Occupied. Surrounded. Beaten. It was their place to be meek. To do what the smirking goons told them to do with a smile on their face. And yet they stand and they sing.
And once Bogie nods to the band (the most important gesture in the whole movie) the band jumps in, loud enough to drown out bellowing of the fascists.
It happened that, of all the gin joints in all the world, a little bar in the middle of nowhere was their battlefield, and when the moment came they stood up and were counted.
It was their place to be meek.
To knuckle under.
And yet the old, the weak, the compromised, they all stood up and sang.
Shill, strident, vituperative losers, every one of them.
My kind of people.
9 comments:
And almost everyone in that shot was a war refugee. The actress who is crying hard in the one shot was a war refugee from France; she's actually crying because her home country was, in fact, under fascist control at the time.
Great post, great comments!
You know, as a poor and now disabled musician, some days I feel like standing up and singing against all of the odds has taken up the biggest part of my adult life.
-Doug in Oakland
Then namesake you've been a true hero for the biggest part of your adult life.
A guy could do a lot worse than have Bogie as a role model. Old school class ~
Aux armes, citoyens?
Marchons!
That being said, the English lyrics to La Marseillaise sound like a Donald Trump stump speech:
Arise children of the fatherland
The day of glory has arrived
Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised
Listen to the sound in the fields
The howling of these fearsome soldiers
They are coming into our midst
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts
To arms citizens Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows
Still, great post.
I hope and pray we have enough Rick Blaine's and Victor Lazlo's to do the job. To paraphrase Ben Bradlee from another good movie: "there is not much riding on this, just the free press, the Constitution, and American Democracy. Now get to work!"
Morocco was under French colonial rule at the time, so, yeah, "La Marseillaise" works for *some* of the people under occupation.
Post a Comment