Rick's Cafe Analysis

 CASABLANCA: Film Form Analysis 1

The cinematography is sophisticatedly moving around in Rick’s Café to show how much is going in the café, showing that it is quite a busy place with all the music playing and the people negotiating, eating and talking to each other. The lighting focuses on certain characters to show what they are doing, each doing a different thing like talking and negotiating, this is to show how much of varieties of stuff happens in Rick’s café. The camera shots seem to stop for a bit longer than usual to show Sam (Rick’s friend) this is to show that he is part involved with the main characters.

The editing is quite fitting to a POV, cutting to shots outside and inside of the café nothing too special as after all Casablanca is a movie from 1943, so obviously they’re not going to have the best software but overall there are no errors made. The order of the scenes correlates as if the audience are the ones walking into the café, like a POV.

The Mise-en-scene is very active, with lots of props being used and the background being energetic, this is to show how the café is very busy with all the negotiations as people on a daily basis are trying to get to America to get away from the war. The props show that it’s not just any café, it’s almost like a fancy restaurant, with its own bar with a bartender and waiters serving fine alcoholic drinks and food. This café is Rick’s café.

In one of the parts of the scene you see and hear a character say “Waiting waiting waiting, I’ll never get out of here” as he drinks, this shows how people want to get out of Casablanca to embark to America, straight after that part you see a woman and a man, the woman seems to be selling a necklace and attempting to come to a deal of a price, the man names the price and she hesitates but accepts as the man says “There are diamonds everywhere, everyone sells diamonds”, this shows how people in Casablanca are doing all they can to get as much money as they can to get out of there and go America.

Peoples’ body language seems to be very relaxed and held back but others are all tense and serious, this shows because there are guards everywhere in the café ,many from different countries so there’s going to be tension between each other since this movie is set and made during WW2.

Overall, this scene tells us quite a bit about Casablanca and it is only 1 minute and 45 seconds long! It isn’t anything out of the extraordinary, but you can tell a lot.