Country: United States
Direction: Michael Curtiz
Script: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch (adapted from the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison)
Genre: Romance
Length: 108 minutes
Year: 1942
People are dying, cities are being destroyed... But even so, still wasn't found a better context for romantic stories than a war. The scenario of the World Wars brings uncertainty, fear and loneliness, feelings that enhance the romance between any couple in love. And it wasn't different for Rick and Ilsa, the most romantic couple in movie history.
Following a storyline that is now widely imitated by many filmmakers, Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) proves to be an extremely seductive man who doesn't seek a love that lasts more than one night. This is because, long ago, a woman named Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) hurt him deeply and he now is trying to put together the pieces of his broken heart, seeking in other females what he only had with her. Cliché, I know. But that always works.
Something that also marks the feature film is the song "As Time Goes By". It seems to have been made exactly for this movie (though it was written eleven years earlier). The nostalgic lyric and a melody with influences of jazz translate the message the film tries to pass about how ephemeral things are and also the struggle between France (along with Allies) and Germany (and the other Axis countries) - Jazz translate it because it's a tone that combines African and European influences and most of its interpreters were black, which became it as a music style hated by Germans and loved by most of the West.
We also can't forget the part of the script where Rick tells Ilsa, "We'll always have Paris". This sentence contains a passion to start a memory, as says the song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld.
Out of curiosity, Casablanca actually exists. It's a city in Morocco, a former French colony. In World War II, was a strategic point where refugees were sheltering from the Nazi regime. As for Rick and Ilsa, they also exist. But only in our memory and how much we believe that love really can cross time and space of a cruel and unforgettable war.
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