Slate: Casablanca losing its status w/ younger audiences?

I am reading Isenberg’s book right now. Just beginning the last chapter. This long review makes some good points but almost lost me early when it referenced, as proof of its assertion, the IMDb’s Top 250, an unscientific poll which has decided that The Shawshank Redemption is the best of all and that The Dark Knight is 4th best of all time. On the other hand, the first two Godfathers are at #2 and #3 and 12 Angry Men is #5. But on the third hand, the next real classic era film, The Seven Samurai, is all the way down at #19, beneath Inception and The Matrix.

As to the point, what I like to call The Cult Of The New is very strong right now. The idea that only the most recent, most expensive, most excessive - well, just check out the What do you feel is missing in films today? to find out what these top rated modern films are made of. Coupled with the obsession with the New is the idea that what came before, what made today’s movies possible, is now out of date, dumb, boring, in black & white, and all but useless. It seems you can’t have the one half without the other. (OK, OK. I am speaking very generally. There are many young people who explore and enjoy classic films. So there!)

Anyway, whether Casablanca is losing its status among the upcoming movie-going generations has nothing much to do with Casablanca itself but with whether the Cult Of The New will ever pass. Perhaps when today’s generation – the ones who voted The Dark Knight into #4 – are more mature then Casablanca and the films of the classic era may make a comeback.

Let's cut to the chase to use film vernacular.  Millennials are incapable of appreciating any film or actor that existed before they were pooped out.  At this point do we need more proof they are the most moronic and worthless generation so far?  

Primemovermithrax Pejorative
Maybe it deserves to be regarded as the ultimate big Hollywood movie


Can you cite when/ where it has been regarded as such ?

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What is left is the characters and how much they match real life and truth.

OR how much they act the way we wish that people would act in a given situation.

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But does it contain immutable truths of life, behavior, and desire?
for me ( short reply) Yes.



Edit : Just realized this is a May 2017 re-hash but will leave the post anyhow. 

so, Primemovermithrax Pejorative,  that's a "no" for citation of "ultimate big Hollywood movie".
ok.

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Imo, you are perhaps looking too deeply or reading too much into what was/is a rather straight forward love story set in a troubled time. It was never intended to be a "classic" and yet it has become one. Must be ringing true to some people.

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Not interested in an "Immutable truth" debate (or any debate actually) maybe someone else will be.

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Meanwhile, Here's looking at you, kid

Link to : INCREDIBLY READABLE ASSORTED CASABLANCA TRIVIA


among my favorites :
In the famous scene where the "Marseillaise" is sung over the German song, many of the extras had real tears in their eyes; a large number of them were actual refugees from Nazi persecution in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and were overcome by the emotions the scene brought out.

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Many of the actors who played the Nazis were in fact German Jews who had escaped from Nazi Germany.

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In the 1980s this film's script was sent to readers at a number of major studios and production companies under its original title, "Everybody Comes to Rick's". Some readers recognized the script but most did not. Many complained that the script was "not good enough" to make a decent movie. Others gave such complaints as "too dated", "too much dialog" and "not enough sex".

While it's indeed "propaganda," it isn't shallow or jingoistic about it; the "immutable truths of life, behavior, and desire" are aspirational, and are among the elements that allow Casablanca to resonate with viewers nearly 80 years on. 

The linchpin of the premise can be found in one line, when Ilsa implores Rick, "I'm asking you to put your feelings aside for something more important." Millions did that at the time, and have done so in the decades since, in service to geopolitical interests and otherwise. Themes of nobility and self-sacrifice remain very appealing, and speak to qualities of which most if not all viewers would like to think themselves capable when circumstances demand. Casablanca succeeds especially well in this endeavor by portraying these themes on a very intimate and human scale.    

I can't really comment on The Great Escape, as I've never made it all the way through, nor do I wish to be a bore and repeat myself, so I can only refer you to the rest of my reply above deleted from the quotations in yours, about "Themes of nobility and self-sacrifice." These strike me as transcendent, and relatable to matters beyond politics or eras.

Another example thereof coming to mind is Stella Dallas, which closes on a note quite stylistically similar to Casablanca as Barbara Stanwyck marches in personal triumph toward the camera, having reaped the rewards of her sacrifice. Whether in the cause of a world at war or in that of the happiness and security of one girl, the sense of nobility in putting others - or only one other - above oneself is something that touches viewers, inspiring them with the hope of finding the best in themselves, not so much in physical bravery or derring-do, but in quiet forbearance.   

While there are other aspects of Casablanca - the tightness of its script, momentum of its direction and sharpness of its characterizations and interactions, for example - contributing to its enduring and iconic stature, I believe it's that thematic content that most continues to reach audiences these many decades on.    

Gee, there's a lot there with which I take issue.

There were certainly those on record in the U.S. remaining opposed to war either with Japan or in Europe even after 1941 but, if "popular" is the appropriate word insofar as general public support for our WWII engagement, it was decidedly so, even among those "who fought it or lost loved ones," some of whom included my own family. If one wants to posit that few to none were particularly happy about having to fight it, I wouldn't quibble.

As far as context, I'm of the position that Casablanca is no more about WWII than Gone With the Wind is about the Civil War, Notorious or North By Northwest about postwar or Cold War espionage or Dr. Zhivago about the Russian Revolution. Each of these settings provides only backdrop: a hook on which to hang stories centered on human relationships and interpersonal conflict and resolution.

Nor can I accede that stories of personal self-sacrifice have been only "in the context of religious faith...or defending kin." From City Lights, Christopher Strong, Manhattan Melodrama, Dangerous or The Petrified Forest through Five Came Back, The Rains Came, Vigil In the Night and Johnny Eager, Gojira or Some Came Running all the way to Titanic to name some, they've been reliably appealing to audiences.

Casablanca is perhaps the most celebrated and referenced simply because it's the best of the bunch. It needn't necessarily reflect "US culture" or "the ideals of the American public in 1942" (or at any other particular time), because its values are by no means exclusive to either. 
      

My #2 all time & the rest of the world can want what it wants.