Casablanca

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi

I just came back from a screening of „Casablanca“ (1942). And I simply love the movie as there are so many details and side-stories in it. After the screening, I had a little discussion with a friend who summarized it as lovestory between Rick and Ilsa. But isn’t the main topic the lovestory between Ilsa and Victor? Or is it the friendship between Rick and Sam or Rick and Louis? Or is it about helpless refugees being stuck somewhere? Or is it about Rick‘s way back to fighting the evil? Or is it about fighting the nazis (with everything else only being deception)?

What do you think?

(My opinion is that Casablanca is simply great because there’s no real answer to my question. And hence you can simply watch the movie all over again and again - being open to watch the film this time from a completely different point of view.)

 

[Brian Drysdale]

Interestingly, Robert McKee, the script writing guru used (may still do) Casablanca as a case study in his Story workshops for scriptwriters.

Looking at the writing process, it's far from what could be regarded as the work of a single writer, with a number of writers being involved

It was shot in sequence, apparently because only the first half of the script was ready when they began shooting.

Maybe all this adds to the complexity.

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't think it was so much that the script was half-written, it's just that Howard Koch's romantic, patriotic story needed punching up by the Epstein Brothers, who added a layer of cynicism and humor that was much needed, creating a lot of the memorable lines in the movie. In this case, the schizophrenic nature of the final script actually works rather than hurts.

I currently reading the biography of Michael Curtiz and have just come to the start of his directing of "Casablanca" after finishing "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

The script issues reminds me of "Patton" where the inverse sort of happened, the first draft was written by a young Francis Ford Coppola and then rewritten by Edmund North, mainly to make the military campaigns more understandable. But all the best lines of dialogue came from Coppola, plus the opening monologue against the giant flag, a scene that they kept debating about dropping.

[David Mullen ASC]

Am reading the chapter now on “Casablanca” in the Curtiz biography and I had it backwards — Howard Koch was brought in to add more romance and politics into the Epstein Brothers comedic script, to give the story more dramatic weight. Finally, Casey Robinson did a final draft where he added some of the big romantic confrontations between Rick & Ilsa.