Casablanca & Body Snatchers
by Poep Sa Frank Jude Boccio
I chose Casablanca for the first screening of Cinema Nirvana because it is number 2 on
the American Film Institute’s Top 100 All-Time American Films. As you may know,
Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane is number 1. But Kane was always meant to be a ‘masterpiece.’ Welles was the ‘wonder-kid,’ with a huge budget and free reign over ‘his’ film. He was an auteuer before there was even an auteuer theory of film directors. Kane
is self-consciously designed to ‘wow,’ with amazing innovative deep-focus
cinematography, mind-boggling camera angles and movements, and a Byzantine
storyline. It is also a bit cool and formalistic, and while I admire it, I do not love it.
But Casablanca is an ‘accidental classic!’ It was, at the time of its production, simply another one of the fifty films the Hollywood Film Factory of Warner Bros. put out each year. None of the leads were the studio’s first choice. (Ronald Reagan was first touted for the Bogart role of Rick!) Ingrid Bergman was more concerned with the film she was really psyched to be in, For Whom The Bell Tolls with Gary Cooper, and the script was being written as the film was being shot! At one point, Ingrid Bergman asked Michael Curtiz (the director) “So which one do I end up with?” and he responded, “I’ll tell you as soon as I know!” With all this, an amazing series of causes and conditions led to what is a darn near – if not totally – perfect movie. A humanistic portrayal of redemption with Rick
placed in the positon of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, choosing to be a bodhisattva, putting aside self-cherishing for the liberation of others. The core teaching of Casablanca? It is simply this, from the Gita itself: yogastah kuru karmani – established in enlightenment, perform action.
This month, March 27th, Cinema Nirvana features Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The
original, of course! (Not that the remake with Donald Sutherland is shabby or anything; it
is a classic in its own right). So what could a black-and-white, grade-B, 1950s scifi/horror movie have to enlighten us about? One clue is to contemplate the fate of all
utopian schemes that strive to mold nirvana out of the substance of samsara. Utopia
means ‘no place.’ When we attempt to make no place happen someplace, violence to the
fabric of (social) reality is the result.
Another useful lesson we can perhaps gleam from Body Snatchers, related to the above is
when imagining what a spiritual life, what an enlightened person looks and acts like, be
careful of what you think!
See you at the movies!
Poep Sa Frank Jude
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Frank Jude Boccio | bio
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