Casablanca
Chasing Amy
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Swingers
In case you're wondering, these are the four greatest love stories ever to grace the silver screen. I'm sorry, but this is not up for debate. Now, two questions need to be posed:
- How does the film glorify and idealize romance?
- How does the film realistically depict modern romance?
Casablanca - The most critically acclaimed of the bunch*. In case you don't know the story, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) falls in love with the beautiful Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) while in Paris. When the Germans invade the city, Ilsa disappears without a trace, and Rick ends up avoiding occupation by moving to Casablanca and opening a popular saloon. Years later, as fate would have it, Ilsa and her resistance leader husband Victor Laszlo end up in Casablanca, fleeing the Nazi authorities. They require "letters of transit", and as it turns out, the only person in Casablanca who can provide this escape valve is Monsieur Blaine. Hilarity ensues (in a WWII, tragic romance sort of way).
Rick, being the resistance sympathizer at heart, wants to help the world-reknowned Victor Laszlo escape the clutches of the Nazi Regime and support the resistance. But how can someone be expected to have rational feelings towards the woman who took his heart and smashed it like grape? Yes, in theory, his feelings towards doing what is right should come first and foremost. But for anyone who's ever experienced true romance, the ecstasy that is love and the corresponding devastation that is heartbreak can be so overwhelmingly consuming that anything outside of the sphere of the relationship can seem trivial. So, while I'm usually of the school of thought that genocide = not cool, I can understand why Rick isn't sticking his neck out for these particular people.
Somehow, after dealing with all of this Ilsa-induced drama, Rick comes to his senses and realizes that these Nazi bastards are no good. Even though it pains him to see his ex-girlfriend with another guy (who's not nearly as cool as he is), he decides to give Victor the letters of transit so that he can escape the social oubliette that is Casablanca and continue his resistance efforts throughout the world. Rick formulates an elaborate plan, putting himself at enormous risk, to have Victor and Ilsa avoid the Nazi authorities and fly out of Casablanca when, in typical woman fashion, Ilsa does her best to ruin everything again. She realizes that while she is in love with Victor's efforts towards making the world a better place, she sees Rick as the only man with whom she could spend her life. A mere twenty four hours in the same city as Rick rekindles the fire that warmed her all those nights in Paris years ago. Fortunately (for the free world), Rick realizes that a) Victor must escape Casablanca, and b) Victor had nothing to do with this tangled love triangle and shouldn't have to endure the same heartbreak that he did. So, even knowing how wonderful his own life with Ilsa could be, he forces the love of his life to go on with her new beau for the sake of humanity. Wow.
One of the reasons I love this movie is because Rick's emotions are so easy to empathize with; for the most part, you can realistically see someone coping with love and heartbreak the same way he does. His girlfriend leaves him for no reason; he moves to a warm weather climate, becomes a moderated alcoholic, and lives for one night stands:
Girl: Where were you last night?
Rick: That's so long ago, I don't remember.
Girl: Will I see you tonight?
Rick: I never make plans that far ahead.
When he sees ex-girlfriend for the first time since she dumped him, he stays up until the wee hours of the morning, drinking away his sorrows with whiskey and cursing the fact that he has to see her again. When she tries to reason with him, he responds (granted, he's slightly intoxicated) with no intention other than hurting her: "I heard a story once. As a matter of fact, I've heard a lot of stories in my day. They went along with the sound of a tinny piano playing in the parlor downstairs, 'Mister, I met a man once when I was a kid,' it'd always begin. Huh... I guess neither of our stories was very funny. Tell me, who was it you left me for? Was it Laszlo, or were there others in between? Or aren't you the kind that tells?"
Now, as much as I want to admit that I'm a tough guy who is completely immune to emotions, I'm not. In the end, I sort of wanted the disturbed relationship to work out and for the guy and girl to live happily ever after. And what makes this movie a little distressing is that the two former lovers don't end up together. When the film ends, Rick remains in the North African desert alone, living above a bar, and Ilsa is shoved onto a plane with a man she doesn't love. Does this conclusion mean that romance is a futile waste of effort? that the strength of love is more of an illusion than anything else? that time heals all wounds? or that we're all just better off with a hetero-life mate like Louis Renault (ala Jay and Silent Bob) than worrying about the drama and problems that come with chasing an Ilsa Lund around?
F- the Nazis... I would've taken Ilsa back.
Comments are welcome and appreciated (either on my opinions or my return to blogging in general)
Part II - coming soon...
* "Critical Acclaim" doesn't mean a da
mn thing to me, since the "Academy" didn't think The Shawshank Redemption could beat out Forrest Gump for Best Picture in '95. Not that FG isn't a great movie; it easily cracks my top ten. But come on... the only reason it won was because baby boomers were able to watch an entertaining movie while reliving the different decades of their youth. And man... Pulp Fiction came out in 1995 too! But I digress...
1 comment:
Awww JJ, you sentimental so and so. Welcome back to blogging man. Sorry I don't have a better comment, but I've actually never seen Casablanca.
I am with you on Shawshank though!
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