Nobody Comes to Rick's (anymore)

A friend of mine is taking a film studies class at Marin College in California. Last week his professor showed the class “Casablanca.” That’s number three on the AFI list of Best Films Of All Time “Casablanca.” Humphrey Bogart, Paul Henrid, Ingrid Berman, Claude Rains “Casablanca.” As Time goes by “Casablanca.” That one.

I have often suspected that Casablanca is the most quoted movie ever. It might be “The Wizard of Oz.” or perhaps “The Godfather” (everything comes back to “The Godfather” eventually), but Casablanca has got to be up there. It is certainly more quoted then the AFI’s #1 movie, “Citizen Kane.” It has, after all, provided the title for two other hit films “The Usual Suspects” and “Play It Again Sam.” We all know what it means when somebody says “I’m shocked to discover there is gambling going on in this establishment!”

Of all the gin joints in all the towns of all the world. She walks into mine.

Anyway, his students hated it. They thought it was slow and boring. They thought it was overacted. They thought the humor was lame. They thought it was terrible beginning to end. That’s no big deal. There’s no reason why somebody under 25 should identify with a love story made sixty years ago. On the other hand, when asked what kind of movies they had seen recently that the students thought were better, the general consensus was “Resident Evil II.”

Now that’s scary.

But it raises the question, could “Casablanca” have been the “Resident Evil” or its day? Could people have thought of it as a ridiculous bit of fluff? Could “Resident Evil II” be considered a classic in 30 years? Could it end up on the AFI list in the year 2100? After all, as a post modernist I have to recognize that canonization is impose an older generation’s values onto a younger generation, and that the student’s opinions of “Resident Evil II” are just as valid as the professor’s adulation of “Casablanca.” Susan Sontag in her famous essay “Notes on Camp,” said “Maltese Falcon” was among the greatest camp movies ever made, and the same reasons would apply to “Casablanca” which would mark Casablanca as gloriously bad.

It is campy, isn’t it?

And “Resident Evil II?” Maybe “Resident Evil II” is really a much better movie then “Casablanca,” and me, the professor and Woody Allen just don’t get it.