I had to watch Casablanca this week for homework. Yes, you heard correctly – at the age of 37, I have homework. You see I’m going to school, writers school in fact. Lord knows I needed to go.
I am having so much frolicking fun with it. The writers studio is in Bronte with a view to the ocean and my teachers are tantalising. I sit at the freshly painted table to write with my purple pen and my arm sticks to the brown lacquer from the sea salt spray. Yet I still can’t rid my penchant for absurd alliterations.
I digress.
Casablanca. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but it seriously is worth studying for character development. For you guys who haven’t seen it, I’ll help you with the plot line. Grab a nicely coiffed but-shell-of-a-man fella, set him up drinking heavily in the something that looks like the Victoria Room in Darlinghurst, grab a hot chick with an accent who was married to some other kind of hot guy while she was fooling around with the Victoria Room guy and add in some Germans, French and an earworm of a song played throughout the movie. Then, just to confuse the situation the nicely coiffed guy from the Victoria Room needs to sprout a conscience and then realise there’s something greater than him (and his boozy ways) to live for.
Cue in the fog machine, a few pistols, some tears, really good set lighting, a dead German, a plane to Lisbon and that damned song again and you have the iconic feature Casablanca.
Now either its now ruined permanently for you or it’s enhanced the experience for when you do watch it again.
Nevertheless, I still love the fact that the simple leap of faith – Rick, the main character makes, is to sacrifice his love, selflessly, for a greater good. A good we may never understand in our lives – but something we should always be on the look out for.
The tip, if you need it, is – outside of your own skin and beyond the realms of personal gain. Cue in fog, and that bloody song…
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