Page 337 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 30: Umberto Eco's 'Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage’ (Textual Analysis)

the others did not, and many start pro-jecting into the movie their memories of other movies made Notes
after Casablanca -which seems to be the normal situation for a cult movie and which suggests that
perhaps the best deconstructive readings should be made upon unhinged texts (or that
deconstruction is simply a way of breaking texts). I think, however, that the first twenty minutes
of the film represent a kind of review of the principal archetypes. Once they have been assembled,
without any concern for synthesis, then the story begins to suggest a sort of savage syntax of the
archetypal elements and organizes them in multilevelled oppositions. Casablancalo oks like a
musical piece with an extraordinarilyl ong overturew here every theme is exhibited according to
a monodic line. Only later the symphonic work takes place. In a way, the first twenty minutes
could be analyzed by a Russian Formalist and the rest by a Greimasian. So, let me try just a sample
analysis of the first part. I think that a real text-analytical work on Casablancais still to be done. I
merely offer here some hints to future researchers who will implement, some day, a complete
recon-struction of its deep textual structure. First, African music, then, the Marseillaise. Two
different genres are evoked: the adventure movie and the patriotic movie. Third genre: the newsreel.
Over the image of the globe, the voice off suggests the news report. Fourth genre: the odyssey of
the refugees. Fifth genre: Casa-blanca and Lisbon are, traditionally, high places of international
intrigue. Thus, in two minutes, five genres are evoked at the same time. Casablanca-Lisbon.
Passage to the Promised Land (Lisbon-America). Casablanca is the Magic Door. We still do not
know what is the Magic Key and by which Magic Horse one can reach the Promised Land. "Wait,
wait, wait." To make the passage one must submit to a Test. The Long Expectation. Purgatory.
"Deutschland iiber alles." The German anthem introduces the theme of the Barbarians. The Kasbah.
Pepe le Moko. Confusion, robberies, violence, and repression. Petain (Vichy) vs. the Cross of
Lorena. See at the end the same opposition closing the story: Vichy water versusJoining the
Resistance. War Propaganda movie. The Magic Key: the visa. It is around the winning of the
Magic Key that passions are unleashed. Captain Renault is the Guardian of the Door or the
boatman of the Acheron, to be conquered by a Magic Gift (money or sex). The Magic Horse: the
airplane. The airplane flies over Rick's "CafeAmericain" recalling the Promised Land of which the
Caf6 is the reduced-scale model. Major Strasser shows up. Theme of the Barbarians and their
emasculated slaves. "Je suis l'empire a la fin de la decadence / qui regarde passer les grands
barbares blancs / en composant des acrostiques indolents. .. ."
"Everybody comes to Rick's." By quoting the original play, Renault intro-duces the audience to the
Caf6. The interior: the Foreign Legion (each char-acter has a different nationality and a different
story to tell - as well as his own skeleton in the closet), Grand Hotel (people come and people go,
and nothing ever happens), the Mississippi River Boat, the New Orleans Brothel (with the black
piano player), the Inferno of Gambling in Macao or Singapore (with Chinese women), the Smugglers'
Paradise, the Last Outpost on the Edge of the Desert. Rick's place is a magic circle where everything
can happen-love, death, pursuit, espionage, games of chance, seductions, music, patriotism. Limited
resources and the unity of place, due to the theatrical origin of the story, suggested an admirable
condensation of events in a single setting. One can identify the usual paraphernalia of at least ten
exotic genres. Rick slowly shows up, first by a synecdoche (his hand), then by a metonymy (the
check). The various aspects of the contradictory (plurifilmic) personality of Rick are introduced:
the Fatal Adventurer, the Self-Made Businessman (money is money), the Tough Guy from a
gangster movie, Our Man in Casa-blanca (international intrigue), the Cynic. Later he will also be
characterized as the Hemingway Hero (he helped the Ethiopians and the Spaniards against fascism).
He does not drink. This undoubtedly represents a nice problem, for later Rick must play the role
of the Redeemed Drunkard, and he has to be made a drunk (as Disillusioned Lover) so that he can
be redeemed. But the face of Bogey supports pretty well this unbearable amount of contradictory
psychological features. The Magic Key itself: the transit letters. Rick receives them from Peter
Lorre, and from this moment everybody wants them. How to avoid thinking of Sam Spade and of
The Maltese Falcon? Music Hall. Mr. Ferrari. Change of genre: comedy with flippant dialogue.
Rick is now the Disenchanted Lover, or the Cynical Seducer. Rick vs. Renault. The Charming
Scoundrels. The theme of the Magic Horse and of the Promised Land returns. Roulette as the
Game of Life and Death (Russian Roulette that devours fortunes and can destroy the happiness of
the Bulgarian Couple, the Epiphany of Innocence). The Dirty Trick: cheating at cards. At this point

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