Linggo, Enero 27, 2013

NEW HISTORICISM: CASABLANCA 1942


NEW HISTORICISM: CASABLANCA 1942 (Film) by Michael Curtiz



NEW HISTORICISM - New Historicism is a school of literary theory, grounded in critical theory, that developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s.
New Historicists aim simultaneously to understand the work through its historical context and to understand cultural and intellectual history through literature, which documents the new discipline of the history of ideas. Michel Foucault based his approach both on his theory of the limits of collective cultural knowledge and on his technique of examining a broad array of documents in order to understand the episteme of a particular time. New Historicism is claimed to be a more neutral approach to historical events, and to be sensitive towards different cultures.

PLOT


Cynical American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is the proprietor of an upscale nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca in early December 1941. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a mixed clientele: Vichy French, Italian, and Nazi officials; refugees desperate to reach the still neutral United States; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed he ran guns to Ethiopia to combat the 1935 Italian invasion and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War.
At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness—his ex-lover, Norwegian Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman)—walks into his establishment. Upon spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam (Dooley Wilson), Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam has disobeyed his order never to perform that song, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a renowned fugitive Czech Resistance leader. They need the letters to escape to America, where he can continue his work. German Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) comes to Casablanca to see that Laszlo does not succeed.Petty crook Ugarte (Peter Lorre) shows up and boasts to Rick of "letters of transit" obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and are thus almost priceless to the refugees stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club later that night. Before the exchange can take place, however, he is arrested by the local police under the command of Vichy Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), an unabashedly corrupt official. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that he had entrusted the letters to Rick.
When Laszlo makes inquiries, Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), a major underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. In private, Rick refuses to sell at any price, telling Laszlo to ask his wife the reason. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise". When the band looks to Rick, he nods his head. Laszlo starts singing, alone at first, then patriotic fervor grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser has Renault close the club.
That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café. When he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun, but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they first met and fell in love in Paris, she believed that her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. Later, while preparing to flee with Rick from the imminent fall of the city to the German army, she learned that Laszlo was alive and in hiding. She left Rick without explanation to tend her ill husband. With the revelation, the lovers are reconciled. Rick agrees to help, leading her to believe that she will stay behind with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl (S. K. Sakall) spirit Ilsa away.
Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a minor, trumped-up charge, Rick convinces Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters of transit. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains he and Ilsa will be leaving for America.
When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with her husband, telling her she would regret it if she stayed, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."
Major Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Rick shoots Strasser when he tries to intervene. When the police arrive, Renault pauses, then tells them to "round up the usual suspects." Renault suggests to Rick that they join the Free French at Brazzaville as they walk away into the fog.

CRITIQUE:



Casablanca was released in 1942, during a series of other propaganda film releases in the midst of the Second World War. The film premiered in New York City in November of 1942, to coincide with the Allied invasion of North Africa and the capture of Casablanca; it went into general release in January of 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca conference, a high-level meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in the city. There is the suggestion that some bias is present in how the war was retold during World War Two because it is likely that it was created on the basis of propaganda film production.
Also, the film looks at the perspective of Vichy-controlled Moroccan state but mostly through the eyes of non-citizens (i.e., the glorified American hero Rick, Victor Laszlo, a Czech resistance leader sought by the Nazis); there are very few actual Moroccans present in the main plot of the film, which alters the viewers understanding of its real historical relevance. Casablanca appears to be a place where others have been displaced and moved to, but through this narrative in particular, there is no mentioning of where the Moroccans in fact are. Because this is a romantic drama, most of the plot follows the relationship between Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), an American expatriate living in Casablanca, and his once lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman). I could say that this undisputed masterpice peratains to what new historicism is all about.

Walang komento:

Mag-post ng isang Komento