Sedamdeset pet godina filma Kazablanka / Seventy-five years of the film Casablanca
D o I like Casablanca?! I grew up from it! At least physically? And grew old in it? – asks famous Istrian writer Milan Rakovac, while we discuss the 75 th anniversary of the classic film by director Michael Curtiz. And then Rakovac, once a ship’s captain, with a cigarette at the corner of his lips, whistles and sings: It’s still / the same old story / A fight for love and glory / A case of do or die / The world will always wel- come lovers / As time goes by ... We don’t notice first that at the time of the actual ban, this 1942 film gains new significance. That’s why it’s a masterpiece, with three Oscars, whose main character, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), has to make a choice during World War II. Either he will no longer be parted from the woman he loves (Ilsa, portrayed by Ingrid Bergman), or he will help Victor Laszlo (Paul Henre- id), leader of the Czech anti-fascists, to es- cape from Casablanca, which is under oc- cupation, and continue to fight. In a closed world, filmed internally due to the dangers of war, gold is removed from a door to buy an exit visa to travel to America. Like a chorus, the word wait- ing is repeated. The black market and im- posters rule. At the start, somebody’s wal- let is immediately stolen. There is an entire scene of refugees played by great refugee actors. In other scenes, there are Austrians emigrating since 1935. and Englishmen and Austro-Hungarians fleeing evil, with whom fate would play and ensure that for the next decade they would interpret on screen the very characters they bare- ly escaped from with their lives. Charac- ters from Casablanca include– artists of Jewish origin, former inhabitants of Rus- sia, France, Canada, Bulgaria, Germany etc. Also mentioned are invalid cheques, passes with the signature of Charles de Gaulle, property sales, police curfews, cor- ruption, forgeries and fake passports. They play roulette (put everything on number 22); life is cheap and the people die easi- ly like in cowboy films. The sound of a bul- let is fused with the sound of champagne being uncorked. Through the scenes pass various snoops, dealers and cheats in var- ious uniforms. In Rick’s Café, filled with lamps, fans and silhouettes, everyone is in hurry ex- cept Richard ‘Rick’ Blaine, a 37-year-old American who cannot go home. There is
– Koje ste vi nacionalnosti? Ja sam pijanica! – samo je jedan od dijaloga iz filma za pamćenje What is your nationality? I’m a drunkard! – just one line of dialogue from this memorable film ing why the heroes’ eyes shine, making them appear as though they are about to burst into tears. After the heroine points a gun at Humphrey Bogart, tears do finally appear – instead of a bullet, instead of a shot. A spotlight which seeks to shed light on the suspicious during a police curfew determines a few nuances. That’s why we recall this film every time the sun breaks through the blinds. Rick’s story can only be a classic because of that. Or because it describes a young man in the rain, on a station platform, with a comical expres- sion on his face and a cramped gut. Easy questions arise (how many generations learned to hold a cigarette in all the ways shown), but also more difficult ones: how to take on someone else’s burden... Hum- phrey Bogart – whom Boro Drašković de- scribes brilliantly in his travelogue A View of Passers,“his face chiselled and timeless,
a scene in which he appears to take some- thing and then steps back, and all that re- mains in front of us is a shadow, framed in a form that indescribably resembles a keyhole. The reasons they can’t move are shrouded in a mist... (Through the mist we return to a previous love episode be- tween the two main characters in Paris.) What kind of guy is he? “A tough cus- tomer!” He alleged arrived in Casablanca due to an illness. He came to visit a spa. A spa in the desert?! Painfully cynical, under the shell of which it is quickly revealed that he is vulnerable and sentimental. When In- grid Bergman comes onto the scene, the shell disappears and he ends up with his head and fist on the bar. Then the main role is played by Sam the pianist (Dooley Wilson) and the song from the start... Volumes of essays have been writ- ten about Casablanca, with some debat-
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