Page 362 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes Victor Laszlo is always in Rick's shadow, he stands for the values of the father and the prevailing
American belief in 1942 that freedom is worth fighting and dying for. By censoring the theme of
American reluctance to give up its autonomy, the film spares the audience the agony of siding
against the values of the father, condensing the Oedipal resolution to another shared experience
between Rick and the viewer.
What Makes a Cult Film? Once a cult is established, it can often sustain itself by means of its own
inertia. After becoming a camp item in the 1960s, Casablanca attained the status of a classic by an
alternative system of canon- building. Usually, a work of art finds its validation in the academy.
Even though popular film is currently an accepted subject of university study, films like Casablanca
need not establish their importance by impressing faculty committees as masterpieces. Although
it existed briefly as a television series during the 1955-56 season, Casablanca did not become a
fetish object until the Rick/ Bogie poster became popular and Woody Allen subsequently wrote
the play (and movie) Play It Again, Sam. During the weeks in which this paper was written,
allusions to the film have twice appeared in popular TV shows: a full-dress, five-minute parody of
Casablanca was the dream of Bert Viola (Curtis Armstrong) in an episode of Moonlighting; and on
Miami Vice, a lovable crook attempted to corrupt Detective Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) by
telling him that a suitcase full of contraband was their "letters of transit," but Crockett replied,
"this is not the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Now that it has been canonized, Casablanca
is sure to continue as a universal signifier of romantic love, doing the right thing, and painful
sacrifice. As for the qualities that made Casablanca a cult film and have made its appeal "never out
of date," we can point to all the psychologically resonant aspects of the film discussed in this
paper. Probably the most crucial ingredients in the film's success are (1) the star presence of Bogie
and Bergman; (2) the subliminal but nostalgically potent music, both diegetic and extradiegetic;
(3) the satisfyingly resolved Oedipal material; and (4) the reassuring message that the American
outlaw hero (and by extension, all Americans) can be true to his instincts even in a world war.
This last message may seem specific to the 1943 audience, but movies have been quite successful
in keeping old myths alive, and when reconfigured for the Era of Reagan and Bush, these myths
can be more vital than ever. Star Wars was the first in a cycle of "disguised Westerns" that has
achieved extraordinary popularity by reviving the outlaw hero/official hero plot. Since then, Beverly
Hills Cop I and II, Top Gun, Rambo III, and Lethal Weapon I and II have recycled the same basic
myth with enormous success. As for the audience today, Casablanca has an extra level of appeal,
offering a sense of control to repeat viewers. Just as "As Time Goes By" eased the 1943 viewer into
a nostalgic imaginary, the film itself now grants the viewer benign regression to a lost moment when
right and wrong were clear cut and going off to war could be a deeply romantic gesture.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct option:
(i) Ingard Bergman is the ............... .
(a) kind woman (b) wise woman
(c) enignatic woman (d) None of these
(ii) Casablance was made is ............... .
(a) 1942 (b) 1940
(c) 1943 (d) 1941
32.7 Summary

• If any Hollywood movie exemplifies the 'genius of the system,' it is surely Casablanca - a
film whose success was founded on almost as many types of skill as varieties of luck. (It's
also ironic that aspiring screenwriters take Casablanca's script as a text; rewritten many
times, the film was virtually made up as its makers went along.) Mixing genres with wild
abandon, Casablanca has become a cult film precisely because, as Umberto Eco suggests, 'it
is not one movie. It is movies.'" More than this, Casablanca is the bedrock of western

356 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY