Daily Dialogue — September 10, 2014

RICK: Don’t you sometimes wonder if it’s worth all this? I mean what you’re fighting for? 
LASZLO: We 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: What of it? Then it’ll be out of its misery .

Rick reaches in his jacket for his cigarette case, opens it, and takes out a cigarette.

LASZLO: You know how you sound, Monsieur Blaine? Like a man who’s trying to convince himself of something he doesn’t believe in his heart. Each of us has a destiny, for good or for evil. 
RICK: Yes, I get the point.

Rick lights his cigarette.

LASZLO: I wonder if you do. I wonder if you know that you’re trying to escape from yourself and that you’ll never succeed.

— 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: Wisdom.

Trivia: The film’s success led to plans for a sequel, which was to be called Brazzaville. Ingrid Bergman was not available, so Geraldine Fitzgerald was considered for Ilsa before the project was killed. It was not until the late 1990s and Michael Walsh’s novel “As Time Goes By” that a true sequel ever came to pass.

Dialogue On Dialogue: At the start of the story, Rick is a cynic. There are two characters who heavily influence the rekindling of the idealism which lies suppressed in his psyche. One is Ilsa, the story’s Attractor, who awakens Rick’s emotional life. The other is Laszlo. He can be seen to be a projection of Rick’s ‘higher self,’ the freedom fighter he used to be… and inspired once again to join the ranks of the good by the wisdom conveyed to him in word and deed by Laszlo.

If you have a suggestion for this week’s theme, please post in comments.

Comment Archive