As i was sitting here today i was thinking about some truly great and not so great movies lines:
Casablanca- Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
Here's looking at you kid
I wasn't sure you were the same. Let's see, the last time we met... Rick: Was La Belle Aurore. Ilsa: How nice, you remembered. But of course, that was the day the Germans marched into Paris. Rick: Not an easy day to forget. Ilsa: No. Rick: I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue.
Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris? Rick: It's not particularly my beloved Paris. Heinz: Can you imagine us in London? Rick: When you get there, ask me! Captain Renault: Hmmh! Diplomatist! Major Strasser: How about New York? Rick: Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade.
Captain Renault: What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca? Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters. Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert. Rick: I was misinformed
We have a complete dossier on you: Richard Blaine, American, age 37. Cannot return to his country. The reason is a little vague. We also know what you did in Paris, Mr. Blaine, and also we know why you left Paris. [hands the dossier to Rick] Major Strasser: Don't worry, we are not going to broadcast it. Rick: [reading] Are my eyes really brown?
Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you're getting on that plane with Victor where you belong. Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I... I... Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie? Captain Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist. Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go. Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life. Ilsa: But what about us? Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night. Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you. Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid.
I've often speculated why you don't return to America. Did you abscond with the church funds? Run off with a senator's wife? I like to think you killed a man. It's the Romantic in me. Rick: It was a combination of all three.
There is more and I will add them as they come to my feeble mind. Please feel free to post your own.
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5 comments:
he does both of course. which is the usual paradox that a man in love finds himself in.
he can't because as much as he loves her, he wants her to be happy and if she could not leave Paris with him before then he can not leave Casablanca with her now. Complicated romances are my speciality
of course but that is why we love his character so much... he is a flawed hero, as opposed to the perfect one of stage and screen.. he is more life like and that is part of his appeal
Rick plans on getting on the plane, but in the end cannot leave up to others what he knows he should do himself, which is fight. He could be perfectly safe and happy in American while war rages around the world, and actually needs her to be happy. He knows that she needs to be with her husband, either because she genuinely loves him, or out of her own sense of duty.
Since that's what going to make her happy, that's the choice he makes, and walks off with the Captain at the end, having made his choice to make a stand.
that is one idea, however I am not so sure that it is idealism that really makes the decision for him. I think it part a sense of duty, part it is the decent thing to do , and he really loves this woman and would do anything for her, so he surrenders her to the man she is married to and who she inspires to do great things. He is a romantic anit-hero who really is a hero, that is why he does what he does. Often the sacrafice goes unoticed
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