Casablanca(Rick's intro scene)

Rick's introduction to Casablanca was a slow build up which made sure that we had a lot of context before meeting the protagonist character. For a film made in the 40's, it was a work of art.

The amount of things you could do with a camera was not very broad in the time that Casablanca was made, so the camerawork was very basic. However, they showed how they could make the most of what they had in this scene particularly. We start with an establishing shot that gives us a lot of context of where we are-Rick's bar. When we enter the bar, the camera follows people around the area, listening to people's conversations. It follows the room from right to left and at the same time, shows us that any one of the minor characters here could have their own potential film. There aren't a lot of closeups in this scene and this is mainly down to the fact that when we do meet Rick, he is portrayed as extremely important. 

Once again, the lighting opportunities weren't as advanced as they are today. One thing that Casablanca did brilliantly however, was the use of shadows. Shadows can mean a lot of things, such as who is good/bad, sad/happy etc. There is a shot here where a man's face is darkened b ya shadow to show that he is possibly up to no good. Also, everything in the scene seems relatively dark apart form two things. These are the sign of Rick's bar, and of course Rick. It is clear that the emphasis is meant to be on Rick in this scene and he is made likeable by showing him as warmer than anyone else.

There are many cuts in this scene. Casablanca was very fond on invisible editing but this scene shows a real lack of it. The camera movement and the many cuts show that there was a lot of editing that took place here to give us as much context as possible. 

In terms of mis-en-scene, the costume design in not only this scene, but the whole movie is very smart. The good guys wear white and bright clothes to symbolise them as the heroes. The bad guys (the Nazis) wear black to show that they are evil. This is done because the film is in black and white. Another noticeable thing in this scene is that the light bounce often created shadows.

The sound is very loud and hectic. You can hear people chatting and generally making noise in the background which shows us that Rick's bar is very packed. Maybe this also means that Rick has a lot of friends or admirers. There is a lot of digestive sound which really puts us in Rick's bar ourselves. It is almost like we are there watching everything through a POV perspective. We hear Sam's music for the first time in this scene and of course, he develops to be a little more than a minor character as the film progresses. 

Much like the whole film, Bogart's performance here is faultless and it really shows how skilled an actor he was. He is playing chess by himself and is often expressionless. This shows us that he is a cold man and is also arrogant enough to not play chess with other people. He could also be seen as a very strategical person here and the chess board symbolises that. Another thing that the chess board could mean is that Rick has a lot of self conflict in his life.