As Time Goes By: The Legacy of Casablanca

Casablanca, one of the most well-loved films of all time, continues to stand out as a crown jewel of Hollywood’s Golden Age years after its release in 1942. A carefully crafted film, adapted from a play titled ‘Everybody Comes to Rick's’, and directed by Academy Award winner Michael 

Curtiz, Casablanca stars two of the most well-known actors of Old Hollywood, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Star power notwithstanding, what makes Casablanca truly timeless are all the iconic lines and memorable moments in the movie that continue to infiltrate pop culture to this day. The film has been parodied by the likes of The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live and was an influence in the creation of Star Wars: A New Hope. You are likely familiar with the film’s iconic dialogue even if you have never seen it. During one of the movie’s most memorable moments, Rick Blain (played by Humphrey Bogart) affectionately tells Ilsa Lund (played by Ingrid Bergman), “We’ll always have Paris.”…“Here’s looking at you kid.”

Classic as it is, when you watch Casablanca for the first time, it can be easy to miss many of the film’s subtleties. To many, Casablanca is a movie you must see so you can check it off your bucket list. Sure, the movie’s iconic cast and dialogue are legendary in the annals of Hollywood. But it was not until the second time I watched Casablanca that I truly noticed many of the movie’s most beautiful and endearing elements. The subtleties that I initially missed have become the aspects of the movie that are most indelible in my memory.

The movie is set in Casablanca, Morrocco in early December 1941 during the throes of World War II prior to Pearl Harbor. Casablanca has become a travel depot swarmed by refugees looking for transportation out of Europe and safety from the war. Rick Blaine is the owner and proprietor of Rick’s Café Américain, a local hole in the wall patronized by soldiers, travelers, and ne’er-do-wells. The stage is set when Ilsa Lund and her husband, Victor Laszlo (played by Paul Henreid), the Czechoslovak resistance leader fighting to stop the Nazis, walk into Rick’s Café. We learn that Ilsa and Rick are former lovers and that Ilsa left Rick years prior at a train station in Paris without any reason or explanation, the result of which has transformed Rick into a closed-off and pessimistic person.

The dynamic between Ilsa & Rick (Bergman & Bogart), and juxtaposition between past nostalgia and the pressing future, is one of the film’s most endearing qualities. In one iconic scene, Ilsa asks Sam, the pianist (played by Dooley Wilson), “Play it Sam. Play, As Time Goes By.” The song “As Time goes By” encapsulates both the love between Rick & Ilsa and the underlying theme in Casablanca. From the onset, Rick is painted as a self-interested businessman wanting to stay away from the complicated politics of war. Ilsa brings humanity to Rick opening him up from his cynicism and helping his goodness shine through at various moments during the film. In the end Rick’s character serves as the film’s moral compass arbitrating between right and wrong.

The storyline in Casablanca is punctuated by the film’s artistic elements. The use of shadows, by cinematographer Arthur Edelson, is a masterful film noir-esq technique used to contrast character duality, the internal battle between good and evil, and the moral ambiguities hiding beneath the surface. The movie’s lighting, or lack thereof, tells a story in and of itself. The film follows lead character, Rick Blaine, who is forced to confront tough decisions between right and wrong. Repeatedly, we find Rick in a dark room with only a sliver of light from the moon shining in. A cynical and disillusioned man who does not stick his neck out for anyone, we see Rick struggling to uphold his external mannerisms as his humanity and goodness begin to bleed into the film, the movie’s shadows subtly emphasizing his decay.

The film’s comedic elements are also part of its nostalgia. Though a drama coupled with noir lighting and undertones of violence, there are hints of humor sprinkled in the movie that split the tension and offer parody on the hypocrisies of war. One of the funniest sequences comes during the second half of the film, when police captain Louis Renault (a frequent patron of Rick’s Café) shuts down the cafe unjustly under the pretense of illegal gambling. The following exchange occurs between Renault, Rick, and the café’s croupier:

Renault: "I'm shocked. Shocked! To find that gambling is going on in here!"

Croupier: "Your winnings, sir."

Renault: "Oh, thank you very much."

Casablanca’s central themes of selflessness and the choice between right and wrong are manifest throughout the movie and play an especially significant role in the movie’s final scene. The film’s use of fog, a staple of Old Hollywood noir aesthetic, adds an artistic element juxtaposing truth and illusion both literally and figuratively. In fact, Casablanca’s iconic final scene was shot on a Warner Brother’s soundstage with a smaller-sized replica of a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane. Heavy fog was used to obscure the diminutive size of the airplane and unimpressive background scenery of the set. So too, the fog metaphorically serves as a visual contrast in the movie between past and present, selfishness versus selflessness, and the moral ambiguities of war.

Casablanca and its closing scene epitomize timelessness in Hollywood film and American culture. The movie’s central theme is as indelible as time itself. Hollywood legends Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart join star power with artistic and comedic elements that give Casablanca a staying power and cultural relevance unrivaled in the modern film industry. It is unfortunate, but films like Casablanca are unlikely to be produced in the current era of movie making. Iconic classics have subsided and been crowded out by prequals, sequels, and big budget reboots. And maybe that is why Casablanca remains so indelible. Because as time goes by, the craftsmanship of Casablanca, its storytelling, acting, central theme, etc., never dies.