Shouts and Echoes
Les drapeaux . Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) 'You may come this far, and no farther; here your proud waves must stop.' Job 38:11 1. In the apartment above the Café Américain, Rick has just refused to sell 'letters of transit' in his possession to the fugitive Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo so that Laszlo and his wife Ilsa – Rick's former love – can escape Vichy-controlled Casablanca to America. From the cafe downstairs they hear a group of Nazi officers belting out the German patriotic march 'Die Wacht am Rhein' ('Watch on the Rhine'). Rick and Victor emerge and from the stairs look down on the scene in the cafe: the stomping, triumphalist, egomaniacal Nazis – the rest of the clientele dour, defeated, cowering, silently enduring the display. Suddenly, Victor Laszlo makes his move. And right here, in a few measures of music, is where Max Steiner's brilliant juxtaposition turns the movie on a dime, from despair in their pre