The 1942 masterpiece so important Roger Ebert simply called it ‘The Movie’
Roger Ebert watched an awful lot of movies during his career as a film critic, and during that time, he felt pretty well-equipped to identify a masterpiece.
Well, we’ll ignore the fact that he gave Anaconda three and a half stars out of four, while he criticised The Elephant Man as “pure sentimentalism” and gave it a measly two-star rating. For every questionable opinion that Ebert had about the movies he watched, he had some pretty reliable ones, too, for he knew when something possessed the potential to leave a significant impact, and in the case of a certain romantic classic, he was well aware of the film’s enduring status, heaping praise on it.
“Casablanca is the movie. There are greater movies. More profound movies. Movies of greater artistic vision or artistic originality or political significance,” he argued. “There are other titles we would put above it on our lists of the best films of all time. But when it comes right down to the movies we treasure the most, when we are, let us imagine, confiding the secrets of our heart to someone we think we may be able to trust, the conversation sooner or later comes around to the same seven words: ‘I really love Casablanca’. ‘I do too’.”
The critic knows that when we find a movie we love, what it all boils down to, really, is how it affects us emotionally, and how it encourages human connection and understanding, which is why people love Casablanca so much. It’s full of quotes that we all know, that we could say to each other and instantly feel a sense of recognition: “Here’s looking at you, kid”.
The way that Casablanca treats that struggle between what the heart desires and what your head is telling you, that fight between romance and duty, is truly beautiful and bittersweet. The way the characters are so real and how it’s so simple to fall for the movie, Ebert just can’t fault it.
The film saw Humphrey Bogart torn over his love for Ingrid Bergman’s character and helping her husband to fight the Nazis, and it’s this terrible moral dilemma that drives the film, resulting in the unforgettable line, “We’ll always have Paris”.
“It has outlived the Bogart cult, survived the revival circuit, shrugged off those who would deface it with colourisation, leaped across time to win audiences who were born decades after it was made,” Ebert wrote, “Sooner or later, usually before they are 21, everyone sees Casablanca. And then it becomes their favourite movie. It is The Movie.”
Ebert argued that “Casablanca is one of those rare films that actually improves with repeated viewings,” and he was right, because the more you watch Rick and Isla, the more you feel the struggle, and it hurts to know that the pair can’t be together, even though his decision is ultimately for the better. “In Casablanca, I identify with Rick, and what moves me is not his love for Ilsa but his ability to put a higher good above that love,” the critic added.
The film has long remained a true classic, and it doesn’t seem like its legacy will fade anytime soon. It’s a love story that stands for so much more, for integrity and knowing when to let things go, despite the pain, or as Ebert put it, it’s about “nobility”.
