The White City has become a real cinema character. The book “CinéCasablanca”, by Roland Carrée and Rabéa Ridaoui, published by Le Fennec, recounts his presence in no less than 100 films.
One, Roland Carrée, is a cinema teacher at the Higher School of Visual Arts (ESAV), in Marrakech. The other, Rabéa Ridaoui, is a cultural facilitator and cinema trainer for the French Institute of Morocco, and was president of the Casamémoire association from 2019 to 2023. Together, they have just published “CinéCasablanca, the White City in 100 films.
In a practical, richly illustrated format, the work is made up of one hundred files on as many films, national and international, from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. They describe the way Casablanca appears there and decipher its artistic intentions. An increasingly rare thing in contemporary publishing, we find at the end of the work a real index of the films cited, and another of the places, buildings and monuments in Casablanca named. The hundred feature films are grouped into three chapters: Casablanca, city of dreams; Casablanca, locomotive city and Casablanca, world city.
Propaganda(s) and parody
The first chapter, the shortest, necessarily evokes a propaganda cinema in the service of the Protectorate, but obviously contains “Casablanca” (1942) by Michael Curtiz. This work, as we know, is also pure propaganda, but for a better cause: it is then a question of convincing the general American public of the need to abandon the isolationist position of the United States, so that they enter in the war.
Operation Torch, the American landing in Morocco freeing the Kingdom from the influence of Vichy, will not be cinema. And the White City is established in the global imagination thanks to the talent of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Although filmed in a studio in California, we know how much the people of Casablanca have appropriated the images.
In 1946, under the title “A Night in Casablanca”, the Marx Brothers made a pastiche of it, also Californian, but mocking orientalist clichés and prejudices. Not without relish, our authors cite a letter from Groucho Marx to Warner Bros, ironically asking how it was able to claim “exclusive ownership” of the name Casablanca, in a lawyer’s letter received by the comics.
Post-independence modernity
The chapter “Casablanca, locomotive city” opens with “The Cursed Child” (1958), by Mohamed Osfour. A small newspaper seller at the age of 12, Osfour acquired a 9 mm camera during the Protectorate and, through his productions happily cobbled together in the forest of Bouskoura, entered history as the first Moroccan director. This medium-length film, more structured, is filmed in the Habous district and tells the very moral story of a bad boy caught by the law. He impressed young Ahmed Bouanani and Mohamed Reggab.
In 1962, it was in Morocco that Francis Blanche made his only feature film, “Tartarin de Tarascon”, adaptation of the eponymous novel by Alphonse Daudet. If the original text located the anti-hero’s trip to Algeria, the change of scenery to Morocco was necessary for security reasons.
“Equipped with a rifle and a fez and dressed like a safari hunter, our Sunday adventurer is far from going unnoticed,” explain the authors. “Tartarin is taken in a carriage through the streets of Casablanca.
The dives/counter-dives between the astonished hero and the modern buildings he encounters on his way reflect the “overwhelming” gap between his prejudices and reality.” Certain images may have inspired Ahmed Bouanani, Majid Rechich and Mohammed Abderrahaman Tazi for their 1968 “Six and Twelve”.
Protests and documentaries
In 1974, Mostafa Derkaoui directed “Of a Few Events Without Meaning,” which “immerses the viewer in a popular, young, electric, rebellious, progressive, poverty-stricken Casablanca, thirsty for an illusory freedom.” Blake Edwards came to film a few scenes from the hilarious “Return of the Pink Panther” in 1975, in the Wilaya and the La Nationale building on Avenue Mers Sultan.
In 1981, with “Le grand voyage”, on a screenplay by Nour-Eddine Saïl, Mohammed Abderrahaman Tazi features a truck driver robbed throughout his journey, passing through Casablanca, to Tangier, where, having nothing left, all that remains is for him to emigrate to Spain.
In “Retrouver Oulad Moumen”, in 1994, Izza Génini films “the streets of Casablanca where his parents, sisters and brother, gradually, came to settle: rue des Anglais, rue Djemaa Ech Chleuh then rue Sidi Regragui, in the old medina, and finally Lusitania Street (today Ibn Rochd Street) and its three synagogues. An image dating from the Second World War shows the facade of the Court of First Instance covered with a portrait of Pétain.
In 1997, Martin Scorcese filmed “Kundun”, the story of the 14th Dalai Lama, and used Mohammed V Square in Casablanca as a reconstruction of Tian’anmen Square. “The Wilaya represents the palace of the People’s Assembly and, to this end, is covered with Chinese inscriptions as well as a portrait of Mao Zedong.”
New generation in a world city
For the final chapter, a new generation of filmmakers arrives. Following the pioneers Dalila Ennadre, Simone Bitton, Izza Génini and Fatima Jebli Ouazzani, here are “directors such as Merième Addou, Hind Bensari, Asmae El Moudir, Rita El Quessar, Leila Kilani, Raja Saddiki, Karima Saïdi, Sonia Terrab, Layla Triqui or Karima Zoubir” who appropriate the documentary genre.
On the fiction side, “Sofia Alaoui, Selma Bargach, Yasmine Benkiran or Meryem Touzani” stand out. Nabil Ayouche released “Ali Zaoua, prince of the street” in 2000, about street children, while Laïla Marrakchi depicts golden youth, her own, in “Marock”, shocking those who do not know the life of the beautiful neighborhoods. In “Spy Game”, by Tony Scott in 2001, and “Syriana”, by Stephen Gaghan in 2005, the White City is used to evoke Beirut, Cairo or the Middle East in general. This time it is about raising international public awareness of the ambiguities and failures of American policy.
With “Casanegra” (2008), “Zéro” (2012) and “Burnout” (2017), Nour-Eddine Lakhmari delivers a trilogy on the underbelly of the metropolis. For his part, the documentary filmmaker Ali Essafi released “Before the decline of the day” in 2020, returning to the cultural ferment of the 1970s. In short, “CinéCasablanca” is a fascinating book, which makes you want to visit the city as much as to go watch the films. Perhaps it will give the idea that a few series of screenings, during a festival for example, would be welcome?
Murtada Calamy / ECO Inspirations
