Everybody has a decade for movies where that’s about as far back as they are willing to go, anything older just looks and feels too dated for them. Be it the 90’s, 80’s, 70’s or what have you. Hell even I have a movie decade where I struggle to engage with the movies, the 1920’s, before sound technology was introduced. But to write movies off because they are too old for you is to miss out on a plethora of great cinematic experiences. It can be very rewarding to go back to different times in the history of cinema and try to embrace different film and editing technologies and techniques, acting styles and cultural contexts. Movies are texts from which you can glean insights about the history of movies and culture at large; they are vessels which encapsulate ideas, values, beliefs, fashions, behaviors from the specific times in which they were created.
With all of that in mind, I figured I would take us back to the 1940’s for our double feature, with Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) and Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, two unassailable masterpieces from the decade. We have come a very long way in terms of cinematic evolution since the 1940’s, with much faster rhythms in editing styles, computer generated special effects, acting styles, not to mention the addition of colour to films. These two movies were filmed in black and white, are much slower, contemplative, dialogue driven and frankly don’t contain much action. A scholarly mind once posited that you can have a great movie that is completely driven by dialogue and no action, but not one that is all action driven and no dialogue. It’s me, I’m the scholarly mind and I’m saying it now. In these troubling stress inducing times, maybe a slower, dialogue driven, contemplative movie that gives us time to sit and breathe and take it all in can be just the reprieve we need, if only for an evening. If we try not to see the black and white film, the slower edits, different acting styles, and so on as limitations and try to appreciate them for their style and historical context, it can be an extremely rewarding viewing experience.
The first movie of the double feature is Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Notorious starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. Grant plays Devlin, a spy who recruits Ingrid Bergman’s Alicia Huberman, to infiltrate a group of Nazis hiding out in Brazil after the war. And you know those damned Nazis are always up to no good. Alicia’s father was a convicted Nazi war criminal which gives her the connections necessary to locate and infiltrate the group and pose as a love interest to a member of the group, Alexander Sebastien (Claude Rains). Dev is Alicia’s handler and she reports directly to him, but there is one big problem, Dev has fallen in love with Alicia and she in love with him. Workplace romances are always a bad idea, but especially when you are asking someone to carry on a romantic relationship in the capacity of a spy! This love triangle is the beating heart of the movie. So while the movie is about catching some Nazis in hiding up to no good, the stakes of the drama are very personal, real and emotional, no bomb or anything about to level a city or a country or any such thing. Grant is as cool as ever in the movie, but what makes it such a great performance is that the cool is merely a veneer of a wounded man who is emotionally tortured by watching the woman he loves involved with another man at his behest. Bergman brings such a devastating humanity to the proceedings, the conflict of loving Dev and wanting to accomplish the mission he has tasked her, lies just beneath the surface. She does more with her eyes than many actresses can do with their entire bodies.
The second movie of the double feature is Michael Curtiz’s masterpiece Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart, and yet again we get to see Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. Bogart plays Rick Blaine, the cynical, world weary night club owner in Casablanca with a mysterious past. We join Rick in 1941, in Nazi occupied Casablanca, where a pragmatic Rick is basically trying to avoid any entanglements with them by keeping them appeased, and avoiding sticking his neck out for anybody. Yes, those goddamned Nazis again, those guys are like bad bedding, they always turn up. Rick finds himself in possession of two transfer documents, which will allow those in possession of them safe passage out of the occupied territory. This is of course when an old flame turns up, Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) with her resistance leader husband Victor Lazlo (Paul Henreid) in tow and in need of such transfer documents. But maybe Ilsa is the source of some excruciating heartbreak for Rick and he may not be particularly inclined to help her and her husband escape. Or maybe they can reconcile and run off together. Again, there is a love triangle at the heart of matters here. Bogart is endlessly and ineffably cool as Rick, but again the cool exterior is all the more effective as he uses it to conceal his wounded vulnerability, humanity and heartbreak from his previous entanglement with Ilsa. Bergman is incredible again, displaying all the humanity, internal conflict, emoting a love and duty to her husband and a longing, passion and love for Rick and regret for leaving him the way she did in the old days. Yet again, while we’re dealing with a plot revolving around escaping the Nazis, the stakes are very personal and emotional and easy for us to engage with.
Perhaps the 1940’s are a little too far back for you in the history of cinema, but I implore you to challenge yourself and embrace the black and white, the slower pace, the older acting styles. If you can manage to get in sync and appreciate Notorious and Casablanca on their terms, some endlessly rewarding cinematic experiences await you. These slower, more sure footed, dialogue driven movies really allow us to inhabit the scenes and let them breathe and develop. They serve as a glimpse into an earlier time, both in terms of the history of cinema as well as a specific cultural period. They may also offer you a brief respite from these troubled times and allow you to decompress for an evening. Now obviously you can watch this double feature in any order you choose, but i recommend watching Notorious first, then Casablanca. This may seem counter intuitive as Casablanca was made and is set earlier than Notorious, but I can’t think of a better scene to end a night of viewing on than the final scene of Casablanca, one of the great final scenes in movies. Either way, here’s looking at you kid.