Auteur Signature film form

• motivated lighting – search light
• genre shifts – romance, war time drama, documentary footage
• motivated camera – zooms in on Rick and Ilsa when they’re on the sofa
• German expressionism – shadow of a window on the floor
• Ilsa appears at the centre of the door with light on her while wearing white, possibly like a ghost of the past coming back to haunt Rick but it’s also very angelic
• Camera tracks
• expressionist ? lighting
• Rick’s cafe – outside – search light
• rembrant lighting (top)  – lighting forehead/cheeks – Ilsa
• Side lighting – Rick

Classical Hollywood Film Form

• mainly linear narrative, but a flashback that is used to explore/show the protagonists motivation/feeling/past which is normal for a classical Hollywood film
• Montage edit (flashback) – whirlwind romance, cliche way to show things (Russia 1920’s before sound????)
• Close up of the note in the rain – visual metaphor – washed away
• Rain – reflects mode/tone ?
• Driving – fake background, shot right at them
• Good and bad guys
• Primary and secondary narrative
• low key lighting from side of Rick before flashback –  conflicted

Production context

• filmed on W.B. set – Burbanks studio
• ATGB – only song that was new for the film #
• reusing of documentary footage

Themes and Motifs

• motif – search light – surveillance
• motif – piano – it’s also in the flashback
• motif – ATGB – it plays in the background and then war time orchestral music plays and it plays again after the flashback – sparks the flashback
• romance
• war
• refugees
• ATGB to the national anthem (beginning of flashback) – they’re in France and France is free

Representation

• Sam is ordered around and calls Rick ‘boss’
• ‘where were you ten year ago’ reveal the age gap between Rick and Ilsa
• Ilsa wears a different outfit in every scene – glamorised

Political Context

• America were not in the war yet (propaganda, isolation was a bad idea) – ‘I bet they’re asleep all over America’ and ‘I bet they’re asleep in New York’ and ‘What time is it in New York?’
• war time – German’s are going to March in
• ‘I hate this war so much’ – Ilsa
• Paris taken over/occupied when the film is out. Most countries in Europe under command of fascist government

More

• repetition of the glass getting knocked over (Ilsa in the flashback and Rick after the flashback)
• Ilsa says ‘that’s too far ahead to plan’ in the flashback, like earlier when Rick said something similar in his cafe, suggesting he got the phrase from her