from the pages of Sketches From A Barman's Album

Casablanca is a movie that works, says a man, a director himself, grey haired, wearing glasses of the classic horned rim style, clear framed, after a short discussion on Truffaut's Jules et Jim.  The jazz trio is sitting down now in the corner, eating trout, while a small gathering mingles around the bar having passed through how the different parties know each other.  "We're both retired military.  We've worked on some projects together," the taller of two men says, comfortable with the venue.

Bogart's Rick, I ponder over him from time to time.  How would you describe him?  He's a bit of a loser, in some ways, in that he's not a doctor, nor is he married.  But give him credit, he runs a business out in a far strange corner of the world.  He's clever.  Though we might ask, what has he done with his life, it seems he is a survivor.

There are some shady things going on about him.  There are the bad guys, the Nazis, killjoys; there are the corrupt local officials, more or less amenable to better humor;  people trying to escape, etc.  We see the cold side of Rick, when Peter Lorre's character asked to be saved;  we see the good side of Rick, when he switches the money flow at the roulette wheel around to help out a young couple;  both sides are impersonal.

But his main reality, which has haunted him, shows up at his bar/club/hybrid casbah casino restaurant.  Ingrid Bergman's character.  In the course of events, some of his faults, his ego's feelings, will come out.  Sentimental, he takes to the bottle, even if normally he is a picture of self-control.  She will then take him to task for his short-comings, telling him that he is not the same man, after he expresses some bitterness of being left at the train station, not knowing the full story.

The movie ends in an interesting scene.  It's obvious he's doing the right thing, and her emotions come fully to the surface.  And to the deeper savage tribal subconscious eye, perhaps what he is doing is to bring forth the impersonal deep force of the Universe which is inclusive of what we beings call love.  Perhaps there is tension in the scene, in a G rated way, and in a deeper way, the eye sees some completion of the relationship between the two, despite the minor detail of everyone doing the right thing for the world at hand by whisking her away with the great war hero of free peoples, her husband.   We read that the plane is on the runway, revved up, fully charged, and that it will lift off, magnificently, but that for Rick there is still business to take care of, even while enjoying all this, which is to shoot the bad guy dead, a brave move, matter of factly without much orgasmic hoopla.  Rick preserves his energy, and it's a beautiful love scene all the way around.  The world will survive.

It's a fine cinematic few moments, of Rick's 'thinking for the both of them' selflessly without ego, and perhaps of a kind of Tantric energies.  And through it, Rick is reconciled, in the end, with his past and will now, presumably, live in the present.