The greatest movie ever made

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2015)

Casablanca is the pinnacle of what filmmaking can achieve and stands as a testament to the power of phenomenal acting and the power of a compelling story. A timeless classic, this movie stands above all others and should be watched again and again.
Characters
The brilliance of Casablanca begins and ends with Humphrey Bogart. Rick Blaine is the performance of a lifetime given by the world's most skilled actor. Here we see Bogart's incredible range on full display; he is the cutthroat and cynical saloon owner, the romantic in flashback, the jilted lover, and the heartbroken man who is torn between choosing the woman he loves and doing what he knows to be right. Bogart is entirely believable in this role, so much so that it's hard to imagine Bogey isn't the cynic with the heart of a sentimentalist that he portrays. When watching Casablanca and seeing the story of Rick's past romance with Ilsa unfold we feel his pain, we share his anger and his confusion as if it was our own, whether we are watching for the first time or the hundredth time. Rick is every man who has ever been in love, who has turned cynical after having his heart broken, and who will do anything—even sacrifice his own happiness —to ensure her happiness. To be able to connect with such a complex character is possible because of Bogart's genuine delivery. Bogart's role as Rick will stand the test of time as one of the most legendary performances in film history.
Along with Bogey, the support he receives from every other actor in this film is astounding. Ingrid Bergman is flawless as Ilsa Lund. Her cold demeanor towards Bogey throughout most of the film combined with the frustrated love of his character creates the perfect chemistry. Bergman holds her cards tight to her chest and keeps us guessing as to whether she will choose to rejoin Rick or escape with her husband Victor Laszlo and even more importantly, which man she loves more.
Rains portrayal of the French captain whose loyalty "blows with the prevailing wind" is brilliant in its own right and in no way overshadowed by Bogey and Bergman. Part of what makes Rain's performance so impressive is that he is able to add a level of comic relief to the film while still maintaining the seriousness of a captain of the police when the occasion calls for it. He is both the man who can shut down Rick's Café for gambling while collecting his winnings.
While Rick, Ilsa, and Rains are the primary focus of Casablanca, what puts this movie over the top is the depth of talent it receives from its secondary actors. There are strong performances all around from Sydney Greenstreet as the profit oriented businessman Senior Ferrari, Peter Lorre as the sleazy criminal Ugarte, and Sam as the warm-hearted and amenable pianist. These characters may not contribute on a large scale but their performances maintain the film's high quality of acting.
Dialogue: Along with acting, what separates this film from all others are its lines. Not just the half dozen that appear in the American Film Institute's most famous movie quotes, twice as many as any other film, but lines like "You'll get along beautifully in America," "There are vultures, vultures everywhere," or "I stick my neck out for nobodyA wise foreign policy" are what make this movie not only powerful but enjoyable to watch. It all starts with great acting but to be the best movie of all time you have to have a great script and Casablanca has the best.
Music: "As time goes by", "Knock on wood", and "The Marseilles" deliver a lot for just a few songs. The Marseilles scene is arguably the most emotional musical performance is cinema history, made especially powerful by the fact that many of the French citizens in the café were real-life emigrants during the war and shed real tears as they sang in the movie. While "As Time Goes By" may be the song most famously remembered for Sam to play again, it is "The Marseilles" that marks the turning point in the film. Showing the French citizens overpowering the Germans serves as a powerful symbol of the French resistance to the Nazis and was also written for an American audience that had just entered the war following Pearl Harbor only months earlier. The audience feels the genuine struggle of war-torn Europe instead of the artificial feel of propaganda that made some other films feel like a war time commercial and a cheesy ploy for enlistment. This scene is also of significant importance to the story because of what happens right before it. While it is Laszlo who tells the band to play the Marseilles, the band does not do so until Rick nods for them to go ahead. In this moment Rick does much more than tell the band to play, he breaks the last and most important of his precedents that he had maintained before Ilsa arrived: his neutrality. By nodding for the band to play, Rick knows that he is symbolically siding with the French and that the Germans will now view him as a threat to their mission to arrest Laszlo. It is in this moment that Rick makes the decision to help Laszlo and to give up Ilsa and his café. Scenes like this display the powerful acting at work in Casablanca and the beauty in the power that one look and a simple nod can have.
Casablanca is simply the greatest movie of all time. Citizen Kane and The Shawshank Redemption cannot hold a candle to this movie and with the current trend towards emphasizing CGI over acting, it is possible no film ever will.
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