^Excuse the crossed out text.
^ That’s actually very interesting. I didn’t take into account that Winchester ’73 would be exotic for you. For those in the eastern hemisphere, I guess the western would be exotic.
Well, I take back my first “bullshit” accusation, but I stand by the square one.
One person’s pop culture is another person’s art. One person’s art is another person’s pop culture. Opinions, of course, they’re gonna differ.
Good point, Ralch, but that doesn’t mean those accents aren’t pure aesthetic heaven!
Who the hell claimed pop culture is inferior to what art should be?
I think, as far as filmmaking is concerned, Casablanca’s main triumph is creating a mysterious, exotic, and incredibly enticing place. It sounds simple but with art direction, cinemetography, and editing, Casablanca (the city) becomes a romantic place where every one waits for their dreams (of going to America) to come true. I get goosebumps at the beginning when the voicover says that line about people who “wait and wait and wait” in Casablanca. It’s not just exoticism, but escapism in the purest form. It’s the kind of place people want to visit when they go to the movies.
As to the appeal to Bogart/Blaine, I think it goes back to the Iliad and the original anti-hero Achilles. The mighty man who seems like he doesn’t care and acts selfishly, but then later when forced with a choice, becomes a hero for the greater good is an archetype that still exists. Han Solo and Captain Kirk (from the newer Star Trek) are perfect examples.
As for the dialogue, I think beautiful language is self-justifying. We are seldom are exposed to interesting and compelling dialogue in our every day life, that I think that beautiful words are reason enough for their own existence.
I’ve always thought that Casablanca (the city) was an (unintentional) metaphor for the world of Cinema. As mentioned above, it contains the best of what we love about movies: the exotic place, beautiful stars, quirky supporting characters, a strong hero, villains (nazi’s no less), a damsel in distress, crackling dialogue, beautiful images, action, mystery, thrills, adventure, romance, sacrifical love, melodrama, melancholy, and humor. Also, I’ve always thought of Rick’s Cafe Americain as a metaphor for the a movie theater. Most of the grand things happen in his restaurant, and it acts as a rain gutter that collects all the broken yet hopeful dreams of an entire populace into one comforting but dangerous place. Am I stretching it? or does the metaphor make sense?
Pop culture: Beethoven’s Fur Elise
Art is ALWAYS superior to pop culture.
Pop culture is pure entertainment. Entertainment is not enough though.
But such is the notion of the mass.
One person’s pop culture is another person’s art. One person’s art is another person’s pop culture. Opinions, of course, they’re gonna differ.
One of the worst, most insulting comments I’ve ever read on this site. It even tops some of Jason’s comments.
Art is ALWAYS superior to pop culture.
Or at least has a false, inflated sense of superiority to it.
Art is ALWAYS superior to pop culture.
I should have known. Dimitris, do you want to unfollow me before or after I take you to the woodshed?
High art – Low art loop coming…
“One of the worst, most insulting comments I’ve ever read on this site. It even tops some of Jason’s comments”
Goodness, Dimitris. Such vehemence. I guess I’m lucky you didn’t tell me to go suck a cock.
Dimitris said, “One of the worst, most insulting comments I’ve ever read on this site. It even tops some of Jason’s comments.”
I don’t get this, Dimitris. I was thinking something very similar. For example, is Murnau’s Sunrise pop culture or art? It seems it could be both.
Précisément
I’ve never been a particularly big fan of SUNRISE, which has always seemed very precious and posed to me, and the condescension that characterizes the film’s Country Mice In The Big City scenes gets pretty cloying.
^
^ Is Sunrise an integral member of pop culture? I’m not sure the real mass agrees that it’s as “corrupt” as the film’s mass suggests is in Sunrise…
Casablanca is so overrated!
My disagreement with you, Dimitris, is not in practice as much as in principle. The notion that some expressions of creativity are superior to others through the label of ART runs parallel to the notion that some people are superior to others. This is how aristocracies survive and people come to be awed by anything sanctified through their sense of taste, which, of course, the bourgeois have inherited.
This is a generalization, of course, but pop culture is a loose enough term to encompass expressions of both high (Casablanca) and low quality (Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo). Both the pop expressions and the sanctified art (canonized, if you will), one will invariably see, address the same preoccupations and ideals humans have been caring about for thousands of years, and not always with differing levels of complexity, as one would initially assume.
What generally brings pop culture down (though not always), is the trivialization of issues, both individual and societal, for the purposes of lightness or propaganda; that is, the assembly line process of creation (not just in cinema). Nevertheless, so-called true artists are as capable of selling crap as great art, often under the mask of “high concepts”, and undiscerning minds and poseurs will buy into it.
Thus, to state that “ART is always superior to pop culture” is politically reactionary and culturally arbitrary— it means aligning with the canon of all canons (which has little to do with creativity, per se, and much to do with defensiveness against “the other”) and contradicts your basic point of view, as often violently expressed in this site’s threads. Casablanca is artistically acted, artistically written, artistically lit, edited, designed, camera operated, and artistically put together. Thus, it’s both pop and art. If it’s to be criticized, then it should be done on its own merits or lack of them, not based on whether people like it more or less.
For this, your post is Bullshit ², despite your… noble?… intentions.
Roscoe said, “Is it a great film? I can’t quite bring myself to say it is, but I can’t bring myself to say it isn’t, either.”
I’d be interested in hearing more from you about this.
Re: Sunrise
I can understand the criticisms, although I never thought the film condescended toward rural people. (Maybe because I know and interact with people from rural areas.) For me, the film felt very authentic (particularly in the acting) and that surprised me. There is something quaint about the film, but it doesn’t feel dated. I think the fact that many people—even to this day—feel this way about the film speaks to its greatness. But it is understandable that some people will find the film too quaint and the emotions cloying.
Oh, and I also think the visuals are fantastic
@Dimitris
I don’t know if Sunrise is integral to pop culture now, but I could see it being part of popular culture when it first came out.
Bullshit ²
Is that a footnote or bullshit squared?
aligning with the canon of all canons (which has little to do with creativity, per se, and much to do with defensiveness against “the other”)
Not sure I agree with that defensiveness against “the other”
Much of the canonized work was created by the “other”.
Much of the canonized work was created by the “other”.
—I’m generalizing. I’m sure you’re right, though I’d add that “the other” that is accepted must pass first through a process of integration.
oh!… squared
I can understand the criticisms, although I never thought the film condescended toward rural people. (Maybe because I know and interact with people from rural areas.)
Being from a rural area, I can say: we pretty much like the same things you privileged city people like. I never met a rural cinephile who objected to Sunrise based on it’s rural representation, just as I’ve never met a Hollywood cinephile who objected to Singin’ in The Rain based on its Hollywood representation.
…the other” that is accepted must pass first through a process of integration.
Ludwig Wittgenstein might say that thus: art must be found within the flow of the stream of life
@Kurt
How about some specifics.
Jazz, well, the more I think about it, the more confused I get about the “greatness” of CASABLANCA. I’m afraid on some level I’m guilty of some good old fashioned reverse snobbery here. God knows there are plenty of Classic Hollywood films that I’d consider “great” like STAGECOACH, CITIZEN KANE, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, NOTORIOUS, etc. I think ultimately that I’m most suspicious of CASABLANCA’s overt propaganda elements, the carefully chosen cast of Europeans and Americans, with the Good Germans carefully included.
But even then, it is all handled so beautifully, with such energy and warmth and wit that I feel churlish in having a problem with it. And the film’s depiction of Rick’s gradual re-awakening from cynicism to something like idealism never falters into sentimentality. It just could have all gone so hideously wrong in the wrong hands, couldn’t it?
CASABLANCA really is a marvel, some of the greatest dialogue in English language cinema, the production is marvelous, the cinematography and design elements are all first rate, and it is one of the best acted films in my experience. There’s not a dull moment.
So I really can’t say that I have any serious problems with the movie. Reverse snobbery be damned. CASABLANCA is a great film.
But can you say it is the greatest of the great in terms of greatestness?
lol
run away, run away :):)
Yes. CASABLANCA is the greatest of the great in terms of greatestness. Deny it at your peril.
There are known greats. These are things we know that are great. There are known non-greats. That is to say, there are things that we know aren’t great. But there are also unknown non-greats. There are non-great things we don’t know aren’t great.
ralch
I completely disagree- remove all those brilliant European character actors with their marvelous accents and what are you left with?
-I honestly don’t think that the presence of European actors adds to the overall effect in terms of exoticism, but in terms of the dramatic notion that these types and characters —from regions of the world that happened to be entangled in WW2- are mixed in a sort of no man’s land, where their humanity often finds itself at odds with their loyalty to their political allegiance. The accents don’t really matter as much as the characterizations per se (IMO), for which the actors must be praised.[Casablanca] it’s pop-culture at its best
—Bullshit.
…but pop-culture IS aye…inferior to what Art is and should be.
—Bullshit ²