BRUCE BAWER: Wokesters Take On Classic Movies.

And in the end? They got it. They loved it. “What a great film!” cheered Mia Tiffany, the smart, charismatic young black woman at “Movies with Mia.” And they all zeroed in on what mattered: Rick’s moral choice and the message it sends. “He loves her enough to let her go,” said one of the blonde sisters with admiration. “He’s a good guy. He’s selfless.” “Beautiful. What a great man, Rick,” growled the Portuguese guy. “I love this finale. Incredible…. What a great, great movie.” “This guy is pure man!” exulted George. “I’m overwhelmed.… There is no way this kind of movie will ever be made again…. I’ve still got chills.” “What’s not to love here?” asked Shaneel (who’s apparently Indian) of “Shan Watches Movies.” “No jealousy. No pettiness,” pronounced the young Dan Bongino type at “Flix Talk,” who’d never seen a movie from the 1940s. “I loved everything about this film. I fell in love with the passion of it, the message behind it.” “I love the last half hour of this movie,” said the Canadian boy, calling it “a movie with magic in it,” pondering what it must have been like to watch it in 1942, when the war’s outcome was uncertain, and, reacting to Rick’s statement that “the lives of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,” commented intelligently that the whole point of the movie is that three people can make a very big difference indeed.

Of course, this isn’t a scientific sample. Far from it. These are young people who love film and who founded their YouTube channels precisely because they’re open to checking out a wide variety of movies. If anybody of their generation is going to give something like Casablanca a chance, it’s going to be them. Nonetheless, these YouTubers are children of their time. Like everyone else their age, they’ve been brought up in a society and a culture with values far removed in a number of ways from the values that inform a movie like Casablanca. And yet, watching it, they’re wrapped up in the intrigue, amused by the humor, affected by the music, touched by the love story, and, above all, stirred and deeply impressed by the selfless and noble courage of Victor Laszlo and, in that final scene at the airport, of Rick and Ilsa.

Hard as it is to believe in 2022, but maybe the fundamental things really do apply, as time goes by.