Critical Insights: Casablanca (Book review)

Edited by James Plath. Salem Press. April 2016. ISBN:
978-1-61925-876-1.

I stumbled upon the movie Casablanca one rainy winter afternoon
in 1957. I was in seventh grade, my parents were away, so I decided to watch an
old, 1942 movie on TV, a movie I had never heard of before, Casablanca.
I didn’t know it had won an Oscar for Best Picture of the Year. I didn’t know
who Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains,
or any of the stars were. I didn’t know it was fast becoming the most-watched
movie of all time on early TV. I only knew that when I finished it, I loved it.
Then I came across it again a few years later in a college film class where I
learned I wasn’t alone in my admiration for it. When I married in 1972, I took
my wife to see it because she had never heard of it, and she, too, fell in love
with the film. Since then I’ve owned it on Betamax tape, VHS, DVD, and now
Blu-ray. My wife and I have probably watched it fifty times or more since.

I mention this because no matter how many times I watch the
film or read about it, I learn something new. So it was a decided pleasure to
see that Professor of English James Plath of Illinois Wesleyan University had
edited a critical edition of essays on the subject of what had become my
favorite movie of all time. Critical Insights: Casablanca is more than a
reference book; it’s an insightful, erudite, thoughtful, and entirely
delightful volume, coming at the movie from over a dozen different angles from
over a dozen different scholars, film buffs, film teachers, and film
historians. Lots of “Professors” in here. Each of the essays uses a slew of
reliable source materials, each essay fully annotated at the end. For anyone
who loves the film as I do, who wants to learn more about its origins, its
production, its stars, its themes, its producer, its director, its writers, its
music, and its place in film history, Critical Insights: Casablanca is
the ideal companion for a few long, studious winter nights or a few short,
pleasant summer evenings.

Here’s a rundown on the essays and authors included in the
book:

“On Casablanca” by James Plath

“Michael Curtiz: One of Hollywood’s Most Versatile
Directors” by James Plath

“Tips of the Hat: The Critical Response to Casablanca”
by Brennan M. Thomas

“Such Much? Casablanca, Hitler’s Refugees, and the
Hollywood Screen” by Noah Isenberg

“Casablanca and Pop Culture’s Embrace” by Kathy
Merlock Jackson

“Bogie Noir: Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon” by
Li Zeng

“I Stick My Neck Out for Nobody: Rick Blaine’s Anti-heroism”
by Erik Esckilsen

“Ilsa’s Sacrifice: Gender, History, and Casablanca’s
Conversion Narrative” by Linda Mokdad

“Classical Hollywood, Race, and Casablanca” by Delia
Malia Konzett

“Defining Classical Hollywood Narration in Casablanca”
by Eric S. Faden

“Adlibbing Greatness: Casablanca’s Screenplay” by
Kirk Honeycutt

“Here’s Looking at You . . . and You: The Actors’
Contributions” by Christopher S. Long

“This Crazy World: Cinematic Space and the Casualties of Casablanca”
by Larrie Dudenhoeffer

“Beyond Hollywood: Casablanca as World Cinema” by
Björn Nordfjörd

“The Undercut Auteur: Michael Curtiz and Casablanca’s
Iconic Imagery, Motifs, and Symbols” by Michael O’Conner

“The Music of Casablanca” by James Plath

“Casablanca and the Search for an Auteur” by
Paul Morrison

James Plath

Of course, with so many different perspectives on the film,
you’re bound to run into a variety of writing styles and viewpoints, some of
which you may agree with, some not; some of which you may find exhilarating,
some of it perhaps boring. It isn’t as though you’re reading a single outlook
on things from a single writer that you know. Thus, there will be times when
you just have to say, no, I don’t agree with that; hell, no, that’s not right;
or such-and-such author was too scholarly in his or her approach; or, yes, I’ve
always thought that myself. It’s fun to read the diverse, often disparate
angles people take on things, whether you concur or not. Then, too, you will
find some overlap among the essays. They are all writing about just one film,
after all, so there is bound to be some degree of repetition in the subjects covered. No matter; if you read the essays attentively and judge each on its own
merits, you’ll enjoy yourself and pick up a wealth of information.

It’s hard to pick favorite essays among so many enlightening
ones, but I think my own favorites were “Bogie Noir” by Li Zeng; “Here’s
Looking at You . . . and You: The Actors’ Contributions” by Christopher S.
Long; and, because of my interest in music, “The Music of Casablanca” by
Professor Plath.

Why were these chapters favorites among so many fascinating
ones? First, growing up as I did in the 1950’s, I had never heard of film noir
until college. Then one of my film studies professors introduced the subject
but never mentioned Bogart. In the present book, the author argues that not
only was Bogart’s The Maltese Falcon the first noir film but that Casablanca
exhibits classic elements of noir as well, especially in its use of atmosphere
and setting. I can buy that. In terms of the characters in Casablanca,
I’ve always thought they were the heart of the film, and I enjoyed Mr. Long’s
illuminating takes on their motivations; besides which, Long’s writing is among
the most eloquent yet easy to understand in the book. Finally, who could forget
the music in the film. Plath calls attention to Max Steiner’s score and the
film’s many songs, making Casablanca not quite a musical in the
generally accepted sense but a musical movie, nonetheless. Reminds me of when I
told a friend I thought the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? was a good
musical, and he said “What?” He’d never even noticed the continuous music and
songs in the film until I brought it to his attention, and then said “Oh, yeah.
I guess you’re right.” Plath is right about Casablanca.  

No, you don’t have to be a Casablanca fanatic as I am
to appreciate the book, nor do you have to be a scholar to find new insights
into a great film. Sure, you could find much material like this on-line for
free, but, then, you wouldn’t have it all in one place, nor would you find it
so well organized into a coherent whole. You just have to have an open and
inquisitive mind to appreciate the breadth of knowledge on display here. That
you may find yourself being entertained along the way is like icing on the
cake.

JJP

Juska: Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say (Book review)

A novel by Jane Juska. Berkley Books/Penguin Group, 2015.



"It is a truth universally acknowledged that every man in possession of a wife must be in want of a son." --Mr. Edward Bennet



"If only poor Mother had lived to tell me of the infamy that would be my wedding night." --Mrs. Marianne Bennet



Having read some time ago Jane Juska's hugely successful autobiographical memoir A Round-Heeled Woman (2003) and recognized what a splendid writer she is, I should never have had any doubts about her latest book, Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say. However, this time was different. She was writing a novel, a fiction, and a historical-literary one at that. Happily, my concerns were quickly dispelled. Before I was little more than a few pages in, I realized that Ms. Juska could write a zombie apocalypse chronicle and it would be head and shoulders above anything else written in the field. Although Mrs. Bennet features no zombies, it is delightfully charming, witty, and outright funny.



Juska chose as the starting point of her novel a work she had known for many years, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. But, I hear you say, haven't other authors done this sort of thing before? Haven't we had, for example, any number of prefaces to or continuations of Elizabeth Bennet's misadventures, some of them even set in modern times? Of course we have, so Ms. Juska takes a different approach while examining much the same social and cultural landscape as the original. Juska writes her novel from the points of view of the Bennet family parents, Edward and Marianne, when they were young and in the first years of their marriage, some twenty-odd years before the circumstances of Pride and Prejudice. So, no, this is neither a pastiche (Ms. Juska is very much her own person with her own style, and while her writing may remind one of Ms. Austen's, it is still Juska all the way) nor a sequel (a prequel is more like it, yet even then the change in emphasis to the parents dispels any notion of imitation).



Here, in order not to give away too much of the book's plot, I quote from the publisher's notes: "1785 was to be the most marvelous year of Marianne's life, until an unfortunate turn of events left her in a compromised state and desperate for a husband to care--or rather cover--for her. Now, she is stuck in an undesirable marriage to Mr. Edward Bennet, a man desperate in his own way for a male heir. But as she is still carrying a smoldering desire for the handsome Colonel Miller, Mrs. Bennet must constantly find new, clever ways to avoid her husband's lascivious advances until she is once again reunited with her dashing Colonel. Except that the best-laid plans of a woman in good standing can so often go awry, especially when her contrary husband has plans and desires of his own. . . ."

Jane Juska

In other words, both the husband and wife have married for reasons other than love: The husband to provide a male heir for his estate (women had no rights of inheritance in those days or many rights of any kind) and to provide himself a measure of relief from his own lust; the wife because she needs a husband to maintain her respectability. They are not happy with their lots in life when the husband discovers that his wife does not share his more-carnal desires, and the wife recognizes that she cannot have the man she really wants and, worse, that the husband she does have is, as he himself admits, "a boorish, awkward, country lout." Life can be so cruel. "O la!"



OK, now I must admit to another misgiving I had before starting the book, a misgiving related to my own recent literary proclivities. I had been reading almost exclusively crime, mystery, and detective novels for the previous half dozen years (Henning Mankell, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, John Grisham, Paula Hawkins, David Baldacci, that kind of thing), laced with the occasional popular-science book. Would suddenly turning my attentions to an eighteenth-century comedy of manners really be my cup of English tea? Again, I should have had no such worries so long as Jane Juska was in charge. And imagine my surprise when as things turned out the Bennets were not as genteel as I had expected them to be. The book is a frisky, satiric romp, never explicit in the nature of so many modern titles but playfully sexual enough to hold one's interest.



Anyway, Ms. Juska tells the story through a series of writings by her two main characters (Mr. Bennet in a diary and Mrs. Bennet in letters to her sister). In establishing this alternating framework, Juska is able to explore two very differing points of view on essentially the same topics. Marianne will describe an event, and in the next chapter Edward will usually describe the same event from his own perspective. Often the views are hilariously at odds, as the wife is something of an airhead (or, to be fair, naive, as she is still in her teens) and the husband a confirmed loggerhead (no other way to sugarcoat that one). The husband's diary, he says, is a private affair detailing his lascivious desires for his wife, his tenant farmer's daughter, and any other girl he sees, insisting he wants the whole thing burned to ashes when he dies. The wife's letters describe her continued longings for her dear colonel, and she doesn't want her sister sharing them with anybody. "Be still, my heart."



That Ms. Juska should look more favorably on the nincompoopery of the wife over the blunders of the husband is the author's understandable prerogative. (Mrs. Bennet is the titular heroine of the novel, after all.) As Juska writes in an Afterword, "You know, I think Mrs. Bennet got a bad deal. Five children in eight years is enough to unsettle anybody. On the other hand, maybe she was always dotty, or do you think she got that way after she married Mr. Bennet or only as all those daughters were being born?"



Incidentally, there are more Janes involved with this book than you can shake a stick at (if that's your idea of a good time). There's Jane Juska, there's Jane Austen, and there's the main character's sister Jane to whom she writes her letters. My Random House Unabridged says that "Jane is a female given name derived from French Jeanne, Old French Jehane, from Medieval Latin Johanna (John). As a generic name for 'girl, girlfriend' it is attested from 1906 in U.S. slang. It may owe its 'everywoman' reputation rather to its association with John." I dunno; maybe Ms. Juska liked having Mrs. Bennet write to Jane in order to personalize the messages, as though the main character were speaking directly to the book's author. Or not.



Ms. Juska's strong suit has always been her ability to shape and tone her writing. She is a true wordsmith, whether she's describing Mrs. Bennet's visits to the neighbors, a trip to Bath, or a grand ball. The old dictum of "show not tell" is in evidence in everything Jane Juska writes, and we get a genuine feel for being there with the characters and a sincere understanding of their situations. More important, Juska does it all with grace, elegance, wit, and good humor. There isn't a page goes by that won't have you at the very least smiling and at the very best laughing out loud.



Flaws? Yes. For me, the story's 300-or-so page length seemed too short. No sooner do you get engrossed in it than it's over. Well, I suppose that is also a tribute to Juska's writing style. She pulls you in, and you want more. Although the book may fly by, its large number of very short chapters maintains a healthy, lively rhythm and forward-moving pace.



Jane Juska's Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say is an entertaining read, more amusing and more engaging as it goes along. You can't ask much more of an author than that.



JJP



To listen to actress Lindy Nettleton read a brief excerpt from the book, click here: