Casablanca (1942)
Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch
"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
RICK: Don't you sometimes wonder if it's worth all this? I mean what you're fighting for?
LASZLO: We might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we'll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.
RICK: What of it? Then it'll be out of its misery.
LASZLO: You know how you sound, Monsieur Blaine? Like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart. Each of us has a destiny, for good or for evil.
RICK: Yes, I get the point.
LASZLO: I wonder if you do. I wonder if you know that you're trying to escape from yourself and that you'll never succeed.
I started with this quote because I felt like this exchange embodies the armature of the entire film:
You can't deny/forget your past, or who you are. (It's also a little of, to steal Brian McDonald's armature for Iron Giant, "You are who you choose to be.")
The Seven Steps:
1) Once upon a time, an American named Rick with a history of fighting for the underdog owns a ritzy cafe in Casablanca, Morocco during World War II.
2) And every day, people living in Casablanca try to escape to America but almost always fail. Rick's cafe acts as a stopover for many of the wealthier people who are attempting to escape, but Rick himself avoids all illegal action, refusing to help (or hinder) the refugees.
3) Until one day, an infamous Czech resistance leader named Victor Laszlo arrives in Casablanca with his wife Ilsa Lund, whom Rick recognizes as the woman he fell in love with in Paris years before, and who subsequently left him with almost no explanation.
4) And because of this, law enforcement officials (a French officer and his commanding German officers) inform Rick that they will not allow him to help Laszlo escape to America, because they know he will continue his work against the Third Reich.
5) And because of this, Ilsa admits to Rick that she had been married to Laszlo during Rick's and her Parisian romance but now knows she cannot leave Rick's side again and would instead prefer that Laszlo escape Casablanca alone.
6) Until finally, Rick decides to risk his life that he's made for himself in Casablanca in order to help the woman he loves and her husband. He uses some letters of transit that he's been concealing from the law enforcement officials to help Laszlo and Ilsa escape together. In the process, Rick shoots a high-ranking German officer and prepares to be arrested by the next-in-command French officer, who, however, seems to have had a change of heart.
7) And ever since that day, Rick and the French officer have left Casablanca for a Free French garrison in Brazzaville to avoid the fallout of their actions against the Germans.
WHEW. Emma, how do you do that?? That was more challenging than I ever could have anticipated... and I'm not sure how confident I am in what I wrote, but I guess that's why this will be a learning process. I've seen this movie once, but I remember it so poorly that I don't think I can use any of the visual aid of the film itself to help me with my response to the screenplay. So, here we go...
I liked this story quite a bit. Rick's character development, from one who (as he puts it) "stick[s] [his] neck out for nobody", to one who risks everything he has built in Casablanca for the woman he loves to leave him forever with her husband... that's pretty beautiful. He had constructed this little escape where everyone knew who he was but he could remain aloof:
RICK: I don't like disturbances in my place. Either lay off politics or get out.
While I'm on the subject of Rick and people, let's talk about Rick's cafe. It's popular. It has its regular faces...
Rick, the owner; American.
Sam, the piano player; African-American.
Sacha, the bartender; Russian.
Carl, the waiter; German (refugee).
Abdul, the bouncer; nationality isn't stated but his name is Arabic.
Yvonne, the frequent flier at the bar; French.
Rick has a history of fighting for the underdog: he smuggled guns into Ethiopia in 1935, and he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Loyalists. It's interesting to me that in this fortress he's built in Casablanca, he has collected such a variety of people. If we look at the film in its historical context, we can notice that he's got the underdogs of the period represented in the cafe. He still believes in them, he still empathizes with them... this brings me back to the armature, You can't deny who you are. Rick has been denying that, and has tried to leave behind his desire to support the underdog, but he can't completely forget it.
The baby step in between "I stick my neck out for nobody" and okay-bye-Ilsa-I'm-risking-everything-for-you is when he helps the Bulgarian couple Jan and Annina by fixing the roulette game. They need the money to leave Casablanca and he knows they aren't going to get it, but in a big fuck-you to the Man, he lets them walk away with the money they need. And that step is part of what reminds him of what he once stood for and what is important to him in the grand scheme of things.
That's what allows him to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion, despite the fact that he is allowing the woman he loves to leave his life forever. He knows that he can't ever truly escape from his identity, and I think by the end of the film, he doesn't really want to.
LASZLO: And welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: AAAHHHHHHHH
So I was watching 30 Rock (S2:EP15, "Cooter") when it hit me.
After reading the ending of Casablanca, I knew I had a slight problem with it, but I couldn't pin it down. I ignored that feeling because I didn't have a reason to dislike it.
But 30 Rock answered that for me. (Kind of. Liz is eating crappy cheese snacks at the beginning of the episode, which ultimately comes back to bite her in the ass... but the basic connection was the idea that nothing should come out of nowhere. In 30 Rock, it doesn't.)
When Rick pulled out the gun at the airport, I was incredibly surprised. He had been such a blank slate for so long, living out his life in Casablanca with no real drive or development, it surprised me that he had a gun. I mean, we knew about his past--he was a "crusader", like Laszlo. But he hasn't been for a while. And it just bothered me that the gun came out of nowhere and ultimately brought the final action of the story that could create a happy ending.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but it just seemed weird to me that the gun appeared only when it was needed most. That's all.
I would agree that it does seem strange for the gun to appear out of nowhere. I think it appeared because it was necessary. Other characters also pulled out guns when they needed them, like Ilsa when she confronted Rick. The gun was just a tool to get Renault to comply. Theme trumps plausibility.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you write your 7 steps. Mine often tend to be vague because I think about them in terms of the internal change. But I should be writing them more concretely. I do have some advice, though: try simplifying. Boil the plot down to its essentials. It's really hard, but it helps you see the bigger picture.
Aaaand... I think the armature is something different. I think "you can't forget your past" is a big theme, but I don't think it's the main conflict. Rick isn't trying to escape his past, he just doesn't talk about it.
Thanks for the advice on the seven steps. I reread them and realized I was a little too wrapped up in the finer plot points.
DeleteI'm not so sure I agree on the armature point, though. The armature you suggest in your post is one that I kind of approached as well, but the reason I chose "you can't forget/deny your past/identity" was because Rick doesn't take decisive action in moving the plot forward without remembering how he used to be.
The world is definitely bigger than their personal problems (some quote towards the end from Rick is along the lines of "three peoples' problems don't amount to a pile of beans in this world" or something like that), but I didn't get the impression that it was the reason Rick chose to act.
[[I like reading the same screenplay that you are. It makes me feel safer going into it knowing that I'll get some constructive criticism and I also have the opportunity afterwards to discuss!]]