Mise-en-scene - Casablanca - Movie Review Example

MISE-EN-SCENE - CASABLANCA (1942) The movie sequence begins at 54.58 mark and with an establishing top-angle shot takes us into the claustrophobic black market of Casablanca bustling wih merchants and buyers gathered in clusters, usual business, when the shot cuts down to two people – a Nazi captain making enquiries about some Passport from a merchant on a small table in a corner of the market who very courteously, with a smiling face, suggests the captain to try at the Blue Parrot Bar nearby to find Signor Ferrari, a pumpkin in the criminal underworld. The low pitched conversation of the two gives the scene a heavy and clandestine air. The audience can clearly feel a spying edge over knowing about all the buzz murmuring in the black market, and the importance of Signor Ferrari. The next scene opens up inside the bar: a medium-shot with the fast and flamboyant entry of our Protagonist, Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) from the left door (a surprise element where we actually anticipate the entry of the Nazi Captain). He is a bitter, cynical American expatriate living in Casablanca running "Ricks Café Américain", an upscale nightclub and gambling den. The bar is a typical medieval Arabian set-up - dark, busy with leisurely men smoking Hookahs, couples roaming around, a woman dancing to an arabian beat in a corner; some eating and drinking, some playing cards and so on … There is a lot of din inside the hall. It is webbed in shadows and darkness while almost all the people in varying attire are dressed in whites perhaps, indicative of freedom caged inside Casablanca, where people wait to flee off to America. Rick halts in the middle seeing someone at the other end as the camera sweeps a view of the entire place in a single pan movement from left to right to inroduce that person who he apparantly knows. Suddenly Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet) enters in from the right with a couple who seems obliged by him. From his way of speaking one can make out, he is a worldly-wise man as he consoles the worried couple not to be disheartened, “Perhaps you can come to terms with Renault” (00:55:27 - 00:55:29). The high status Ferrari enjoys is illustrated through a medium close-up, OSS shot. He is a big fat man dressed in pure white and dark cap, pompous, visibly cunning and having an imposing yet relaxed expression. He greets Rick like a seasoned businessman, anyway he is his friendly business rival, and invites him for a drink at a corner-table. The conversation carries on with rapid cutting between medium close-ups of Rick and Ferrari taken through OSS shots. A waiter follows them to take the order. Ferrari shoos him off with one of Bourbon, apparantly to click an important dialogue with Rick without wasting time. The audience can make out the matter is too important for Ferrari. Over the confabulation we see Rick witty, straight-forward and blunt as he says, “Youre a fat hypocrite. You dont feel any sorrier for Ugarte than I do.” (00:55:53- 00:55:56). Ferrari soon cuts to the core when he says, “Rick, I think you know where those letters are” (00:56:24- 00:56:27). The corner at which they are sitting is set apart from the rest of the bar with a dark contrast giving it a sly and ominous touch. There is a lot of commotion around the two while they are engrossed in an important conversation. Rick looks calm and relaxed in his seat, smiling and quite used to handling shrewds like Ferrari who is sly in his looks, never straying a single glance at Rick. He is continuously staring at him with a dropped face and raised brows; probing each of his moves and expressions as if trying to steal anything relevant he might be holding back. He is reading him very carefully. Then we see, through an OSS, Rick turn towards the window opening into the market and sees Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a fugitive Czech Resistance leader long sought by the Nazis, with Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) at a cloth stall. She is dazzling and conspicuous with genuine aristocratic mannerism in a spotless white dress in the dull shady surroundings; epitomise angelic feminine grace and purity. She is succinct in her conversation with Laszlo. She looks matured and reticent; her white apprearance signifying a battle inside between her callous past deeds and justified purity of reasons. The camera placed at the window shows Rick seeing Laszlo leave for the Blue Parrot. The shot cuts back to Rick in who we can see a switch of composure to desperation as he quickly wraps up the chat and hurries to meet Ilsa, his one-time lover. Next shot: As Laszlo enters the Blue Parrot’s, Rick comes out. There is a huge contrast between outside and inside the Blue Parrot, reminiscent of the dingy inns of Casablanca. To Laszlo’s surprise, he tips him about Ferrari without being asked for showing a streetsmart overture. Flabberghasted by the insinuation, he is dumbfounded. Snapping out, he smiles and moves inside the bar with an impressed look. Rick, in hurry, almost dropped his words and rushed out. He approaches Ilsa at the stall. In a single pan movement of the camera he cleverly sneaks into an adament conversation with Ilsa causing her unease; the bitter resolve clearly visible in her eyes, voice and body movement. The seller, a Rick-sycophant, meanwhile keeps showering discounts on Ilsa. Rick closes her in and goes on tormenting her with questions from the past when she had left him waiting at the station in France, with a faint smile. He is restless and sadistic, unyielding to her pain demanding explanations while, she, irritated, keeps eluding with short answers, never looking over to him. She shows herself engrossed with the cloths. As the tempo builds up, rapid cutting of close ups, of Rick and Ilsa, face-to-face begin to give the audience a sense of Rick’s desperation and Ilsa’s uneasiness. Eventually, unable to take anymore, she seals his mouth by coldly revealing to him that Victor Laszlo is her Husband and was even when she had met Rick, and leaves. The sequence concludes with the shocker, showing Rick standing dumbfounded under the shadows of the stall roof, in an MCU, his faint smile lost. He looks frozen in time while everything else around still moving, the background score still humming softly. Through the involving screenplay we are able to empathise with the characters. It generates a deep sense of interest in knowing what ensue in the next scene. The dialogue and the suspense of the story are both elements in the sequence that make it truly special. Throughout the sequence we see Bergman photographed with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle; the whole effect designed to make her face seem ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic. Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French and emotional turmoil. Dark film noir and expressionist lighting is used in several scenes. These shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device. The entire sequence, shot skillfully inside and around the Warner Brother’s studio, joined together via continuity editing, is in itself an appreciative crux and conundrum of the whole plot. It shows pain, mystery, love, and the glimpse of the main characters beautifully. The sequence depicts bondage and struggle for freedom which is what the place Casablanca is all about; also the place, where two, long separated lovers meet again. Bibliography 1. Anon. (199?) CASABLANCA ... THE DRAMA REVIEW [Online] Available at: http://www.homevideos.com/revclas/10b.htm [Accessed 3 Feb 2010] 2. Associated Content, 2008. Casablanca and the use of Mise-en-scene in the construction of propaganda [Online] Available at: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/558967/casablanca_and_the_use_of_miseenscene.html [Accessed 3 Feb 2010] 3. Dirks, Tim. (199?) Casablanca (1942) [Online] Available at: http://www.filmsite.org/casa.html [Accessed 3 Feb 2010] 4. Harmetz, Aljean. (199?) “Round Up The Usual Suspects” [Online] Available at: http://www.vincasa.com/indexharmetz.html [Accessed 2 Feb 2010]. 5. Harmetz, Aljean. (2002) The Making of Casablanca: Bogart, Bergman, and World War II, New York: Hyperion 6. Robertson, James C. (1993) The Casablanca Man: the cinema of Michael Curtiz, London: Routledge. Read More