Umberto Eco on Casablanca

If any Holly wood m ov ie exem plifies the 'genius of the sy stem ,' it is surely Casablanca - a film w hose success was founded on alm ost as m any ty pes of skill as v arieties of luck. (It's also ironic that aspiring screenwriters take Casablanca's script as a text; rewritten m any tim es, the film was v irtually m ade up as its m akers went along.) Mixing genres with w ild abandon, Casablanca has becom e a cult film precisely because, as Um berto Eco suggests, 'it is not one m ov ie. It is m ov ies.'" More than this, Casablanca is the bedrock of western m y thology , a film that unapologetically play s with the v ery m y ths and beliefs that fuel our own Western society - the v ery world we liv e in. Um berto Eco is quite cheeky , but unreserv edly astute about the role Casablanca has play ed in our own understanding of the world, and the reason why it has reached the heights of legend... ...[Casablanca] opens in a place already m agical in itself - Morocco, the Exotic and begins with a hint of Arab m usic that fades into La Marseillaise." Then as we enter Rick's Place we hear Gershwin. Africa, France, Am erica. At once a tangle of Eternal Archety pes com es into play . These are situations that hav e presided ov er stories throughout the ages. But usually to m ake a good story a single archety pal situation is enough. More than enough. Unhappy Lov e, for exam ple, or Flight. But Casablanca is not satisfied with that: It uses them all. The city is the setting for a Passage, the passage to the Prom ised Land. But to m ake the passage one m ust subm it to a test, the Wait (they wait and wait and wait," say s the off-screen v oice at the beginning). The passage from the waiting room to the Prom ised Land requir es a Magic Key , the v isa. It is around the w inning of this Key that passions are unleashed. Money (which appears at v arious points, usually in the form of the Fatal Gam e, roulette) would seem to be the m eans for obtaining the Key . But ev entually we discov er that the Key can be obtained only through a Gift - the gift of the v isa, but also the gift Rick m akes of his Desire by sacrificing him self. For this is also the story of a round of Desires, only two of which are satisfied: that of Victor Laszlo, the purest of heroes, and that of the Bulgarian couple. All those whose passions are im pure fail. Thus, we hav e another archety pe: the Trium ph of Purity . The im pure do not reach the Prom ised Land; we lose sight of them before that. But they do achiev e purity through sacrifice - and this m eans Redem ption. Rick is redeem ed and so is the French police captain. We com e to realise that underneath it all there are two Prom ised Lands: One is Am erica (though for m any it is a false goal), and the other is the Resistance - the Holy War. That is where Victor has com e from , and that is where Rick and the captain are going. On the other hand the m y th of sacrifice runs through the whole film : Ilsa's sacrifice in Paris when she abandons the m an she lov es to return to the wounded hero, the Bulgarian bride's sacrifice when she is ready to y ield herself to help her husband, Victor's sacrifice when he is prepared to let Ilsa go with Rick so long as she is sav ed. Into this orgy of sacrificial archety pes (accom panied by the Faithful Serv ant them e in the relationship of Bogey and the black m an Dooley Wilson) is inserted

the them e of Unhappy Lov e: unhappy for Rick, who lov es Ilsa and cannot hav e her; unhappy for Ilsa, who lov es Rick and cannot leav e with him ; unhappy for Victor, who understands that he has not really kept Ilsa. The interplay of unhappy lov es produces v arious twists and turns: In the beginning Rick is unhappy because he does not understand w hy Ilsa leav es him ; then Victor is unhappy because he does not understand w hy Ilsa is attracted to Rick; finally Ilsa is unhappy because she does not understand why Rick m akes her leav e with her husband. These three unhappy (or Im possible) lov es take the form of a Triangle. But in the archety pal lov e-triangle there is a Betray ed Husband and a Victorious Lov er. Here instead both m en are betray ed and suffer a loss, but, in this defeat an additional elem ent play s a part, so subtly that one is hardly aware of it. It is that, quite sublim inally , a hint of m ale or Socratic lov e is established. Rick adm ires Victor, Victor is am biguously attracted to Rick, and it alm ost seem s at a certain point as if each of the two were play ing out the duel of sacrifice in order to please the other. In any case, as in Rousseau's Confessions, the wom an places herself as Interm ediary between the two m en. She herself is not a bearer of positiv e v alues; only the m en are. But precisely because all the archety pes are here, precisely because Casablanca cites countless other film s, and each actor r epeats a part play ed on other occasions, the resonance of intertextuality play s upon the spectator. Casablanca brings with it, like a trail of perfum e, other situations that the v iewer brings to bear on it quite readily " Sources: Magill's Surv ey of the Cinem a & Casablanca, or "The Clichs Are Hav ing a Ball" (Um ber to Eco ), in Signs of Life in the U.S.A. full text here, until it disappears (i don't check m y links)

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