Page 325 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 29: Umberto Eco’s ‘Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage’ (History and War-Background)

29.4 History and War-Background Notes

Casablanca is a romantic melodrama set in December 1941 in the French Moroccan port of that
name, which at the time was under the control of the Vichy government, who were collaborating
with the Germans. It was filmed in the summer of 1942, and its plot was clearly influenced by the
needs of wartime propaganda. The US had remained determinedly neutral until Pearl Harbour
(7/12/1941), when it declared war on the Axis powers. On November 8 th 1942 an Allied force
landed at Casablanca to open the campaign in North Africa. A pre-release screening of Casablanca
was arranged soon after, and President Roosevelt saw it on New Years Eve, when presumably he
considered that it contained messages supportive of changing US positions on the war since 1939.
It was rushed into general release on 23 rd January 1943, to coincide with a summit meeting held
in Casablanca between Roosevelt, Churchill and French leaders, in which Roosevelt broke US-
Vichy relations. In effect, Warner Brothers was able to capitalise on free publicity and the audience’s
familiarity with the name of the city when the film opened. One poster for the first run had the
slogan ‘Never anything more timely than Warner Bros Casablanca’ with the title shown against a
background montage of relevant news cuttings.
In the opening minutes the scene is set succinctly with the aid of a map and a newsreel-type
narration. Many refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe are stuck in Casablanca hoping to fly to
Lisbon and on to the safety of America, and ready to pay any price for precious exit visas. Vichy
officials and other opportunists thrive on their predicament. A senior Gestapo officer has arrived
to investigate the theft of transit letters, demanding full co-operation from the Vichy police chief
Captain Renault. During a roundup of suspects, the precarious situation of refugees is illustrated
– one scene shows a fleeing suspect without identification papers being shot in the back beneath
a wall poster of Marshall Petain, the Vichy head of state – he dies clutching a resistance handbill
bearing the Cross of Lorraine symbol, revealing his membership of the Free French Organisation.
Now that the isolationalism of the US was at an end, Casablanca’s makers were free to set the film
in the early part of the war, when the Nazis over-ran most of Europe. This would have been too
controversial in the preceding three years; that US neutrality was a sensitive and potentially
divisive issue is illustrated by Young Mr Lincoln, which was made in 1939. As Hayward notes
(entry on ideology p194/5), although supposedly about a figure of immense historical importance,
the historical context - including the fact that the nation was divided by the Civil War - was
completely absent from this film.
From the dialogue we have already been made aware that Rick’s café is at the centre of everything
that happens in Casablanca, and next an airport beacon - resembling a prison’s circular searchlight
- sweeps across its entrance, emphasising the forced confinement of those in the city. To reinforce
this the camera enters and eavesdrops on groups of black marketeers and would-be escapees of
different nationalities at tables inside. Then a brief series of shots introduces Rick (Humphrey
Bogart) and is designed to align the viewer’s consciousness to his. First his hand is seen signing an
advance slip (at 8.28 from start); the shot is positioned so that it appears that a (right-handed)
person in the audience is reaching up to the screen to sign the slip. Then the camera pans up to his
expressionless face as he drags on a cigarette; he is playing a solitary game of chess while monitoring
activities in the casino. Moments later, when he confronts a pompous German who has been
denied entry, his whole body emerges from the viewer’s space as he walks into the frame (9.03).
Presumably the director, Michael Curtiz, felt the need positively to persuade viewers to identify
with Rick because he is not immediately likeable or worthy of admiration, in contrast to resistance
leader Victor Laszlo, a more attractive heroic character who consistently articulates anti-Nazi
sentiments. Also, as the story centres on Rick’s redemption from unmediated self-interest to active
involvement in the Allied cause, and most of what happens takes its logic from Rick’s point of
view, Curtiz wanted to discourage the audience from having to make a choice between Rick and
Laszlo.
Casablanca is now considered one of the best examples of Hollywood filmmaking in its ‘Golden
Age’. (For example, in 1998 it was voted 2nd within the American Film Institute’s ‘100 Greatest
American Films’, beaten only by Citizen Kane). It has been criticised for containing a hotch-potch

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