Casablanca

Rating: Null/10 (11 March 2010)

Casablanca was directed by Michael Curtiz and released in 1942. The film, starring Ingrid Bergan and Humphrey Bogart, is one of the all-time classic movies. The themes in Casablanca include love, loyalty and sacrifice. Ilsa is a married woman who learns that her husband has been killed in the war. She meets Rick in Paris, and the two fall in love. As they are about to leave Paris to avoid the Nazi's, she learns her husband is alive. Torn between her love for the two men, she learns that her husband needs her, and decides to remain loyal to him. However, she does not tell Rick, but just leaves instead, for she feared he would be not leave Paris and be captured. Time passes, and their paths cross again. This time, it is Rick that sacrifices his feelings for her, in an honorable and noble gesture.
The film is realistic in what happens in the storyline. During wartime, many men were said to have died, only to find out it was mistaken identity. For the time period the movie was filmed, Ilsa's decisions may have been very common.
The lighting and camera angles in some of the scenes, as well as some of the classic writing/quotes, has made the scenes memorable. The scene where Rick was in despair sitting in the dark, soft highlight lighting was used, making showing how distraught he was. This was the scene of his famous line, "Of all the gin joints into the world, she walks into mine." The final scene is one of the most famous scenes from a movie. It shows the love, the loss and sacrifice. The scene was shot with fog and dreariness. The playing of the theme song as the two interact the close-up shots with a soft focus of the camera add to the scene.