The Clichés are Having a Ball

[very_improbable]

1) I recently watched Casablanca again with some friends, like ya do, and realized that every time I see it, everyone in the movie is flirting with Rick Blaine more. I know the movie isn't changing, so I guess it's just a question of Which Show I'm Watching. (Who was it who started that quasi-meme a while back about what show[s] you're watching when you watch e.g. Atlantis--are you watching the Teyla Is Awesome Show, the Stuff Gets Blowed Up Show, etc.? It's really hard to search for, but some of you must know what I'm talking about.)

2) Per Umberto Eco:

These three unhappy (or Impossible) loves take the form of a Triangle. But in the archetypal love-triangle there is a Betrayed Husband and a Victorious Lover. Here instead both men are betrayed and suffer a loss, but, in this defeat (and over and above it) an additional element plays a part, so subtly that one is hardly aware of it. It is that, quite subliminally, a hint of male or Socratic love is established. Rick admires Victor, Victor is ambiguously attracted to Rick, and it almost seems at a certain point as if each of the two were playing out the duel of sacrifice in order to please the other.

...so yeah, the love triangle in The Dark Knight is pretty much the love triangle from Casablanca y/n?

Rachel Dawes and Ilsa Lund also both have the distinction of being badass[1] and quite able to hold their own among absurdly powerful and/or dangerous men--and, when they get the opportunity to express opinions, being right about practically everything--but ultimately left without agency at the most crucial moments in their own stories. Rachel doesn't even get to communicate her last intended message to Bruce, because Alfred decides it's better for Bruce that the message be destroyed. (Dear Bruce: I guess when you operate on a policy of concealing things from people For Their Own Good, you shouldn't be surprised if someone else pulls the same trick on you...)

Oh, and as it happens, since Bruce is operating under a wrong belief about Rachel's feelings, he intends to conceal what he thinks is the truth from Harvey--much as Rick tells that chivalrous lie to Victor at the end of Casablanca about Ilsa not loving Rick anymore--but ironically [no, really, it is ironic!], Bruce's lie-of-omission is the truth. Not that it makes any sense that Bruce expresses the intent to conceal Rachel's apparent plans from Harvey, because in order to understand anything at all about the Rachel/Bruce situation and why she was "going to wait for [him]" you pretty much have to KNOW THAT BRUCE IS BATMAN. But that's more in the realm of attempting to get the plot to make literal sense, which is a losing proposition with either of these movies.


[1] Ilsa packs heat and sneaks into Rick's apartment in the middle of the night with Nazis everywhere, and Rachel faces down the Joker and gets dropped off a building, people. They eat danger for goddamn breakfast.

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Is The Dark Knight less, more, or equally scary to the last Batman film (in terms of violence and suspence, not bats. I'm fine with bats)? I'd like to see it, but don't want to spend the whole time with my eyes closed.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I'm not sure I remember Batman Begins completely enough to make a comparison. TDK definitely has more violence than I thought was allowed in a PG-13-rated movie; the violent acts tend to happen quickly and just offscreen, but evidently they can get away with showing a good deal of disturbing buildup to violence as long as they don't show blood. I can think of one scene where I looked away the second time I watched it despite knowing that they were going to cut away right before the Joker [SPOILER]ed that guy. And there are a couple of VERY effective startle-scares.

[tree_and_leaf]

Which is stupid, because that sort of thing scares me more than buckets of blood....

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's suspense that I can't stand (well, that and really horrific gore - I'm not going to see a film with chainsaws in it). I like the X-Files, but end up spending all my time shouting "Don't do that" in my head.

It sounds like this one might be one for the video unless Visiting Sister really wants to see it.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Your Friends Are Not Watching the Same Show You Are (And That's Okay) (http://firefox.org/news/articles/1454/1/Your-Friends-Are-Not-Watching-the-Same-Show-You-Are-And-That039s-Okay/Page1.html).

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Aha! Thank you!

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I never thought that Victor was flirting with Rick. It seems to me that he either lectures or mentors Rick in an attempt to steer Rick back onto the right path. Now Louis OTOH, is constantly flirting with Rick.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

I suppose Victor doesn't really flirt as such. (Louis is the obvious one, but this latest time I watched it I was like, "Good lord, everyone who gets in the frame with Rick is flirting with him! Carl the waiter is flirting with Rick!") I think Eco's "ambiguously attracted" description is appropriate, though.

Victor is thinly written, of course, and I think the conventional wisdom is that he's boring and/or the performance is flat? but I tend to think Paul Henreid knew what he was doing, emphasizing unflappability over heroism, and giving a gentle and plausible touch to some pretty corny lines. Which is to say perhaps that although as far as the script is concerned Victor is trying to get Rick to see the light, Henreid keeps it from sounding like a lecture, IMO.

[strangemuses.livejournal.com]

I agree with your description of Henreid's performance. I think that he was understating the character on purpose. Played larger, the character could easily have come off sounding cartoonish and unreal. As is, Victor seems to be to be equally weary and defiant, and wholly decent and likeable.

I do think you're correct that virtually everyone who gets near Rick flirts with him, except for the Nazis of course.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

IMO, Rick is more man-crushing on Victor than the other way around-- actually, now that I think about it, their dynamic *is* kind of Harvey/Bruce-like, in the sense that the cynical character sees in the idealistic character something he wishes he could have-- hope, nobility, whatever. Of course, Rick lost it, and then actually gets it *back*, whereas Bruce never had it in the first place and maybe isn't even capable of it at all.

I like Victor. He's not as flashy or tragic or funny as some of the other characters, but yeah, I find him believable. And likeable.

Also:

Rachel doesn't even get to communicate her last intended message to Bruce, because Alfred decides it's better for Bruce that the message be destroyed.

Well, *technically,* Rachel did tell Alfred to turn it over to Bruce whenever he felt the time was right, so I don't think it's really overstepping his bounds in a big way to decide "ok, that time is, actually, NEVER." I do see what you're saying-- she gets killed AND silenced, but this is (for me) one where I blame the writer for setting it up so that it had to be like that, as opposed to the character for doing it. If that makes any sense.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Well, *technically,* Rachel did tell Alfred to turn it over to Bruce whenever he felt the time was right, so I don't think it's really overstepping his bounds in a big way to decide "ok, that time is, actually, NEVER." I do see what you're saying-- she gets killed AND silenced, but this is (for me) one where I blame the writer for setting it up so that it had to be like that, as opposed to the character for doing it. If that makes any sense.

Yeah, no, I see the logic in that. She did leave it to his discretion and since what follows is, to put it mildly, an extreme circumstance, it's not so strange for him to take an extreme action. I don't really blame Alfred either so much as I blame the text. And it's certainly consistent with the role Alfred takes throughout.

*happysigh*

[kumquatweekend.livejournal.com]

... I like your brain.

And I can't wait for us to see together and hash it out all over again!