Father Ken’s adult faith formation/sharing experience using classic movies kicks off with what many, many people consider the greatest motion picture of all time: the Academy Award winner for Best Picture of 1942, "Casablanca", which stars Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Dooley Wilson, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

If you have watched "Casablanca" on your own, you will find Father Ken's analysis below.

Wednesday, July 17, 2024, 6:30pm
Father Ken distributed the `Questions To Ponder' below, and the group viewed and discussed the first half of the movie.

Wednesday, July 14, 2024, 6:30pm
The group will view and discuss the rest of the movie. Even if you weren’t there for the first half, you can come. You can watch the first half of "Casablanca" (or all of it!) beforehand. It is widely available on streaming services, and you are welcome to borrow one of Father Ken’s DVDs (or, if you’re like Father Ken, you have the entire film memorized and don’t need to watch it).
 

Questions to Ponder about "Casablanca"

1. What do you think of the character of Rick Blaine? Is he a complete self-centered cad? If not, why not?

2. Some characters in the film seem to have conversions to a higher calling and sense of a cause greater than themselves. Who are these characters? What do you know or suppose happened to make them stuck in a rut? What is the particular rut each was stuck in?

3. Are there characters who are virtuous, but perhaps tempted to compromise their virtue? If so, do they? If not, who/what helps them to resist temptation?

4. This film is considered one of (if not the) greatest love stories Hollywood ever produced. (It is number 1 on the American Film Institute’s (AFI’s) list of the most romantic American movies of all time.) However, no starry-eyed, passionate lovers end up living happily ever after in the story. So why do you think this movie is such an enduring love story?

5. When the AFI first revealed its list of the 100 greatest American films in the late 90s, "Casablanca" was number 2. Yet when it was made, Warner Brothers considered this to be just another studio picture. What was ordinary back then seems more than ever extraordinary today. Does Hollywood come close to producing this kind of movie today? If not, why not?

Father Ken's Analysis

SPOILER ALERT!!  If you have never seen the film or don’t remember it well, then you may want to give yourself the blessing of watching this masterpiece first before you read any further. 

‘My brothers, if anyone among you should stray from the truth and someone bring him back, he should know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his ways will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins’ (James: 1920). This quote from sacred Scripture expresses perfectly one of the principal Christian themes in "Casablanca": how people, through love, good example and encouragement, help others to resist the temptation to compromise their virtue and give in to apathy and despair. If they already have, then the good example and encouragement help pull them out of it to experience resurrection.

The first instance of this is how Victor Lazslo (Paul Henreid), the heroic leader of the underground French Resistance against the Nazis, does not buckle under the interrogation and torture in a concentration camp. The thought of his wife Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) still out free in the world, loving him, waiting for him and praying for his survival is what keeps Lazslo hanging on until he is able to escape. After he does, he is reunited with Ilsa and they go to Casablanca with the hope that they can get away from the scrutiny and the clutches of the Nazis.

There Lazslo meets nightclub owner Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), who is essentially a walking corpse, made so because the woman he loved left him standing at a Paris train station months earlier with no explanation when they were supposed to flee the Nazi invasion of Paris together. In a remarkable twist of fate, that woman was Victor Lazslo’s wife Ilsa!

But far from totally crushing Rick, this reunion is his resurrection, as he learns that Ilsa, who fell in love with him in Paris when she thought her husband Victor had died, learned that he was still alive right before she was supposed to meet Rick at the station and could not explain why she couldn’t meet him. Once Rick learns the truth in Casablanca, and sees how essential Ilsa is to Victor’s life and work, Rick helps Ilsa resist the temptation to fall in love with him again and leave her husband.

Rick’s admiration for Lazslo, and Lazslo’s encouraging Rick to join the Resistance, stirs in Rick the feelings which led him to fight on the side of true justice twice before in his life. He is able to give up the love of his life, his selfishness and selfpity and his own safety by helping Ilsa and Lazslo escape together. Thus Rick shows the kind of Christlike love which wills the good of others over one’s own needs. This is the love Christ showed on the Cross which leads through death to new Life. And so Rick gets his life back and does join the Resistance, finding purpose in a cause so much greater than himself.

Rick’s example, in turn, helps resurrect the life of his friend, Captain Louis Renaud, the Vichy French Chief of Police in Casablanca who has immersed himself in a life of pleasure-seeking and extortion to convince himself that he is the master of his own destiny when he knows deep down that he is simply a Nazi puppet. Rick’s selfless courage inspires the Captain to choose Rick’s freedom over his own comfort and security. Knowing that he must, like Rick, flee Casablanca, he chooses to do so with Rick. In the final moments of this magnificent picture, Rick and Louis are walking together, talking about their plans to join the Resistance, and Rick says, ‘Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship’. Yes, true friendship, respect and love can begin when they are based on truth, integrity and Gospel values.