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May 8, 2017 at 2:00 pm #1044Kevin BurkeParticipant
Your point about Sadie’s honesty on stage really resonates with me. Although I can’t say I enthusiastically admired the “Take me Back” scene, I really enjoyed most of the scenes in which Sadie performs on stage. My favorite moment in the entire movie comes one of the first times we see Sadie actually take the stage, when she preforms “Almost Blue” by Elvis Costello. Even though it was immediately apparent that the patrons of the bar weren’t enthralled by her performance, I was. I thought her really soft, emotional voice, paired with the zooming close-up shots of her face, made the performance feel honest and personal. Even though the entire band is on stage, and the song is a cover, it feels like Sadie is capturing her own pure feelings and experience in the performance. I would definitely rather go to a Sadie Flood performance in a hole-in-the-wall bar than to one of Georgia’s concerts.
March 26, 2017 at 4:19 pm #980Kevin BurkeParticipantArden, I think you do a really good job drawing attention to the role religion plays in the film adaptation, as well as the book. We discussed in class, prior to watching the film, how much of the religious element we would choose to put in the film if we were to direct it. My personal opinion, based on how the book presents the situation, is that religion was immensely important to the survivors in their lives before, during, and after their time on the mountain. As presented in the book, religion strikes me as a crucial element of the survivors’ real life experience that has to be emphasized in any adaptation. I think Marshall did an overall good job at emphasizing the role religion plays for the survivors, without making and evangelical statement about religion itself.
Natalie, I think you make a really interesting point about tone with the way the film ends. As a viewer, the ending seems very quick and easy. Like you pointed out, after so much horror, tragedy, and impatient boredom, Parrado and Canessa seem to just hike down the mountain and stumble upon this beautiful valley with water in a way that made me think, “Well, why have they been eating humans all this time if they could have just hiked a little bit to civilization.” As a reader, the journey came off as much more extensive and dangerous than it did in the film, and I imagine that it was more perilous in real life. Of course, all films need to end at some point, and there is so much to cover that some things need be left out, but I was also vexed at times about the scenes I’d just read that were omitted.February 12, 2017 at 2:55 pm #946Kevin BurkeParticipantEmily and Mike,
I totally agree with what you two are saying. It seemed to me that RIck started by wanting to view Victor as his adversary, but as he grew – as you say – as a sentimentalist, Rick began to understand Ilsa’s point of view, Victor’s good nature, and his potential for political change as well. Overall, Victor is just like Rick, loving Ilsa just about as much, and is frankly the better option to leave her happy in the long run. Rick’s ultimate expression of love for Ilsa is his decision to leave her with the man who he views as a better man. (See my cimparison to Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities for more on that). I really enjoyed reading your post Emily. You seem to do an excellent job navigating the intersect between Rick’s sentimental growth, and his qualification as a Campbellian hero.February 12, 2017 at 2:43 pm #945Kevin BurkeParticipantI really enjoyed your concept of looking at Casablanca as a Campbellian monomyth. The evidence you provided is all very convincing and compelling, especially the idea that the journey of the hero is necessarily inward, making the physical or geographic journey that is often paired with it only incidental. This is a great piece of evidence for Rick as a heroic figure, as he grows into that role while largely remaining in one location. Additionally, one more piece of evidence for Casablanca as a monomyth continually struck me during our class viewing, one which as far as I’ve read I don’t think anyone else has touched upon. I had never seen Casablanca before Monday, aside from clips of the more famous scenes, but the story hit me as familiar all the way through. Casablanca struck me as a condensed, WWII-era retelling of Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. We’re given a love triangle between a woman who is recognized as beautiful by everyone in the work (as you’ve pointed out about Ilsa), and two decent men whom she cares for as well: one of which is more of a drunkard, and one is of a higher societal/political purpose. In Dickens, we have Lucie Manette as the beautiful woman, Sydney Carton as the less-successful, drunkard lawyer, and Charles Darnay as the more successful, aristocratic lawyer. Throughout much of the novel the two men vie for Lucie’s affection, much like Rick and Vick do in Casablanca. In the end, Carton recognizes that Lucie will be happier with Darnay, and makes the ultimate sacrifice for his love to be happy. This is echoed loudly in Rick’s final, selfless decision to let Ilsa go with Victor. Though Rick survives this sacrifice, and presumably continues a relatively happy life, he still made the same selfless decision to let his true love be happy with someone else. Perhaps the subtle differences of the events point further towards the idea that this story of loving sacrifice is more of a monomyth and less of an anachronistic re-telling. I’d be very interested to research how many different cultures and time periods have this same type of story, and what exactly the formal elements of it imply of humanity in a Campbellian sense.
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