Felt like watching a classic in between Harry Potters today so I dove right into the Casablanca Ultimate Edition and watched hours of documentaries as well as listened to a film historian commentary to try and get a better understanding of what makes this movie so important. It's interesting because I don't particularly like older movies but I understand their significance for the patience and lack of technology they had to still create gripping stories and camera movement. I guess I just didn't grow up with Bogart and Bergman to fully appreciate their screen presence but I admire the cool way they talk in this film and the way he acts like he doesn't care when he really does. But the commentary discusses a lot to digest from the casting process to the history of the WB studio during the wartime so that it was a hard movie to get made and carefully censored. The dark characters and flopping sides help set up the frantic tone towards the end and it was fun to hear each scene examined closely for how it was created like a huge plane with midgets or the unforgettable Cafe Americano Rick owns. So after hearing all the familes and people talk about how important this film is, I'm on board but not totally sold it's as rewatchable as say the Sound of Music or the Wizard of Oz. Either way, Casablanca is a complicated melodrama that benefits from it's great cast and wartime themes to make it a product of it's time.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Casablanca (1942) (Blu Ray) - 9/10
Felt like watching a classic in between Harry Potters today so I dove right into the Casablanca Ultimate Edition and watched hours of documentaries as well as listened to a film historian commentary to try and get a better understanding of what makes this movie so important. It's interesting because I don't particularly like older movies but I understand their significance for the patience and lack of technology they had to still create gripping stories and camera movement. I guess I just didn't grow up with Bogart and Bergman to fully appreciate their screen presence but I admire the cool way they talk in this film and the way he acts like he doesn't care when he really does. But the commentary discusses a lot to digest from the casting process to the history of the WB studio during the wartime so that it was a hard movie to get made and carefully censored. The dark characters and flopping sides help set up the frantic tone towards the end and it was fun to hear each scene examined closely for how it was created like a huge plane with midgets or the unforgettable Cafe Americano Rick owns. So after hearing all the familes and people talk about how important this film is, I'm on board but not totally sold it's as rewatchable as say the Sound of Music or the Wizard of Oz. Either way, Casablanca is a complicated melodrama that benefits from it's great cast and wartime themes to make it a product of it's time.
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