Film Essentials: Casablanca (1942)

With just a few weeks before the Academy Awards here's a look back at a classic former Best Picture winner.


          Similar to Citizen Kane, it can be a daunting task trying to look at Casablanca with an objective modern eye considering its status in film history and pop culture lore. Contemporary audiences can carry such high expectations that these films can’t possibly live up to their mystique on their first viewing. In repeat viewings, though, classic films can often be appreciated more. Casablanca came out of Warner Bros. at a time when each studio had a unique personality that manifested itself through the genres of the pictures they produced. During the studio era, WB was known for its gritty style and its low-key lighting. Subject matter included low-life dramas and gangsters. The character of Rick Blaine fits in well with these themes. Rick professes to having no convictions and “sticks his neck out for nobody”. The role of Rick Blaine is certainly not one of the archetypical leading-man, although Warner's introduces Bogart’s character as one. Take for example the sequence in which Rick is first introduced on-screen. Initially, we see a man receiving a check, and then an insert shot of a hand signing it. After a quick angle change the camera pans back to reveal Bogart. Ultra dramatic screen entrances like this one were common with a Warner's production.

          Another trademark of a Warner Bros. film was the supplying of back-story through dialogue and through flashbacks. Casablanca uses both. First when Captain Renault informs Rick that he is familiar with his background, and divulges that he knows about Rick’s past involvement against fascist forces. The second comes when a drunken Rick reminisces through a daydream about his past with Illsa. Both devices end up providing key information to the audience about Rick’s character. Naturally, a facet of both Warner Bros. films and all films during this era was the strict adherence to the production code. Even when gunfire erupts, victims collapse bloodless and with little drama. All of these studio elements are capped off by the Warner Bros. shield and logo at the beginning of the film. It acts as a seal of approval and hints at the type of film that is about to be seen. Little did audience members know, that when the Warner's logo first popped up before Casablanca, that they would be seeing one of the great masterpieces of cinema.

Official Academy Award Nominations

Less than 24 hours ago, I posted my picks for the 10 Best Picture Nominees. Overall, I picked 7 of the 10 correctly. Here is the official list of the nominees for Best Picture:

-An Education
-Avatar
-The Blind Side
-District 9
-The Hurt Locker
-Inglourious Basterds
-Precious
-A Serious Man
-Up!
-Up in the Air

My Top Ten Best Picture Nominees

In less than 24 hours, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will reveal the 10 Oscar nominations for Best Picture. If I had my way, these are the 10 I would choose as of today:

-Avatar
-District 9
-The Hangover
-The Hurt Locker
-Inglourious Basterds
-Nine
-Precious
-Star Trek
-Up!
-Up in the Air

Review: Up in the Air

In a year where audiences were bombarded with big budget extravaganzas starring old toys that were once popular in the 80’s, Up in the Air is a breath of fresh celluloid. It’s a film that could have easily been made during the Golden Age of Hollywood, substituting George Clooney with Cary Grant or James Stewart. Vera Farmiga’s role could have been played splendidly by Katherine Hepburn. A George Cukor or Ernst Lubitsch would have been natural choices to helm and deliver another of their distinctive screwball comedies.

Yet for all of its classic filmmaking elements, Up in the Air is grounded firmly in the present. Scribe Sheldon Turner and director Jason Reitman have remarkably captured the 2010 climate with all the care and attention to detail of a craftsman making one of those little pirate ship models stuffed in a glass bottle. If the bottle is dropped, all the work goes for naught. Similarly, Reitman and Turner were dealing with sensitive material that in lesser hands could have been mangled badly. Both receive writing credit for their adaptation of a novel of the same title, and they infuse the film with a pleasant buoyancy that’s unexpected yet required for the film’s content matter. That content matter is of course firing people. Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, zig zags across the country leaving a trail of pink slips in his wake. His job is to tell people that they are losing theirs. He’s quite good at it. After traveling millions of miles, he can handle the wacky things people do when fired. Clooney fits the role of Bingham like a glove. It’s an effortless performance that Academy voters would be remiss to dismiss. Best Actor Oscars and Golden Globes shouldn’t just go to performers who play insane Jokers or drunken country singers or down-and-out wrestlers. In many ways, it’s easier to play eccentric, melodramatic characters than it is to underplay a role and perfectly capture a realistic individual like a Ryan Bingham. Like his turn in Michael Clayton, Clooney’s performance isn’t flashy but deserves to be recognized.

The cast, in general, delivers on all levels. Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick, like Clooney, have already been flowered with nominations for various Best Supporting Actress awards. They’re deserved. In addition, Jason Reitman cast actual people who’ve recently been slapped with a pink slip to portray canned office workers. Near the conclusion there is a montage when they speak directly to the camera that runs dangerously close to falling into campiness, but otherwise, the non-SAG performers deliver healthy raw emotion in their other scenes.

What really keeps Up in the Air above the clouds is that it’s unapologetic in its realism. Clooney’s Bingham is sharp witted and upbeat. He stereotypes because “it’s faster.” He takes no pleasure in firing but he does take pleasure in his comfy business class seats, his exclusive airport lounge memberships, and his cozy four-star hotel accommodations. Kendrick’s character, just out of school, is shocked when Bingham proudly asserts he never wants to settle down to start a family. When Bingham meets Alex (Farmiga), he begins to question what he really wants. As the film soars along Bingham appears set to join George Bailey and dozens of others in the film pantheon of redeemed characters, but to the film’s benefit, Reitman avoids that temptation. Some audiences will be turned off by it, but in my view, the film touches down on the correct note. After spending 2 hours watching an unconventional movie, a conventional ending would have been insulting to sophisticated viewers.
Up in the Air has been labeled dramatically by some as “the movie of our times.” I won’t go that far, but will say that it was one of the most enjoyable films to watch this year. The characters are relatable, the themes profound. Reitman brings up moral questions but wisely lets viewers come up with their own answers. The film is a wonder, like a ship in a bottle. The best picture of the year.