Green, Gary. "The Happiest of Happy Accidents"? A Reevaluation of "Casablanca" Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Vol. 1, No. 2. (Autumn, 1987), pp. 2-13.

While many have called Casablanca a “happy accident” or suggested that the film serendipitously arose from a series of problems and random mistakes, Gary Green suggests a reevaluation of the film looking at it as a product of its director, Michael Curtiz. He says that the distinct ties between the visual and narrative aspects of the film are what make it most enduring and that Curtiz is chiefly responsible.

The main visual and narrative motif that is carried out in the movie is the triangle. Rick is part of two distinct triangles: the romantic triangle between him, Ilsa and Lazlo, and the political triangle with him, Strasser, and Renault. Visually Curtiz explores these two triangles by positioning the actors within the frame to represent their ties and connections. Through positioning Rick at the same spot at the table at the initial meetings of both triangles, he makes a connection between them. He uses two shots and close ups in the climactic last scene to show the breaking up of the triangles. In the end Ilsa is visually and narratively paired with Lazlo, while Rick is paired with Renault.

The other style that Curtiz lends to the film is the look of the films of the film noir period. Following in the footsteps of German Expressionists, his dark style with harsh painted on shadows help the audience become closer tied to Rick’s inner feelings. As the film goes on the style becomes darker as we become more and more involved in Rick. Even the stylistically light flashback sequence ends with a darker more sinister scene when they part with the train leaving. The end of the film is particularly dark visually with the airport almost lost in darkness. These stylistic elements that bring us closer into the film are the main reason for the film’s lasting ability, and the reason why it has become regarded as a masterpiece. Green wants to make sure that in our reevaluation of the film, we give credit where it’s due: to Michael Curtiz.

Richie begins his analysis of Ikiru by going over Kanji Watanabe’s, the protagonist’s, actions in the film and explains how they relate to Watanabe’s search for affirmation, for life.  He explains how Watanabe searches for solace in self-pity, family, pleasure, his job and devotion to someone (his female coworker), all of which do not work in giving him solace.  He ends up finding solace and meaning in devotion to something, an idea, which is embodied by the park he wants to build in a poor Tokyo neighborhood.
Richie’s analysis of Ikiru focuses on the translation of the title, Ikiru, which is “to live.”  Richie touches on Kurosawa’s fondness for Dostoevsky, an existentialist, in order to frame Ikiru as a story of a man trying to validate his existence.  As Watanabe “layer after layer peeled away,”  we realize that it is Watanabe’s actions that make him exist both while he is alive and posthumously.  Richie explains how Kurosawa highlights the “irony of the film,”  by splitting the film into two parts: one told by an omniscient narrator while Watanabe is alive and one told by the attendees at his wake.  The men at the wake, mostly Watanabe’s co-workers, misrepresent Watanabe’s actions at first, but when they finally begin to understand what Watanabe accomplished and why, they are too drunk to follow through with anything.  Only one of the office workers takes Watanabe’s actions to heart, but as Kurosawa shows us, after being reprimanded, “he disappears behind his piles of papers as though he were being buried alive.”
An interesting element that Richie brings up in his analysis is the music used in the film.  The classical piece used in the opening, is known as a ricercare, which, Richie explains, “means to search for again, to hunt for, or to follow.”   While Richie acknowledges that there is nothing to suggest whether this was intentional or not, “this, after all, is what the film is about.”   Watanabe’s search for meaning in his life is the impetus behind the action in Ikiru.  Perhaps because of this, Richie’s analysis seems correct, because we all, as humans, search for meaning in our life and hope that our actions can speak for themselves both during our lives and after we are deceased.
    Richie’s final conclusion (which is actually a quote by Richard Brown), that “the meaning of [Watanabe’s] life is what he commits the meaning of his life to be,”  is a very positive take on the film, but the films beauty comes from the fact that it can be read many ways.  Richie harms his argument though, by using lengthy quotations from the film, which are not always completely relevant and ending his analysis with a description of the film by Kurosawa himself which does little to enhance Richie’s argument and only serves to show Kurosawa’s unhappiness with both the film’s creation and the final product.  The negativity of Kurosawa’s own analysis of his film puts a damper on the positive reading by Richie and the sense one gets after seeing the film that he or she has just seen one of the greatest films of all time.