Thursday 29 July 2010

--CASABLANCA--

Last night I watched Casablanca, an film made during WWII starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I'm not one of those people who watches loads of old black and white films and know the life histories of their stars (one of my aims for the summer is to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's for the first time) but this was a really great film. Briefly, it's about the underground movement in Casablanca, Africa during the Second World War, but of course there's a love story tied up in there as well...a love triangle, in fact. (See first photo).

The thing I love about old films such as this is comparing it to modern films. Apart from the obvious absence of colour, there's a host of other differences: very little background music, lots of long static sections of dialogue without much action a limited set. And I love how, whenever they do close-ups, they do it the proper way, with a gazillion lights all focused on the actor's face. Ingrid Bergman looks even more unfairly beautiful when her face is illuminated and softened and all silvery.

And, of course, even though this is wartime Africa, she still manages to waltz around in fabulous clothes!




(google.com)

3 comments:

luciana said...

So gorgeous, I love these old pictures!

thimbles and gingham said...

i've never seen casablanca but you'll love breakfast at tiffanys.

Vintage Mavens said...

I think the movie that made the most money in history is still Gone With The Wind. Isn't that funny that it's STILL number one?? I only watch old movies, and Casablanca is up there as one of my favorites :)