| FZ-231630-15 | Research Programs: Public Scholars | Noah Isenberg | Everybody Comes to Rick's: How "Casablanca" Taught Us to Love Movies | 10/1/2015 - 7/31/2016 | $42,000.00 | Noah | | Isenberg | | | | New School | New York | NY | 10011-8871 | USA | 2015 | Film History and Criticism | Public Scholars | Research Programs | 42000 | 0 | 42000 | 0 | A book-length exploration of Casablanca's iconic status in American cinematic history.
"Everybody Comes to Rick’s" (under contract with W.W. Norton in the U.S.and Faber & Faber in the U.K.) is fueled by a profound desire to understand what makes a single film so unusually captivating, so enduring, and such a worldwide phenomenon--what makes it, in the eyes of Umberto Eco, not simply a stand-alone production, but somehow representative of all "movies." Through extensive research and reporting, conducting a vast array of interviews with film scholars and professionals, screenwriters and directors, relatives of the cast and crew, and also with the fans themselves, I wish to answer this question. Along the way, I seek to tell a lively, intense, and engaging story whose register of meaning far transcends the mere plot-lines of the film and taps into our continued fascination with motion pictures as a means of self-understanding. The project aims to broaden and complicate received wisdom concerning the film and to provide original insights for a new generation of viewers. |