Monday 7 October 2013

Casablanca

(1942)

RATING:100%
FORMAT:DVD

Despite the highly perfunctory plotting and often risible dialogue, this is excellent wartime propaganda.

This is a cast to die for since all of the performers are having fun in a melodramatic pot-boiler that eloquently and intelligently sums up why you cannot sit on the fence when the balloon goes up. For one thing it is unmanly to not take sides; for another, the respect of a beautiful woman like Ingrid BERGMAN is at stake!

This is a movie about the sacrifices necessary to achieve your goals, because you cannot have your cake and eat it, too; hence the downbeat ending. Given a choice between La BERGMAN and Claude RAINS, I am not sure fighting Nazism would figure all that highly in my plans!

A film you can watch over and over again and never get bored with it: They really, really don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

Copyright © 2013 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 15:41
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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.



Albert Camus… (1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)