That Casablanca finished first several years ago in a poll of critics designed to select the greatest screenplays in the history of cinema is not altogether surprising. Nonetheless, Casablanca always charms me. But there is a moment in the film which always rankles me.
Could I say that from one point of view or from one significant affective and one significant affective-ideational place within me this moment could vitiate my good will for the film? She sees Sam—whom she had known well in Paris—at the piano and wants him to come join her. But the obviousness of the point in question is rendered neither null nor illegitimate just because there are a million other instances in past—and in present—cultural productions and in cinematic history where there are indignities and infelicities in relation to people of African ancestry, to people of color, etc.
This inevitable retort is impatient—and pre-fabricated—because for it there is no matter to raise, no discussion to be had.
Convention and past but not present history rule—and explain all. Millions certainly. It was conventional usage—and thereby the willed usage of domination —in the South and amongst millions of others in non-southern states and across class and ethnic lines too. It must immediately be considered that the usage makes no sense at all given the character who utters it. Ilsa is someone with left-wing views not liberal, but rather left-wing.
These views would have as an important component a condemnation of ethnic and racial domination and prejudice which is not to say that all leftists at the time, European or American—or at any time, past or present—were or have been immune from racism and prejudice or lapses in this regard.
