Like books and songs, many movies have been made that cannot
escape their particular time. In writing my academic book, for example, I
aspired to speak beyond those living to generations not yet born because my aim
was the production of knowledge beyond mere artifacts of the world in which I
live. I knew that the verdict on whether the text passes that crucial test
could only come long after my own death. Among films, even though Casablanca is a film immersed in, and
thus reflecting its time—the context in 1942 being of course World War II—the
film transcends all that to resonate in the following century. In his oral
commentary, Rudy Behlmer argues that the film “transcends time.” He goes on to
provide us with a list of the usual suspects behind what lies behind the making
of a classic.
