Daily Dialogue — January 15, 2017

Rick: Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this? I mean what you’re fighting for.
Victor Laszlo: You might as well question why we breathe. If we stop breathing, we’ll die. If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.
Rick: Well, what of it? It’ll be out of its misery.
Victor Laszlo: You know how you sound, Mr. Blaine? Like a man who’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe in his heart.

— Casablanca (1942), screenplay by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Advice.

Trivia: Ingrid Bergman’s line “Victor Laszlo is my husband, and was, even when I knew you in Paris” was almost cut from the film because during that time it was deemed inappropriate for a film to depict or suggest a woman romancing with another man if she were already married. However, it was pointed out that later in the film she explains that she had thought Laszlo was dead at the time, and the censors allowed the line to stay in.

Dialogue On Dialogue: In my take on Casablanca, Victor Laszlo is Mentor to Rick’s Protagonist. This line of dialogue zeroes in on a key truth: Rick may play the cynic, but in his heart, he still believes. The subtext of Laszlo’s interchange here with Rick is advice, that Rick not only should join the cause (fighting the Germans) because it’s the right thing to do, it’s also the right thing for RICK to do in terms of his personal transformation.