Radiance in the Shadows of Movie: "Casablanca" As an American Cultural Treasure At the heart of the film history, "Casablanca" shines as a masterpiece that, although not literary, deeply permeates the fabric of American culture and values. This cinematic classic, whose doors to the magnificent world opened 81 years ago, has become not only an icon of the seventh art but also an integral part of American cultural heritage. Despite not being part of the classic literary canon, its iconic status and influence on collective consciousness make it worthy of study, revealing how "Casablanca" , transcending its cinematic genre, reflects American values and provides insight into the emotional depth and universality of the human experience.

3. GATEWAY TO THE MAGNIFICENT
WORLD: 81 YEARS OF LEGEND
• “Casablanca”, the now legendary American film directed by Michael Curtis, starring
Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, celebrates its 81st birthday this year.
• A significant anniversary.
• Not only because it is a long period, but also because the popularity of this film
does not decrease in any way with such a burden of years.

5. CATHARTIC EXPERIENCE
• Even those who have watched it several times (and there is not a small number of
fans of the seventh art who have done it more than 10 times) are still ready to sit
down in front of the small screens again at the very announcement of the telecast.
• And that again, watching this “romantic drama” or even better – melodrama, with
many iconic features of this film genre, together with its heroes, they survive their
sorrows, fears, doubts, memories, joys, falls, ups, victories, defeats…
• And that, like the audience in ancient Greek tragedies once upon a time, they
experience a kind of catharsis.
• Perhaps that cathartic experience could be part of the answer to the question about
the popularity of this movie story, with older and younger audiences, all the same.

7. THE BEST OF ALL TIME?
• This film, which in many polls, even among critical authorities, is rated as the best of
all time, or at least as “the most beloved”, does not have an overly complicated plot
and is not “intellectualistic” as one might expect from something that is the best in
history.
• At least when it comes to intellectuals as evaluators.
• It’s neither Bergman, nor Kurosawa, nor Antonioni, nor Kubrick…

9. NOT “INTELLECTUALISTIC”
• It is interesting that other films that are often mentioned as the best in history,
according to recognized critics, do not belong to such achievements.
• Or just like that.
• In this sense, film evaluation and film language differ from fine literature.
• Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, for example, with all the splendor of the psychoanalytic
spectrum it possesses, is not an “intellectualistic” film.
• Some will say that film art is more democratic, thanks to the commercial needs and
requirements it has to fulfill.
• This attitude, however, requires a different analysis.

11. SAD STORIES
• People like stories with a happy ending, but they are even more attracted to sad
stories.
• Maybe not so much the ones in which the ending will be tragic, but the ones that
bring tears to the eyes even though the protagonists are not killed.
• They are losers, but fulfilled, and there is always hope, no matter how small it may
be, that the future will bring some change.
• “And now we will all cry because of the farewell, which is by definition sad”.
• Or even melancholic.

13. DETAILS AFFECT THE EMOTIONS
• Of course, everything is not so simple, if it were, many films with similar stories
would be competitors for the throne.
• It is important how a story is put together.
• The skill is also in the details.
• When this details affect the emotions, more than the reason, the story is usually
remembered longer.
• The emotional side is very strong in people.
• The main character’s face, which shows at the same time masculinity and
determination on the one hand, and suffering and accumulations of life’s defeats on
the other, make this hero not only interesting, but also dear, close in its own way.

15. VICTORY OF GOOD
• Old loves, a beautiful partner, nostalgic music with set lyrics, a past that looks like a
lost paradise, the drama of the current situation, the rejection of self-interested
urges for the sake of the victory of Good – all this needs to be unobtrusively
incorporated into the story and for it to first fill and captivate us emotionally, and to
then expel all deposits of negative emotions from us.
• The protagonists of “Casablanca” are the characters played by Ingrid Bergman and
Humphrey Bogart, but it is clear to everyone that the real protagonist is actually him
– Rick, the owner of a night bar in a large Moroccan city at the height of World War
II, a city that belongs to Vichy France, an ally of Germany.

17. HE IS NOT AN ANGEL
• A resourceful and dexterous businessman with a mysterious past who is not
interested in politics and does not engage in it nor does he want to.
• He is not an angel, he is far from the halo of a saint, in order to survive in these
troubled and dangerous times, he is certainly forced to engage in illegal activities.
• As well as being, apparently at least, loyal to the authorities.
• He doesn’t seem to have any prospects of changing his lifestyle.

19. RICK FIGHTS AGAINST MEMORIES
• However, everything will change with the sudden arrival of the woman he once
loved madly (he does not leave the impression of an emotional person, on the
contrary, and then we learn that even as we meet him, he was once sincerely in
love).
• She is a married woman, and her husband is an important figure in the anti-fascist
movement, who needs to be saved.
• Rick fight against memories, especially since that woman from his life once
disappeared without any explanation, at the moment when love was at its peak…

21. “PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM”
• Memories come flooding back…
• Paris in the spring when it’s the most beautiful…
• The two of them in a convertible, in love ecstasy…
• And then suddenly – she is gone. Pain once and pain now. And the song “As Time
Goes By” with the famous line: “Play it again, Sam”.
• It will turn out that the woman he loved didn’t leave because she didn’t love him,
but because she firmly believed that her husband was dead when they were lovers.
He wasn’t, he appeared. Her duty was to be by her husband’s side.
• And emotionally…She belonged to Rick and still belongs to him, which she shows
him.

24. … FOR THE SECOND TIME
• And what now?
• Will the abandoned and disappointed Rick stay true to his lifestyle, which means
that he is interested in business, not politics?
• He has the right not to help save the husband of his former great love, he was left
without guilt when he gave his whole self.
• What will?
• To sacrifice everything he had built, and he was devastated, and to lose his beloved
wife again, for the second time?

26. IT WOULDN’T BE RICK
• Of course, it wouldn’t be Rick if he stood aside and said – fend for yourself, I won’t
report you, but I won’t help you either.
• In today’s sterile and strange time, devoid of deep emotions and passion (without
which life is empty, flat, monotonous and boring), some newly minted get-rich-
quick mace (considering that he is very smart) would say the famous thing – and
where am I?

28. “THE BEGINNING OF A
WONDERFUL FRIENDSHIP”
• That could not happened to Rick. He helped.
• He sacrificed himself, had to kill the German commander in a quick draw of the
revolver that resembled a western skirmish, and at the same time he attracted to his
side the French commander, whose conscience tells him to be on the right side.
• “Maybe this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship” – says Rick to the French at
the end.

31. “WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS”
• The woman he loved the most, and whom he still loves, and who loves him
sincerely, he lost for the second time.
• However, he received an acknowledgment of love, and let’s not lie, that still means
something.
• The war will end, and after… After, maybe…
• This is how we dream and correspond.
• If nothing else, “we will always have Paris” – says Rick at parting.

33. WITHOUT ANY PERSONAL GAIN
• And what is even more important and what is a deeply human side of this film – he
did something for Good in a world threatened by universal evil.
• Although a businessman, he did something without any personal gain or interest.
• He became a great man without asking for recognition.

35. A SIGN OF HOPE
• And so the film ends in a sign of purification and a sign of hope.
• Nice story.
• And well told, even though the script was changed and adapted, even though the
authors were in a big hurry.
• Although the film was supposed to have a propaganda effect.
• Although neither the director nor the protagonists at first believed that it would be
a big film.
• This is proof that many great things sometimes happen by chance.