This is a thread about CASABLANCA because it is utterly awesome and the best black and white film ever.

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Best Blue film = Derek Jarman's Blue

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Thursday, 6 January 2005 22:11 (nineteen years ago) link

*pauses for obligatory Blue Movie joke*

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Thursday, 6 January 2005 22:14 (nineteen years ago) link

my old ethiopian roommate used to watch the scene where the german and the french anthems are played every single day, and he would cry everytime. that might be my favorite scene in all of film largely for that reason.

tracer, wanna read an AMAZING book on the making of a movie? devil's candy by julie salomom on the making of bonfire of the vanities. just finished it last night. soooooo good.

― Jams Murphy (ystrickler), Thursday, 6 January 2005 22:19 (nineteen years ago) link

Especially when Yvonne joins in. *sob*

xpost

― Michael White (Hereward), Thursday, 6 January 2005 22:21 (nineteen years ago) link

casablanca is fucking great!! i love it!! it's probably one of the most watchable and entertaining movies i've ever seen. and that is no small shakes! i mean yeah it is perhaps not as psychologically complex as notorious or as blah blah as this or that, maybe it is not "Great" in the textbook way but it is a great movie.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:15 (nineteen years ago) link

i wanna read that bonfire of the vanities book.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:15 (nineteen years ago) link

you should read "The Bonfire of the Vanities"

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:16 (nineteen years ago) link

that's what i meant

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:17 (nineteen years ago) link

not

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:17 (nineteen years ago) link

"This is a thread about LES DEMOISELLES D'AVIGNON because it is utterly awesome and the best oil painting ever."

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:49 (nineteen years ago) link

haha "ladcrit"--that's great.

my old college roommate once told me "yeah, i saw 'citizen kane' and i liked it. it seemed really cool, not like those other black and white movies at all." i still don't know whether to be touched or appalled.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 7 January 2005 05:50 (nineteen years ago) link

"Maybe the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of beans. But this is *our* hill. And these are *our* beans." - Lt. Frank Drebin

― kickitcricket (kickitcricket), Friday, 7 January 2005 06:39 (nineteen years ago) link

xpost
shall we have a vote?

― Masked Gazza, Friday, 7 January 2005 07:42 (nineteen years ago) link

ten more b&w films that are superior (and i love casablanca)

through a glass darkly
tokyo story
ordet
battleship potemkin
vivre sa vie
shadows
cleo from 5 to 7
ikiru
city lights
earth

casablanca has a great screenplay, but it is just your typical hollywood film of the time. it is not ground-breaking, it is not amazing.

― t0dd swiss, Friday, 7 January 2005 08:13 (nineteen years ago) link

"but it is just your typical hollywood film of the time"

how many hollywood films of the time have ingrid bergman and humphrey bogart?!?!?!?!?!

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 7 January 2005 08:48 (nineteen years ago) link

slocki the devil's candy is a much better book than bonfire of the vanities. i haven't seen the movie in ages; i'm watching it tomorrow. i'm excited.

― Jams Murphy (ystrickler), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:35 (nineteen years ago) link

I am very keen on 'Carrotblanca' on disc 2.

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:39 (nineteen years ago) link

For green films, early 2-strip Technicolor is pretty much orange and green.

The Marseillaise scene always gets me too.

Somebody wrote a volume of short stories 10-15 years ago about the fates of Great Movie Characters after the films ended. Never read it, but reviews said his "Casablanca" sequel had Rick and Renault becoming lovers, and Ilsa dying in the plane crash with Dag Hammarskjold...

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:50 (nineteen years ago) link

Quai des Brumes
Les Visiteurs du Soir
Les Enfants du Paradis

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 15:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Also better than Casablanca is the now hard-to-see Argentinean film Casa Rosada, a dark tango melodrama starring Eva Peron's nemesis Libertad Lamarque, directed by the great Leopoldo Flores Nilsson.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:02 (nineteen years ago) link

"Play it again, Sam"

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:03 (nineteen years ago) link

Dr. Morbius, the book is David Thomson's Suspects.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:08 (nineteen years ago) link

xpost:
"Play it,Steve!"

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:10 (nineteen years ago) link

guys it's obv not the best b&w film, we don't have to keep proving it

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 7 January 2005 16:38 (nineteen years ago) link

s1ocki otm, it's not even like the 27th best b&w film (that's Harvey)

― Allyzay Needs Legs More (allyzay), Friday, 7 January 2005 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link

s1ocki, I made that shiznit up about the movie from Argentina, just to amuse myself.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 19:24 (nineteen years ago) link

How sub-borgesian of you, Ken.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 19:29 (nineteen years ago) link

"Play it again, Sam"

why the quotes?

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 7 January 2005 19:29 (nineteen years ago) link

Probably because: IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY APPEAR IN THE MOVE AS WRITTEN.
The correct quote is ...

xpost:
Pretty hard to be super-Borgesian, Miguel.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:04 (nineteen years ago) link

>Dr. Morbius, the book is David Thomson's Suspects

Ha! I never imagined... Is it any less arbitrary and peculiar than his criticism?

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:19 (nineteen years ago) link

Bogart: "Pretty hard to be super-Borgesian, Miguel."
Bergman: "Whay are you calling me Miguel?"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:32 (nineteen years ago) link

those black and white films, all alike

― fauxhemian (fauxhemian), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:54 (nineteen years ago) link

God, now I have an image in my head of Super Borges flying around and righting literary wrongs or something.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link

http://blogs.salon.com/0002153/images/2003/08/29/SnoopDoggLeashes.jpg

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:56 (nineteen years ago) link

Whoah! That's way to Borges for me, amateurist. You win.

xpost:
By day, he is a mild blind librarian...

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 20:58 (nineteen years ago) link

those black and white films, all alike
All black and white films are alike, each color film is in color in its own way.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 21:00 (nineteen years ago) link

"Some one spoke of the domination of the films by business men interested only in profits. "Yes, I know, I've been told about that before," Tolstoy replied. "The films have fallen into the clutches of business men and art is weeping! But where aren't there business men?" And he proceeded to relate one of those delightful little parables for which he is famous.
"A little while ago I was standing; on the banks of our pond. It was noon of a hot day, and butterflies of all colors and sizes were circling! around, bathing and darting In the I sunlight, fluttering among the flow-era through their short-their very short-lives, for -with the setting of the sun they would die.
"But there on the shore near the reeds I saw an insect with little lavender spots on its wings. It, too, was circling around. It would flutter about, obstinately, and its circles became smaller and smaller. I glanced over there. In among the reeds sat a great green toad with staring eyes on each aide of his flat head, breathing quickly with his greenish-white, glistening throat. The toad did not look at the butterfly, but the butterfly kept flying over him as though she wished to be seen. What happened? The toad looked up, opened his mouth wide and - remarkable! - the butterfly flew in of her own accord! The toad snapped his jaws shut quickly, and the butterfly disappeared.
"Then I remembered that thus the insect reaches the stomach of the toad, leaves its seed there to develop and again appear on God's earth, become a larva, a chrysalis. The chrysalis becomes a caterpillar, and out of the caterpillar springs a new butterfly. And then the playing in the sun, the bathing in the light, and the creating of new life, I begin all over again.
"Thus it is with the cinema. In the reeds of film art sits the toad - the business man. Above him hovers the insect-the artist. A glance, and the jaws of the business man devour the artist. But that doesn't, mean destruction. It is only one of the methods of procreation, of propagating the race; in the belly of the business man is carried on the process of impregnation and the development of the seeds of the future. These seeds will come out on God's earth and will begin their beautiful, brilliant lives all over again."

Not a champion lepidopterist, eh?

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:21 (nineteen years ago) link

For that we would have to wait for Vladimir Vladimirovich.

"Count Alexey Kirillovitch Vronsky, auteur of Showgirls"

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:31 (nineteen years ago) link

What's Black and White And Read All Over? A History of Movie Journalism by Henri Beyle

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:45 (nineteen years ago) link

Didn't he also write Chartreuse and Prosciutto. A History of Hollywood Food Fads.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:49 (nineteen years ago) link

Yes! Apparently he also did some uncredited script-doctoring on I Heart Napoleon Dynamite.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:53 (nineteen years ago) link

I vaguely recall from What's Black and White And Read All Over? A History of Movie Journalism that one of the critics was very partial to julienne of dock.

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link

My favorite b&w films are Wilder's One Two Three, the Wadja war trilogy, Teh Third Man, and Le Doulos

Casablanca is still great though!

― roit gaer, Friday, 7 January 2005 23:20 (nineteen years ago) link

Good for you for seeing more than one b&w film "roit" You should have brought CC72 along with you to see them. Or maybe you did do that?

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 23:24 (nineteen years ago) link

we shared a popcorn

― roit gar!, Friday, 7 January 2005 23:30 (nineteen years ago) link

But how can two people share one popcorn?

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 23:31 (nineteen years ago) link

Sounds erotik!

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 7 January 2005 23:32 (nineteen years ago) link

he kept grabbing for my business which made things awkward

― roit gere!, Friday, 7 January 2005 23:33 (nineteen years ago) link

did this take place at a drive-in?

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 23:45 (nineteen years ago) link

because in that case, i might like to AUgment Michael's post with four more letters, if that is not TOo much to ask.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 7 January 2005 23:48 (nineteen years ago) link

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