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Everybody De-Constructs Rick, Part V: The Man, himself
On the off-chance that there is still a person in the world who has not seen "Casablanca," please heed this warning: this article contains "Spoilers, Spoilers Everywhere."
No. Really. This scene is very near the end and could spoil the whole movie for you, if you've never seen this movie, never seen this scene, or have lived in an isolation chamber for 55 years. And don't watch the provided video, either!
The Story: This is the perfect way to start out the year--with one of the most beloved and classic scenes to ever grace the silver screen. So beloved and classic you might be able to repeat it line for line. And the images are as set in stone as any movie's in your mind. Woody Allen based an entire play on it ("Play It Again, Sam"), just so he could recreate it.*
It's well-written, intricately played (especially the tri-play of glances between Rick, Ilsa and Victor), exceptionally directed (and edited!), and except for a couple more crowd-pleasing gambits, it's what the audience takes home from the movie. Guys go home feeling a bit nobler for Richard Blaine's actions. Women see the potential in their big lugs, after all. It shows us all a True Path. It brings Clarity.
In the making of the film, that decision of who Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) was going with wasn't truly made until nearly the last minute. "Of course" Ilsa had to go with Victor Laszlo (as Paul Henreid insisted), but nobody knew that until the last scene was filmed. In fact, they were going to film both versions, and just scrapped the set and went home early after they'd filmed this one. They knew they couldn't do any better. Why try?
That's one version. The other is the story the screenwriting brothers, the Epsteins, tell—of how they couldn't "crack" the ending, they knew what had to happen, what should happen, but they didn't know how to save the hero. That was essential. They were driving through Hollywood when both brothers suddenly looked at each other, and in tandem exclaimed, "Round up the usual suspects!" **
The rest, as they say, is cinematic history.
Looking at it, some 55 years later, it's not quite as "timeless" as one would feel comfortable with. In this scene, Rick is a bit too agressive making the decision for Ilsa...almost condescending ("Someday you'll understand that," implying "when you grow/smarten up").
But the thing is, she's in love with him...more than Victor. She knows what the right thing is, but she loves Rick. In the scene in Rick's apartment she's torn by this "crazy world," and lets Rick handle it ("You'll have to think for both of us. For all of us.") With such an obligation, he'd better make the right decision.
And, don't forget, Ilsa could have said "no" at any time. Those long shots of the three of them, after the plane's engines start up is not only the realization that "now's the time," it's also her decision-making process. It's there in the editing of the sequence. She chooses to go. She makes the choice. Rick just made it easier for her. Not any harder. Just easier.
The Set-Up: He's promised that he'd do the thinking "for both of us...for all of us." And so he has. This is the result of that thinking and soul-searching—the end-game. But Richard Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) has one final speech to make...about himself...and about why he's going against his rule of "I don't stick my neck out for nobody." But, this ain't "nobody." And in this fond farewell...so different from their last one...he has the final word on his own deconstruction.
Then, he lets his gun do the talking.
Here's lookin' at yourself, kid. Through her misty eyes.***
Action!
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Rick: Last night, we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us.
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Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me.
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Rick: All except one thing.
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Rick: I'm going to, anyway, because it may make a difference to you later on.
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Victor: Yes.
Rick: But you didn't know she was at my place last night when you were. She came there for the letters of transit...
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Louis: What you just did for Laszlo. And that fairy tale you invented to send Ilsa away with him.
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Louis: Victor Laszlo is on that plane.
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"Casablanca"
Words by Murray Burnett, Joan Alison, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch
Pictures by Arthur Edeson and Michael Curtiz
"Casablanca" is available on DVD from Warner Home Video.
Viva La France. God Bless America.
* Oh. One more thing. John LeCarré, the great spy novelist, did his own antecedent of "Casablanca"—"The Russia House." There, the jaded publisher is approached to publish a Russian dissident's inflammatory book by the man's lover after the Cold War, and the two fall in love. With two intelligence agencies vying for information merely to justify their existences, it becomes apparent that the problems of three little people do amount to a hill of beans in a crazy world of spies and counter-spies with no vestiges of honor or the noble, merely re-fighting old and useless battles. Good book (and movie), that.
** Are either of these stories true? Well, the Epsteins were inventive screen-writers, and Hollywood is where myths are made...I'm not wagering.
*** One of the things you notice in this particular sequence is how director Curtiz and his cinematographer Arthur Edeson are able to catch any hint of the actors tearing—Ingrid Bergman, particularly, but also Bogart.
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