Classic Showdown: Debating If Timeless Hits Still Shine Today

Casablanca won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1943, which is kind of a miracle when you realize the script was being rewritten every day on set. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman famously had no idea if Ilsa would end up with Rick or Laszlo until the very last minute. And maybe that chaos is the key. Everyone talks about it like it’s this perfectly constructed story, but I think the seams are starting to show. A lot. Ouch. Okay, so that's the question on the table today. We all agree Casablanca is iconic, a classic. But is it still… good? Does it actually hold up? I say absolutely. And I say we’re in love with the idea of Casablanca more than the film itself.

How can you say that? The central theme is timeless. It’s about a man, Rick, who has locked himself away in cynicism to protect himself from the world. And the entire film is the world, and a woman, demanding that he pick a side. That struggle is universal. That’s fair, Rick’s journey works. But what about Ilsa’s? She barely has one. She’s a beautiful, tragic object that the two men—Rick and Victor Laszlo—get to define themselves against. Her biggest moment of “agency” is when she pulls a gun on Rick, and even then, she can't go through with it. She exists to motivate the men. I hear you, but I think that’s a very twenty-first-century reading.

For the 1940s, she’s incredibly complex. Ingrid Bergman plays her with such genuine conflict. And the fact that she didn't know who Ilsa would choose… that’s not a flaw, that's in the performance! You feel her being torn apart. Bergman is magnificent, I'll give you that. She elevates the material. But let's talk about the other supposedly timeless part: the politics. The Nazis are just… bad guys in hats. There’s no nuance, no ideology, they’re just there to be sneered at. It feels almost cartoonishly simple today. Because it was! The movie was released in November 1942, just as Allied forces were landing in North Africa. This wasn't a historical drama, it was a real-time call to arms.

Its “simplicity” was its strength. It was telling a deeply isolationist America that you can’t stay neutral. There are no sidelines. That's not simple, that's essential. Okay, but we aren't watching it in 1942. We're watching it now. And by modern standards, it’s a moral fairytale. A gorgeous, perfectly-acted fairytale, for sure. But it doesn't challenge an audience in the way we now expect from serious drama. It confirms what we already believe. Maybe. Or maybe we need fairytales that are this well-told. It’s a perfect piece of Hollywood myth-making. It’s not trying to be gritty and realistic. It’s trying to be… noble. And Bogart sells every second of that final, noble sacrifice.

When he tells Laszlo that Ilsa was just pretending to still love him… it’s devastating. And it’s perfect. It is perfect for the men. Rick gets his noble gesture, and Laszlo gets his cause and his wife back. Ilsa gets put on a plane, her own desires once again secondary to the grand, male narrative of the war. We remember "Here's looking at you, kid," but we forget she's the one who has to go on living with their decision. Alright, I'll concede that point. Her fate is decided for her. But the film is so powerful, so iconic, that we almost forgive it. Or maybe we just haven’t been looking close enough. I think that's it exactly. We love the legend.

We love the lines. We love Bogart in that white tux. And we kind of… agree not to talk about the parts that have aged poorly. So the real question isn't just whether Casablanca holds up. It's what we’re willing to overlook in a classic because we love the way it makes us feel. And is there a point where the things we overlook start to matter more than the things we remember?