truth, of taste, of aesthetic permanence. Related is the fear that the loss of these ideals, results in a loss of identity. Therein enters the urge maintain one’s identity, by keeping oneself in the rather inflexible state of being.
And yet, the survival of all social institutions depends on an ability to adapt. Therefore, becoming is very much a hallmark of public life. All social institutions (governments, hospitals, schools, businesses) must struggle with the constant dynamic of becoming. If an institution is too brittle, it will break. Think here of Communism. Why did it collapse? It was too inflexible and unyielding to change.
In our heart of hearts, we want to stay the same.
In our heart of hearts, we want to stay the same. Privately, we do things because we want to. In public life, we do things because we must. The problem of modern life, then, is when these two realms collide. How do you keep inner ideals of your best self (love, beauty, ideals) while constantly changing in order to become.
In Casablanca, our protagonist Rick exhibits a pattern and a deep backstory as a one-time leftist freedom fighter and gun runner. Devoted to the public realm of change, he sought to change the world from tyranny and bring justice.
Yet, during his time Paris, he becomes politically inert and wants to live in romance (being) with Ilsa. When Ilsa jilts him, leaving him in heartbreak, this turns his world upside down; Rick effectively becomes, an “upside down man,” cultivating an apathetic inner realm, as a matter of public survival. He treats the public realm as a matter of private business. He takes no sides to the point of near absurdity. “I stick my neck out for nobody,” he says. To the French generals he says: “Your business is politics, mine is running a saloon.”
The question of re-orienting Rick to become right-side up again builds to a critical turning point in the ACT III climax. When he reunites with Ilsa at the airport, he must choose between personal and public, between returning to Ilsa or returning to his mission. It is the choice between being and becoming. The problem, however, is that to choose one or the other would result with our protagonist Rick in retrograde. In story, we require our character’s to change, to transform. Rick can’t return to freedom fighting just as he can’t simply reject his duty, by returning to the lusty, dream-like Paris.
Casablanca is a story about the regulation of time, which is to say, change. The duality of being verses becoming, represents a world in which nothing changes verses a world in which change is constant. In the score, As Time Goes By, contains lyrics that are more or less a poetic meditation on the idea of love as an eternal, unchangeable thing.
You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say "I love you"
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man, and man must have his mate
That no one can deny
It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man, and man must have his mate
That no one can deny
It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by
Here, some inside baseball about the song, in that Murray Burnett first heard one of his Cornell roommates playing it and became obsessed. When in 1940, Burnett co-wrote with Joan Alison an anti-Nazi play entitled, Everybody Comes to Rick’s, Burnett used, As Time Goes By in the play for one of the central love songs. Once, Everybody Comes to Rick’s, was adapted for screen as Casablanca, the song was included in the film to appease Burnett. In fact, Max Steiner, the composer for Casablanca, actually hated the song, and wanted to reshoot all the relevant scenes with his own song.
In post-production, the writers fought bitterly to keep the song in the movie. Even though there was no financial incentive in for them, as they were all off the project by then, the writers simply felt that As Time Goes By was the right choice. Eventually, it became apparent that the scenes could definitely not be reshot, as Ingrid Bergman was already working on her next film and had cut off her hair, thus resolving the matter and literally, settling the score.
Nonetheless, this anecdote suggests that the writers knew exactly what the movie was about, and they knew what they were doing.
This story aims to resolve the tensions of inner and outer life. Particularly because we can not have Rick in retrogade, as it would not make for a good story, Rick must find a way to choose both. His choice not to return to his romantic life with Ilsa conveys a powerful subtext.
“We’ll always have Paris,” Rick says. The subtext communicates a transformation from lust to love. In Paris, Rick and Ilsa’s relationship existed for him as dreamy, romantic. Ilsa, the object of his desire must be present in order for a relationship of this nature to exist. In their reunion at the airport, Rick’s choice exhibits that his feelings have transformed into a love that could be carried in they hears forever —an eternal love, unchangeable. “Here’s looking at you, kid” he repeats, his own nifty, un-sentimental version of “I love you.” At the same time, Rick chooses to help the the world to change. He exits the scene with Laszlo, an agreement to cop to what the world demands. In other words, Rick choose both.
In the struggle between inner and outer life, between the need for identity and the need for survival, you can have both, if you learn the difference between romance and love.
In the struggle between inner and outer life, between the need for identity and the need for survival, you can have both, if you learn the difference between romance and love. In Paris, romance exists only in the the presence of the beloved; lust requires the object of romance to be presence.
Love does not. It’s bigger, it’s a feeling you have whether or not the there person is there. When love is real, it is always present. The film suggests, if we can learn to love, we many have a fulfilling inner and outer life.
“May you have both,” McKee concludes. And all two hundred of his newly graduated disciples clap unironically, a standing ovation. I too have a tear running down my cheek, such is the unintended consequence of a well-told story.