Casablanca

Casablanca

Mise-en-scene

The Mise-en-scene in Casablanca is fairly Realist. the costumes, set and props are all realistic for the time in which it was set (World War II). The only formalist aspect of the mise-en-scene is the reoccurring theme of stripes, which appears in mise-en-scene (the clothes of the characters) as well as in chiaroscuro.

Lighting

The lighting is quite formalist in that is fairly chiaroscuro. There are lots of carefully placed light/shadow stripes the fall across the bodies and faces of characters during scenes.

I see this to symbolise Casablanca as a prison, because although people went to Casablanca to escape, it was also very difficult to get out of. Other than this, the lighting isn't particularly remarkable, although certain character's faces seem to get illuminated more than others, such as ilsa.

Camerawork

There isn't anything particularly formalist about the Camerawork. No fast tracks/zooms or pans or any odd angled shots. In fact the camerawork is pretty straight forward consisting of three main shots: long shot of a room or outside (e.g. the night club or the plane taking off), mid shot of a few characters talking (e.g. Laslo and Blaine doing a deal) and a close up of a character's face (e.g. Ilsa crying).

Editing

There is a fair amount of continuity editing. Although to be honest, this is a convention of Film in general and Hollywood cinema in particular, and because there isn't a particularly large amount of it, this doesn't identify Casablanca as particularly formalist, or more formalist than other Hollywood classics.

Sound

The Sound in the film isn't very formalist. There are no particular sound effects of voiceovers. However, although it is a convention of a feature film having a track of music in the background to a scene is formalist because it's not something that you get in real life. Especially not the kind of dramatic orchestral stabs that are used in Casablanca at points of tension. There isn't anything formalist about the speech in the scenes. No repetition of scenes or anything.