Nolley- Casablanca

While Casablanca has some politic aspects it appears to be more of a love story. Throughout the film, Rick makes several changes that add to the idea of the film being a true love story. World War II is mentioned all through the film, but the audience is always drawn back to the conflict between Rick and Ilsa. From the minute Ilsa steps into the film it is obvious there is some sort of tension. Sam immediately looks at her and seems perplexed with why this woman has come into the cafe. It them becomes evident that there is some definite history between Ilsa and Rick. This takes all focus off of the imposing war. With the introduction of Ilsa, the film transforms into a mysterious love story. This is not to say that World War II is completely discarded as a topic of the film, but it becomes the topic of less interest after the Rick and Ilsa conflict is introduced. The interweaving of love and war is an excellent way to keep an audience interested because it has both social and personal conflict which captures the interest of a broad spectrum of people. Casablanca is a very successful film that has aspects of war story with an emphasis on love story. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and felt like it was very successful in keeping me interested. By the end, I really began sympathizing with Rick and was hopeful that things would work out for him, but knew in the end that he did that right thing, and that was more respectable than anything that could have happened.