aaah. i just watched casablanca again. for about the 100th time. i love that movie. it's so great on so many levels. don't get me wrong. i watch it critically and just about every single scene with dooley wilson in it makes me cringe. but still. fantastic dialogue: "oh, he's just like any other man, only more so." and "the germans wore gray, you wore blue." and "i don't mind a parasite. i object to a cut-rate one." and the love story is great, especially the part where they don't end up together. but the best bit is the fight. the resistance. the victor laszlow stuff. i have been known to watch a movie (especially one i have seen before) for the express purpose of bawling like a baby. i mean, the fact that i've watched stepmom at all, much less 3 or 4 times, attests to this fact. and don't even get me started about steel magnolias. but anyway, tearjerkers-i've known (quite) a few. and nothing, not a one, does it for me like the scene where laszlow gets the cafe patrons to sing "la marseillaise." NOTHING. 'cause they have to drown out the evil germans! and yvonne feels bad about being on a date with a german soldier and being a traitor to her country! and ilsa has to gaze at victor with unmitigated hero worship! it's all so wonderful and meaningful! i tried to explain to my mom once why i loved that scene so much. i think i just left her feeling like i was some sort of weenie tree hugger who needs a cause. or a brat who was ungrateful for all the hard work people before me did to make the world i lived in a better place than it used to be. at least for white, middle class women.
i basically was so infatuated with victor's dedication to the resistance and just the idea of being involved with something so huge and so important that you would die for it was so impressive to me. not to be all religious fanatic about it, but the resistance was worthy and good and everything. there was a very dangerous enemy to fight and they went out and fought. not like renault who did everything to save his own ass. i guess it was all so difficult to actually know. i mean, there's not much i could involve myself with in the states that would get me killed. except like a crazy militia gang or something. but even in the '60s you could get killed for registering people to vote. i'm getting a little off track here and it's not like i yearn for the time of nazis or jim crow laws, nor do i wish that i'd lived through them. i guess it's a good thing that there's no big bad to fight. of course, there are people all over the world with local bad guys and victor laszlows. so i guess i should be glad there is nothing in suburban chicago (or suburban dublin) that would require my willingness to die. huh. that went somewhere different than i intended. i just kind of meant there's nothing important to people anymore; not that the '60s were what we are told, nostalgically, they were. it's just that, well, a lot of people seem to think that everything is 'fine' now and we should all get on with sort of buying stocks and shoes and places for our children in exclusive pre-schools. not to sound all "die yuppie scum" or anything. it's just that no one has to have principles anymore. you can totally be like people on tv and have no politics and not care about anyone but yourself until the day you die and not much about your life would be different from anyone else's. or something. i don't know. i've just thoroughly confused myself. i like casablanca. i'm going to bed.
