Casablanca is a second-rate film. It’s a strange mash-up, riddled with clichés, character inconsistencies and continuity errors. But, as philosopher Umberto Eco argues, all those elements – the muddle of eternal archetypes we use to tell ourselves stories - that almost made it awful, somehow elevated it to a higher plane: “there is a sense of dizziness, a stroke of brilliance.” Ladies and gentlemen, The Great Gatsby is our Casablanca.
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