Couldn't tell you how many times I've seen Casablanca. Even several time in a theater. Yes, we all stood and sang along. We're funny that way. And this article from 2015 sums it up rather nicely. https://seveninchesofyourtime.com/cinemas-greatest-scene-casablanca-and-la-marseillaise/
Agree that the article does a great job of analyzing a great movie. There are a couple of nuances to the Marseillaise scene I would add, though.
First, there's a story that the producers originally wanted the Germans to be singing the Nazi anthem "Die Fahne Hoch", commonly called the Horst Wessel song. But the studio lawyers supposedly pointed out that the song was copyrighted and when the movie was shown in neutral countries (e.g. in South America) they would have to pay royalties to Nazi Germany. So they changed the song to "Die Wacht Am Rhein," which was in the public domain. But that song is perfect! Better, in fact, than the Horst Wessel song for this scene. It celebrates the Watch on the Rhine, the heroic defenders protecting the Fatherland against the evil invaders . . . the French. It was written in the mid 1800s and France was a long-time enemy -- Napoleon's armies had devastated Germany only a couple of generations earlier. For Germans to be singing this song in a French cafe was a calculated insult, one that would not have been lost on the French patrons.
Then there's Yvonne. The "Seven Inches" article does a great job of showing how her three scenes symbolize the moral progression of the whole film. What struck me, thanks to my high school French, is the point in the Marseillaise scene where we see a close-up of her face. La Marseillaise is a pretty bloodthirsty song, and she appears at the exact moment when the song describes "the growls of those ferocious soldiers, they are coming into our very homes to disembowel our sons and companions." This from a woman who earlier in the film had been, um, dating one of those soldiers. Brilliant irony!
To me this illustrates a problem with foreign language films: there must be many, many cultural and linguistic subtleties that we miss without knowing it, things that subtitles just can't convey.
Couldn't tell you how many times I've seen Casablanca. Even several time in a theater. Yes, we all stood and sang along. We're funny that way. And this article from 2015 sums it up rather nicely. https://seveninchesofyourtime.com/cinemas-greatest-scene-casablanca-and-la-marseillaise/
ReplyDeleteCasablanca is one of my favorites. I too saw that article and it just reinforced the feeling.
ReplyDeleteBTW Theo Epstein's uncle was the screenwriter.
Agree that the article does a great job of analyzing a great movie. There are a couple of nuances to the Marseillaise scene I would add, though.
ReplyDeleteFirst, there's a story that the producers originally wanted the Germans to be singing the Nazi anthem "Die Fahne Hoch", commonly called the Horst Wessel song. But the studio lawyers supposedly pointed out that the song was copyrighted and when the movie was shown in neutral countries (e.g. in South America) they would have to pay royalties to Nazi Germany. So they changed the song to "Die Wacht Am Rhein," which was in the public domain. But that song is perfect! Better, in fact, than the Horst Wessel song for this scene. It celebrates the Watch on the Rhine, the heroic defenders protecting the Fatherland against the evil invaders . . . the French. It was written in the mid 1800s and France was a long-time enemy -- Napoleon's armies had devastated Germany only a couple of generations earlier. For Germans to be singing this song in a French cafe was a calculated insult, one that would not have been lost on the French patrons.
Then there's Yvonne. The "Seven Inches" article does a great job of showing how her three scenes symbolize the moral progression of the whole film. What struck me, thanks to my high school French, is the point in the Marseillaise scene where we see a close-up of her face. La Marseillaise is a pretty bloodthirsty song, and she appears at the exact moment when the song describes "the growls of those ferocious soldiers, they are coming into our very homes to disembowel our sons and companions." This from a woman who earlier in the film had been, um, dating one of those soldiers. Brilliant irony!
To me this illustrates a problem with foreign language films: there
must be many, many cultural and linguistic subtleties that we miss
without knowing it, things that subtitles just can't convey.
Thanks for those details. They add a lot.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you about foreign language films. Even with subtitles you lose most of the history and the meaning. We're poorer for it.