Casablanca - noir?

[Steve-O]

every now and then they try to make the case for Casablanca being noir... The Hartford Examiner tries too... http://www.examiner.com/classic-film...mment=31275306

Clearly not enough evidence to convince anyone...

[redwards7]

I have never felt CASABLANCA qualifies as a part of the noir canon. I think the Biesen's book "Blackout" places CASABLANCA into a valid context: "[CASABLANCA] captures the spirit of the anxieties at Warner Bros. studio and provides fascinating insight into wartime filmmaking conditions...and [the] daily constraints in the filmmaking home front leading to noir doing this time. While not usually associated with film noir, the film's uncanny, uncertain violent wartime environment--and destabilized crime psyche so crucial to noir--was a patriotic prelude to the emergence of the noir series in this social, political, and ideological terrain." (p. 77) I think Biesen is correct, that CASABLANCA

[redwards7]

I think Biesen is correct, that CASABLANCA is a link in the chain, not unlike a German Expressionist film like M, or a French Poetic Realism film like LE JOUR SE LEVE. And while some of CASABLANCA is even darker than THE MALTESE FALCON, Huston's film builds directly from the hard-boiled fiction tradition so crucial to noir and lends it a noir element absent from Curtiz's fine film. CASABLANCA's patriotism and wartime themes (also present in a film like THE THIRD MAN) fight against noir stylistically and thematically.

[Harry Fabian]

Well, if patriotism and wartime themes exclude a film from being considered "noir" then don't we have to remove "Pickup on South Street" from the canon? Thelma Ritter, the woman who would sell out any friend for money becomes a hero for refusing to sell out Richard Widmark to the communists. Jean Peters character implies patriotism when she finds out she's been duped into working for the communists. And the ending? Very un-noirlike and full of optimism. There is optimism in Casablanca, but also sadness in the ending. In "Pickup", the commies have been foiled and Richard Widmark is over Thelma Ritter's death by the end and is beaming as the screen closes out.

So do happy endings disqualify? I don't know. Many noirs I have seen have straight up happy endings-not the majority, but certainly more often than I think is reasonable in movies that should not end up happy but do anyway. Casablanca could have given us straight up happiness-Laszlo says to Bergman "I don't want to stand in the way of your happiness" and he goes on his own to continue his fight while Bogie and Bergman live happily ever after. I've seen a few "noir" where the guy gets the girl, the promotion, and there is no conflict of any kind at the end.

But anyhow, for me, the most important thing is "Did I enjoy the film?" I enjoy all types of films (noir being my favorite) and the only time I will wind up complaining "that wasn't very noir" is if I didn't like the film. However, since I am trying to see as many noir as possible as a priority, I tend to favor a somewhat generous classification of noir so that I can see more movies that I am apt to like. Therefore, I use noir lists mostly as guidelines of films I might like to see, rather than an in or out "Noir" "not Noir." The terms "Somewhat noir", "noirish elements", help me more than "not noir." And really, with so many elements in noir, I think it would be hard for someone knowledgeable to argue that a film is definitely "noir" and someone else knowledgeable argue that it is definitely "not noir" at the same time.

[redwards7]

Hi Harry: I'm not sure if you are referring to my post or the article mentioned in Steve-O's post that started this thread. But I think you and I are more in agreement than disagreement. Like you, I believe it is good to have a generous and expansive definition of noir so that more films can be preserved, treasured and enjoyed. And labels (generic or stylistic) matter much less to me than whether the filmmaker is telling me a hell of a story.

And I just want to clarify that I wasn't implying that patriotism and wartime themes exclude a film from being considered noir. Far from it. That would be too essentializing a position for me to take. But I will still contend that patriotism and wartime themes (especially predestined triumph of good over evil and unreflective jingoism) "fight against" (which is the strongest claim I make) noir stylistically and thematically because those kinds of "war pictures" and those kinds of themes tend to be based in a very different melodramatic tradition than noir.

Now, of course, that doesn't mean "war pictures" can't be great films or have noir elements or even be film noir (see Pickup on South Street or Crossfire). But I was riffing off Steve-O's original point that most noir aficionados don't feel the "evidence" isn't there to make the case for Casablanca as a noir. To me, I've always felt that Casablanca is on the road toward noir--at least, more noirish than un-noirish.

And in thinking through why that may be, why Casablanca wasn't one of the films that leapt to attention of the early noir canonizers, I would argue that certain types of genres (war films being among this type) have iconography, conventions, and mythologies that are odds at with the iconography, conventions and mythologies of noir films. Sometimes these differences can result in luscious collisions as in Pickup; other times I would argue this collision tends to water down the noir elements, as I think is the case in Casablanca.

[Steve-O]

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES PRESENTS CASABLANCA 70TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT
03/21/2012

NCM Fathom, Turner Classic Movies, and Warner Bros are coming together again to present Turner Classic Movies Presents Casablanca 70th Anniversary Event in select movie theaters nationwide on Wednesday, March 21st at 7:00PM (local time). The event will begin with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne taking audiences behind the scenes of this epic love story in a special original production showcasing stories from those who were on set and those who simply admire this timeless classic. Once again, audiences will see this beautiful and timeless classic on the silver screen.

Casablanca is a classic tale of unrequited love and is a project that defined the “golden age” of Hollywood and allowed audiences to fall in love with cinema all over again. Turner Classic Movies Presents Casablanca 70th Anniversary Event is the only opportunity to see this stunning digital presentation grace the silver screen on Wednesday, March 21st at 7:00PM (local time) with additional matinee showings at select movie theater locations. Check your local listings for more information.

Don’t miss the most romantic film of all time. More beautiful than it’s ever been!

http://www.fathomevents.com/classics...asablanca.aspx
I'm going to this for sure. Anyone else going to go to this?

[Harry Fabian]

This is nice. Very happy that I won't have to drive 2-3 hours to see this.

[cigar joe]

I sort of agree with redwards7 on Casablanca. Nobody ever started out making a Film Noir, its not really a genre as currently defined, and the looser its defined the more films you can cram into that label. If you were going to start out to make a Western you'd have a basic checklist of conventions, archetypes, and iconography, lol, cowboys, indians, landscapes, horses, cattle, wagons, false fronted towns, etc., etc., that you would assemble into a Western.

Casablanca is first & foremost a unrequited love story, that is what hits me over the head as its emphasis, not obsessed and alienated characters who are in a vortex beyond their control. And it is lit and filmed in pretty standard Hollywood style, rather than with typical noir stylistics. Yea it had some fog at the end but that was standard procedure to disguise that fact that they were on a sound stage rather than at an actual airport location. Compare Casablanca to The Big Combo, yea the endings are somewhat similarly shot, both end at airports in the fog, but the Big Combo is NOIR all the way from the get go.

That was the point of my starting a HARD CORE NOIR thread further down, listing those films that are exceptionally dark, that seem to take place in an eternal Night with alienated and obsessed hard boiled characters.

It would almost be better to say that, rather than call these films a genre call them a style/tool of film making used in certain film/plot sequences or for a films entirety that was used to conveyed claustrophobia, alienation, obsession, and events spiraling out of control, that came to fruition in the roughly the period of the last two and a half decades of B&W film.

Then you can say we have this Film Noir Style that can have two opposite poles one would be Films de la nuit, Films of the night, or Films de la nuit éternelle, Films of the eternal night, the opposite would be Films Soleil, films of the sun, those sun baked, filled with light Noirs, then all the rest would fit in the spectrum in between being various shades of grey or Films Gris. No? ;-)

Its still messy no matter how you slice it. In Biesen's book Blackout: WWII and the origins of Film Noir, its interesting to note that before there was a label "Film Noir" the New York Times called these series of films "The Red Meat Crime Cycle" emphasizing their hard boiled "crime" angle.

[Movie Memories]

Anyone else going to go to this?

This is showing 5 minutes from us and we are looking forward to going.

Casablanca is first & foremost a unrequited love story,

With some anti-war sentiment thrown in!

[JCharles]

I could see this on Long Island or in NYC so I'm definitely going to make the effort. I've never seen it on the Big Screen.

[Steve-O]

I'm going to Casablanca tonight... got my papers.

[David Boxwell]

Way too "affirmative" for film noir, in my book. Even though everybody involved certainly established noir cred elsewhere.

[Harry Fabian]

I'm going to Casablanca tonight... got my papers.

How was the documentary? My wife got sick and we couldn't go.

[Steve-O]

The documentary was good. Nothing you haven't seen before -- it was a TCM piece hosted by Robert Osborne -- it was a taped piece. Nothing was "live" at the event. I also saw that Noir expert/BAN member Alan Rode is going to be part of the new Blue-ray doc (which they didn't show) during a commercial for the new DVD. Honestly, I have to buy this movie AGAIN!

The theater was packed! I was happy to see there was a big mix of people in the theater. Normally my local cinemaplex is filled with teenagers and their parents. There were some teens (a man behind me took his two teen daughters. They were all into the movie-- laughing at the "money" lines and applauding at the end). Mostly it was a mix of older viewers, young(er) movie buffs, hipsters. Not the crowd you usually see. And like I said every seat was taken and they loved it. The only unintentional laugh was a guy -- who must have been 90 -- shouted out "That's the cardboard plane!" during the end airport scene.

The projection: I have to say that the projection (which I believe must have been digital) was sharp but a bit muddy. I thought it was just a bit too dark. But wow. Seeing those faces on a HUGE screen reminded me of going to Noir City and seeing Claude Rains face up close during The Unsuspected! Although Claude Rains did get his share of close ups I'd forgotten how the camera just lingers on Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. You never see closeups that long today. The most noirish moment at Rick's office at the end with all kinds of crazy shadows coming in on Bergman looked excellent.

[Harry Fabian]

Thanks, Steve. Sounds like a good time had by all. Nice to have a varied and engaged crowd. Maybe they'll do it again in 5 years for the 75th. I thought the original doc was showing at the theater, but I guess that's on the new Blu-ray. Glad I haven't bought the previous blu-ray of Casablanca because this new release sounds like a must-have.

[Davidmk]

Just saw that new release version in the Paper today ...... That kinda makes me a bit angry , Bought the VHS , also then the deluxe 2 dvd set & then the Deluxe blu-ray ................now another version !! Grrrrrrrrr ...

[Harry Fabian]

Great News for those who missed Casablanca last month-Encore showing April 26 Hoping no hacking coughs this time around.