Revisiting Casablanca
Watching history rhyme
Casablanca is #3 on the list of 100 Best Movies. Who hasn’t seen Casablanca? It’s one of those movies you think you know. Humphrey Bogart. Rick’s Café. Here’s looking at you, kid.
Watching this movie now, at this age, and at this time, blew my mind a bit. The goal of the Mirror in the Sky Project is to take in the craftmanship of the art and the sheer joy of entertainment that these works deliver. Something about going into it with that goal changes your perspective a bit.
I’ve read a few engrossing novels about the French Resistance and when I watched Casablanca again this time, I was thinking about how hard those citizens worked to resist the Nazis. Watching Casablanca this time made me feel like I had never seen the movie before or didn’t remember the most important parts about it. When something is so iconic, bits of it seep into your subconscious without you knowing how much is your lived experience and how much is just cultural references.
I’ve always thought of it as a love story and, of course, it is. But that’s not what I took away from it this time. That’s a story line that is of no more weight than the rest of it.
