I’m not sure what non-cinephiles, or at least those who don’t love Casablanca (US, 1942), will make of this film but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a ‘making of a classic’ film but more than that as it’s also a portrayal of its director, Hungarian Michael Curtiz. In addition, in his feature film debut director Tamas Yvan Topolanszky, and his co-writer Zsuzsanna Bak, have added a contemporary layer where the trope of ‘make America great’ and the horrendous treatment of migrants is also addressed. If that layer isn’t sufficient then there’s the narrative about Curtiz’s estranged daughter seeking him out. It’s a heady mix which is mostly pulled off.
Ferenc Lengyel, in the titular role, is superb showing the bastard on the set to have a vulnerable side (though not when anyone is looking). Curtiz dramatises the conflict between the Office of War Information (OWI), on the one side, and Curtiz with his producer, Hal B Wallis, on the other. The OWI was created to inject propaganda into Hollywood’s films after Pearl Harbor. There was also the uncertainty about how to end the film; apparently it was a rare Hollywood film that was shot in the order of the script as Curtiz, and his scriptwriters the Epstein brothers (superbly played by Rafael and Yan Feldman, the other writer, Howard Koch, isn’t seen) scramble to resolve the narrative satisfactorily.
Declan Hannigan plays the oleaginous Johnson of the OWI, with the ‘if you’re not for us you’re against us’ attitude. It’s through him that the Trumpian politics are channeled and if it’s a little contrived, it’s forgivable as the stupidity of insularity has to be emphasised. There’s also contrivance (at least I assume there is) in the way Curtiz’s relationship with his daughter, Kitty (Evelyn Dobos), is paralleled with the way the ending of Casablanca evolves. Again, artistic licence is more than justified in a film that is such a pleasure to watch.
Like most of Frantz, scintillating monochrome cinematography is used but here its pinpoint clarity works for me. As noted in the post on the former, I don’t find modern black and white photography convincing. Of course, the filmmakers aren’t trying to make their film look as if it was made years ago but that’s the way I perceive it. However, in Curtiz, the estranging effect of old-and-modern worked because, by drawing attention to itself, it emphasised we are looking at a representation of the making of a classic film. (I’m aware that this perception is probably peculiar to me as I’ve not heard of anyone else ‘suffering’ from it).
Zoltán Dévényi’s cinematography is brilliant. Apparently the film was shot on a low budget, which does’t show, and scenes are mostly confined to the set. However this hasn’t stopped Topolanszky mimicking Curtiz’s penchant for Expressionist set-ups and chiaroscuro lighting. No doubt it would have looked stupendous in the cinema.
Although most of the action takes place on the set, Bergman and Bogart are only ever seen out of focus; an elegant way of avoiding failing to adequately represent these incandescent stars of the silver screen.
In fact the film’s so good I need to watch Casablanca again.
The Case for Global Film 