Trailer
Differentiation enables Sapiens to distinguish between true and false and right and wrong. Two distinctions that receive little consideration in an animal kingdom like ours made up of herds and tribes. Competing for the Lady Byng trophy for gentlemanly conduct? Sure! But more often to demonstrate brutality worthy of Slapshot fame. To see who’s better at mass annihilation. Where, as Machiavelli pointed out, the object is winning by any means.
Including manipulation of facts and people as if they were objects without boundaries to define them. Attracting bounders never at a loss to make stuff up in their self-made “paradises” of make-believe. Deflecting responsibility and blame for their wrongdoing onto others like loose fans on the deck of the Mar-a-Lago. Exemplars of un-differentiation: whatever is true or right is what they say it is because they don’t know the difference.
What inspiration?
In our make-believe world of anything goes “thoughts” and “ideas” are Play-Doh to be manipulated into whatever we want Play-Doh to be. Think Casablanca. An anchor of inspiration for believers in the inviolability of character and integrity in the darkest days of war. A beacon of light guiding despair toward hope. Whose cast didn’t know until the last moment which boy the girl would wind up with.
Whoa! You’re saying that when Ilsa told Rickey-Poo he would have to think for both of them and he agreed, the scriptwriters and the director were off screen arguing over what he was supposed to think? Pathetic but true. So much for Hollywood devotion to character! They were wanting to be sure that Rick didn’t spoil their plot. Undecided until the last moment over which outcome would save their hill of beans from being snatched from their selfish hands by service to a larger cause. You can’t make this stuff up.
The real freedom fighter in the cast
The film’s arbiters of character were relieved finally that it didn’t matter if Rick and Ilsa had to sacrifice their beans so long as the film’s investors didn’t have to sacrifice theirs. As for poor Victor he was lucky they didn’t send him off to Lisbon without Ilsa if it was good box office. Or even better put him and his heroic cause in an SS uniform with a swastika armband. Saved from this abomination by an audience more likely to fall for Paul Henreid’s suave continental elegance than Conrad Veidt’s Prussian boorishness.
As for the audience, the film’s brain trust would have had Major Strasser outdraw Rick at the airport and take the legendary freedom fighters off in handcuffs if that’s what grabbed their audience. By the way, Conrad, the bad guy, was a seriously good guy. A German with a conscience who stood up to der fuhrer in real life. That ended prematurely at the Riviera Country Club of a heart attack the following year, just a few miles up the road at Pacific Palisades. Major Strasser was his last role.
Play It Again Sports
What about the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Friendship schmendship! Captain Renault could have extracted his predatory price from every ingenue who came into his clutches indefinitely for all they cared. And turned Rick over to his paddy wagon of stooges instead of rounding up the usual suspects.
After the film won an Oscar for best picture Ingrid was asked how she felt about being part of this heroic achievement in time of war. Instead of staying in character when she headed off to Lisbon radiant with devotion to larger cause, she bitched about not knowing which guy she’d wind up with until the last moment. I didn’t know until then that it made a difference. Just like a guy, not understanding the first thing about a girl. What? The trap she springs on her prey has to be custom made. She can’t land her man with just any old trap she bought at Play It Again Sports.
Frightful rubbish
Ingrid’s complaint was to be echoed in another thirty-five years when Alec Guinness, Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars, described the “Force” as “frightful rubbish.” All of this make-believe nonsense worth not much more than a good laugh.
So much for papier mache Hollywood idealism. No match for animals who rule supreme over their domain with the brute force of will. Having no need of thoughts or minds thinking them when they’ve got instinct to tell them what to do.