Week 8 Discussion Guide: Sunday-Monday Film Viewing

        Before you watch Casablanca, familiarize yourself with the era in which it was made and in which its audience first saw it.  Read the online Encyclopedia description of the European situation in 1941-2 and be prepared to discuss what you know about how things stood in December 1942, as well as the typical American public attitude toward World War II in the winter of 1942-3.  The film contains untranslated German and French speech, song, and print, most of which I have translated for you here.  What does it mean to audiences when film makers present more than one language in a film, and especially, what did it mean to American audiences in 1943 to listen to those French and German voices coming from an American movie screen?  What was Curtiz' objective?  Note that Casablanca won three Academy Awards in 1943 (Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay), so it appears audiences were not in the least put off by the languages used in the script.]