Casablanca and "Change"
Something horrible happened to me tonight. I was showing Casablanca to my cousin who had never seen it before. I can recite every line. So I knew exactly what was going to come out of Ingrid Bergman’s mouth when she said, “I wish I didn’t love you so much.” But something shattered and I thought, “Wait a minute, I don’t believe her.” I’ve believed her every single time and suddenly I doubted her. I doubted her and the whole movie was ruined. Forever. Not since I woke up to find my dad putting tooth fairy money under my pillow have I felt so viscerally that I’d been swindled and betrayed. And then it occurred to me: so this is disillusionment.
I’m a cynic and not prone to hope. Reality rarely takes me by surprise. So I’ve been curious to understand what strange fire must burn within all these embittered Americans. Now I know.
All this time I assumed that we are in control of our expectations, that we should know better than to anticipate benefits from a government that could never pay for it even if it were right for it to do so, that we shouldn’t assume that everything must be fair and equal for us all to be free.
Yet some ideas of entitlement happen because we’ve been told over and over that it’s a logical and rational thing to demand. Why wouldn’t characters in a movie do exactly the same thing with every single viewing? They’re trapped in black-and-white for a ninety-minute existence, what else are they going to do? Human behavior creates a much more complex world for us, however, and even people reading a script can do the unexpected. If Rick and Ilsa can suddenly start doing new things, then anything in our environment can shift.
So here’s the problem with disillusioned progressives: they believe in “change” but there are a lot of things they firmly resist changing. (Some giant unfunded programs come to mind.) They believe in “change” but only insofar as it is the correct change (odd considering how they don’t keep track of the money they spend, heyo!). They want fair change, clean change, everyone-gets-the-same change. That’s not how it works, though.
I was upset that a favorite movie was altered. My disenchanted fury comes from the fact that something was different this time. Their malcontent isn’t because things are being altered, they’re just being altered in the “wrong” way. It’s not that it’s different, it’s that it’s not “their” different. Their true disillusionment is with the reality that change is not a phenomenon that only comes from one direction.
The task for us then is not to let change be co-opted again. The task for you specifically is to reassure me that Ilsa did still have feelings for Rick. Comments section, go.
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Comments :
Dec '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
I think the Rudy Vallee 1931 version of "As Time Goes By" actually expresses the thought better then the movie version. The opening verses make the thought intended clearer.
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
How could Ilsa not have feelings for Rick?! I'm not saying she's an open book or even completely trustworthy, but she could have played him a lot more easily if she hadn't been painfully conflicted. For fatales playing schmucks, see Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon and Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai. Especially Elsa. Wow…
May '11
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
"The task for us then is not to let change be co-opted again."
What?
May '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Clearly Ilsa loves both men, but differently. I think Rick is easier to love because he is more flawed. Victor is a white knight, the cleanest man in the story. Of course she loves Victor: who would not love Victor. He is so good it is painful. Rick is more "normal" and therefor easier to love. Ilsa would rather take the easy way out and go with Rick. But, going with Rick would destroy Victor and destroy his work in the process.
All three make a great sacrifice:
Ilsa: Going with the more difficult man to Love (because he is so perfect)
Rick: Giving up the woman he loves
Victor: Agreeing to live with the fiction that Ilsa no longer loves Rick.
Doubt increases faith. Take your moment of doubt to ask the questions and look deeper into your faith on the movie.
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
I’m a cynic and not prone to hope.
I prescribe Jane Austen and Henry Veatch's Rational Man
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Better to have loved and lost than never to have voted at all.
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
The context might be a vehicle out of cynicism. Had they met in another place, at another time, Ilsa and Rick might well have gone off together, despite the honorable Victor. But it wasn't a self-absorbed time; it was a time to face an overarching evil. Their self-sacrifice is one thing. Their respect for something bigger than their own needs is quite another. Whatever her mix of emotions, love is certainly evident, not so much in her words but in her deeds.
Jun '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
I keep a jar of coins on my desk. I call it change you can believe in. At least coinage gives the illusion of hard currency. The problem is that the other kind of change is based on script, and paper is notoriously ephemeral. Consider the things we consign to paper: money, contracts, and documents. The only thing backing them up is trust. The problem with change as it is espoused today is that "trust-fund" is bankrupt. We have every right to be cynical.
Oct '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Bingo. Republicans have an uphill PR battle because phrases like "taking America back" or "restoring America" can be twisted too easily to mean
1) Fear of the future. Or innovation, or science, etc., ad nauseam.
2) Going back to some unsavory moment in American history (slavery, Jim Crow, Japanese internment, etc)
Forget about "going back" to the halcyon days. Define progress as learning the lessons of the past, namely, that individual freedom works better than forced collectivism. As much authority as possible should be vested as close to the individual as practical.
Dec '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Bryan G. Stephens: Clearly Ilsa loves both men, but differently. I think Rick is easier to love because he is more flawed. Victor is a white knight, the cleanest man in the story. Of course she loves Victor: who would not love Victor. He is so good it is painful. Rick is more "normal" and therefor easier to love. Ilsa would rather take the easy way out and go with Rick. But, going with Rick would destroy Victor and destroy his work in the process.
All three make a great sacrifice:
Ilsa: Going with the more difficult man to Love (because he is so perfect)
Rick: Giving up the woman he loves
Victor: Agreeing to live with the fiction that Ilsa no longer loves Rick.
Doubt increases faith. Take your moment of doubt to ask the questions and look deeper into your faith on the movie. · 3 hours ago
If this was a contest and I was the Judge, you are in first place so far.
Regards,
Jim
May '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Laughing my chad off at that one.
May '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Is there anything worse in this world than having what you want and then losing it?
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
I don't know whether this is helping Maura, but its sure helping me!
Edited on Jan 31 at 9:09amSep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
"Play it once, EJ, for old times' sake"
May '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Oh, I can't remember it, Miss Pseudo. I'm a little rusty on it.
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Do you think we'll meet again in Puerto Rico?
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Perhaps you need to spend more time playing the Piano of Doom.
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
Haakon Dahl: "The task for us then is not to let change be co-opted again."
What? · 6 hours ago
What I meant is that we shouldn't let the concept become a buzzword for one group or side again. They look at everyone right of center as being sticks in the mud, complacent, unenlightened fat cats or worse. But that's absurd. There are just as many things we'd like to change.
I'm feeling better about Ilsa. The funny thing is, it happened when my cousin got up to go to the bathroom. She came back and was like, What did I miss? Horrified look on my face: I have NO idea!
Sep '10
Re: Casablanca and "Change"
unenlightened fat cats
ouch.