Adam Daroff is an old friend of mine who currently works and lives in LA as an editor of film and TV. We are both finishing off the American Film Institute's Top 100 and writing joint reviews and thoughts as we go. You can read his response at his blog, I Am A Blog
Casablanca
How good is Casablanca? It's so good that it's almost become cliche to talk about how good it is. This one lives up to the hype, and very few movies, even good ones, are able to live up to any hype at all. The whole thing lives and breathes, the plot and characters are completely believable, the nightclub actually feels alive, every actor fills the part brilliantly, and all of the subplots contribute to the movie instead of dragging it down. Best of all, there are no cheap sentimental tricks, just pure honesty and genuine inner turmoil.
Because I don't have much to say about its greatness that someone else hasn't already said more eloquently, I'm just going to make two observations then wrap this up:
-This movie seems to have the reputation of being a great love story. I think it's exactly the opposite. The great love story happened years before in Paris, and that part of Rick and Ilsa's life is over. This movie is about contextualizing your emotions and seeing your place in the world and the events around you. That's the whole point of the "hill of beans" speech - the world keeps turning no matter how heartbroken you are, and self-pity should never stop you from doing the right thing.
-Because it was made in 1942, during the war itself but not in an actual war zone, this is the only film I can think of where Nazis are portrayed as a fact of life. Too many movies fall into the trap of making the bad guys bloodthirsty dicks while the good guys are handsome boys who love their families (I'm looking at you, Pan's Labyrinth). That is lazy character development and Casablanca doesn't do any of that. Don't get me wrong, this is clearly an anti-Nazi movie - the bad guys are Nazis and the good guys are resistance fighters, and there is a lot of anti-Nazi rhetoric in the dialogue - but there is a noticeable difference in the way the individual Nazis and collaborators are portrayed. They are bad guys because they've sided with the enemy, not because they're alcoholics who don't like children and kick puppies.
Comments: As good as you've heard, possibly better.
Deserves to be on Top 100: Oh God, yes.
Inspired: Chasing Amy. That may be a stretch, but I had the same emotional reaction to both movies. The hero is a generally likable guy who loses sight of his moral compass...he genuinely loves the girl but can never get her back because reality pushes them apart, and in the end the only right thing to do is let her go for both of their sakes.***
***The key difference is why she left - in Casablanca it's because of the difficult reality of the war, in Chasing Amy it's because he still has hangups about her past but won't admit it.
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