Film historians have long been divided on whether or not the 1942 classic Casablanca technically counts as a film noir. Casablanca is often ranked alongside Citizen Kane and The Godfather as one of the greatest American movies ever made. Humphrey Bogart stars in Casablanca as ex-pat Rick Blaine, who’s reunited with his former lover Ilsa Lund, played by Ingrid Bergman, amidst the Nazi-occupied horrors of World War II. They rekindle their romance in the face of fascist forces, but fate has other plans.
Over the years, movie critics have dissected and analyzed Casablanca every which way, but they’ve struggled to pin down a clear genre classification. While it’s easy to label it a straightforward drama, there are a few other genres at play. It’s a war movie, filmed at the height of the war it depicts, and it’s a quintessential romance, charting the love story of two people who can’t be together. Casablanca is sometimes referred to as a film noir, but does it meet the official criteria?
No, Casablanca Isn’t A Film Noir
Casablanca Doesn’t Meet The Requirements For Film Noir Classification
Casablanca has some of the characteristics of a classic film noir. It deals with a complex moral dilemma: Rick has to choose between rekindling his relationship with Ilsa and helping her new husband escape from the Nazis. It uses shadowy, expressionistic lighting, which is common in the noir genre, particularly toward the end of the movie. Casablanca also makes extensive use of flashbacks and voiceover narration, which are frequently used in film noirs.
Casablanca was one of the inaugural selections for preservation in the National Film Registry.
But in spite of these elements, Casablanca isn’t technically a film noir. Film noirs are typically detective stories about a sleuth — whether it’s a cop, a P.I., an investigative journalist, or just an interested party — trying to unravel a mystery, but the only mystery in Casablanca is the question of why Ilsa left Rick so abruptly following their tryst in Paris. Casablanca might have the look and feel of a film noir, especially when the characters are hiding out from Nazi police officers, but it doesn’t meet the essential requirements for film noir classification.
Why Casablanca Is A Must-Watch For Film Noir Fans Anyway
Casablanca Is Still Very Close To Noir & Its Cast Is Full Of Noir Legends
Although it’s not technically a film noir, Casablanca is still a must-see movie for fans of film noir. It’s very close to a film noir — it has all the intrigue, betrayal, and murky morality of a film noir — and the cast of Casablanca is jam-packed with film noir icons: Bogart, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet. Claude Rains appeared in a lot of great noir movies, too. It might not be a film noir, but Casablanca is not to be missed by diehard fans of the genre.
