MovieChat Forums > Casablanca (1943) Discussion > Spilled glass theme throughout

Spilled glass theme throughout


Casablanca theme of spilled drinks. I’ll be detailing some of the spilled drinks scenes in “Casablanca”, so stop reading if you’d rather suss them out yourself. The leitmotif, if I remember correctly, was established before the Paris flashback of his impromptu marriage proposal to Ilsa at the Belle Aurore, where she knocks over her glass of champagne, which he then rights. Her response “That’s too far ahead to plan” (a quote he paraphrases later: “I never make plans that far ahead”) makes this the seminal scene for Rick’s cynical outlook. Prior the to flashback, the arrest of Ugarte has Rick righting a glass again, spilled in the scuffle of the arrest, while assuring everyone that there’s nothing to worry about. Then, when he’s drinking himself to oblivion and comes out of the flashback to the scene of the train leaving without Ilsa and the rain like the tears he could not shed for her on her goodbye note, he collapses on the table, his outflung arm spilling his whiskey (which he doesn’t right). To me, each scene involves his attempts to right his life after his last happy moment and the last time he saw Ilsa. He’s insulated himself from his former, better self, his empathetic and vulnerable self, evinced when he refuses to help Ugarte (“I stick my neck out for nobody”). His agonized, drunken collapse and spilling of the whiskey glass brings him full circle, once again vulnerable and willing to try to win her back and dare to make plans that far ahead, and to drop his pose of a hardened man only out for himself. Of course, he sticks his neck out in the final scene, sacrificing his future happiness with Ilsa. I think there’s another spilled drink, but I don’t recall it offhand. Let me know if you see it.

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When Louis spills the Vichy water? Intentionally.

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Hmmmmm. Never thought of that; tho' he doesn't spill it (it goes into the wastebasket base first), it wasn't a glass with alochol like the others, one could argue that it signifies the end to the tortured "upset" of his life since Ilsa left him. Nice catch!

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So, what's the point of the spilled drink symbolism? Or is it just that drinks get spilled a lot?

I'm gonna re-watch this movie and look for the drink-spillage.

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Just saw it for the 40th time and have to backtrack on one of the spilled drink scenes. He does NOT knock over his whiskey glass when he collapses as Sam leaves after the Paris flashback scene.

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