Strange Area “Casablanca”
Author: Zi An
"Casablanca", the famous American black and white film was directed by Michael Curtiz, and produced by Hal Wallis in 1942. The movie starts with a map, just like a piece of news. Ironically, this film is completely shot in the studio, its easy to see that there is an airplane model with a drawn sky and clouds. The main location of the story: Casablanca, was rebuilt in the studio. There weren't any scenes that were shot on location. You will notice that the background of the driving car looks so false and the floor is cleaned so well by the movie staff. Even the people appearing in the market in Casablanca are all wearing ironed-well clothes especially for movie-making. There are even "Goof shots". For example, the main character was wearing a jacket while he was waiting in the rain at the Paris Station, and the jacket was wet. However, when he went into the train, his clothes suddenly changed to a dried wind-coat. The date to start shooting was pushed forward several times, (the time when the film script was re-written, the German army was running ramped in Europe and because of that, the film was required to contain more political factors.)
So much that it had an influence on the performers and the shooting schedule. Under these circumstances, the director decided it couldn't be dragged on any longer and immediately began shooting in order to prevent from further troubles occurring.
Even though there was not enough pre-production, even though they were required to use as little money as possible and even though the shooting schedule was really tight, Director Michael Curtiz and his skillful crew and talented actors made this film which turned out to be a phenomenal success. Needless to say, this movie was shot by the process of the story, the set and props designers must build the second day's scene right after they finished shooting the first scene. For example, in that built closed environment, the Director of Photography, Arthur Edeson masterly used that searchlight. In the scene when Llsa first tried to explain to Rick, when she came in, there was a brightness from the searchlight . Whenever she hit those points, the searchlight always turned to her back. And in that same scene, whenever Rick seems lost, that searchlight turns away, and disappears in the darkness. When to light up, and when to turn away, it doesn』t follow the exact time schedule, but instead it follows the script』s dialogues, the process of the story, and the characters』 psychomotor. That searchlight seemed to become the fore-teller of the movie.
It is just because of that closed, built shooting environment, the story seems to have had happened in that strange and far away place: Casablanca in North Africa. That adds more of an indifferent feeling of leaving the hometown away. And that makes the audience feel they are in a strange area too, but also they become much closer and connected to the characters. That famous ending, “Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” closed the movie beautifully. That is just the beginning of the truth, and that brings the audience back to their real life…
http://www.shenzhoufilm.com/sz/en/2009/12/15/a10111.html 2009-12-15 08:43