It’s funny to me that I loved “The Third Man” so much. Several blogs ago I bashed the supposed 70th Greatest American movie “The French Connection,” nitpicking it for being everything from too slow to too quiet. When I really sat down to think about the concept, the premise and even the shooting style of “The Third Man” I realized how basically similar these two films really are but I responded to them in completely opposite ways. I suppose it is the same way Lawrence Olivier can play Romeo and make the hairs on your arm stand up and Leonardo DiCaprio can play Romeo and make the lids on your eyes fall down.
From the opening lines of the narrated introduction it is evident that this film is going to be a classic piece of noir. The title character Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) describes post World War II Vienna as a country in disarray. As he details the shady world of organized crime, police corruption and black market drugs we are shown images of a ravaged city, half completed rebuilding efforts and finally the grisly but artistic image of a murdered bootlegger floating in a septic lagoon as disturbing Hungarian folk music plays in the background. This music will be heard during every major segue for the remainder of the film.
Holly explains that he is in Vienna on a whim after being offered a job by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Wells). Since Holly is a somewhat successful author, he writes trashy western and detective novels and hopes his new opportunity writing for Harry’s medical newsletters will help him establish more credibility. When he arrives at Harry’s apartment the landlord explains that Harry has recently died after being hit by a truck and that the funeral is happening at that very moment. The whole time the landlord explains the circumstances he is trying to change a burnt-out light in the hallway- brilliantly associating everything that has to do with the world of Harry Lime with darkness.
A cavalcade of shady characters is introduced at the funeral, which Holly barely makes it to. Most notably is the local constable Major Calloway who seems a little too glad that Lime is dead and a little too suspicious of Holly to be on the up-and-up and a mysterious woman named Anna who has all the appearances of a grieving widow, though she is lurking in the shadows of the cemetery. In a series of conversations with her that will unfold over the course of the film we find out that Anna was Harry’s lover and Holly finds himself falling in love with her.
Completely disillusioned, Holly starts talking to several locals attempting to make sense of everything. As stories fail to add up he begins to suspect a bigger cover-up; an assumption that is only encouraged by Calloway’s persistent urge to force Holly out of Vienna. Soon his life is transformed into one of his own bad novels as he tries to find the mysterious “third man” who helped carry Harry’s body out of the street after his death since Holly believes that person might be the key to the mystery.
Reluctantly Calloway informs Holly that Lime was murdered for his involvement in the black market pharmaceutical trade. Holly is outraged to learn that Harry was killed over something so seemingly frivolous. Calloway explains that Harry had been watering down supplies of penicillin; doubling the amount he can sell but all but killing the potency. Not fully understanding the need for and lack of penicillin in a war-ravaged country Holly still feels like Harry’s murder was unjust and condemns Calloway for being so blasé about it.
In an effort to finally make Holly understand the gravity of Harry’s crimes Calloway takes him to a hospital in what turns out to be hauntingly beautiful. The nurses are all standing over the bed of a young child- though they never show the inside of the crib, the looks on the nursing staff’s faces paint a grim picture. The scene ends with one of the nurses pulling a teddy bear out of the crib and throwing it into a refuse pile in a dark corner of the room. This one shot says so much; a careless discarding of youth and innocence as well as the obvious indication that the child has died as if the teddy bear represented his will to live.
After realizing that Harry was not the man Holly thought he was he visits Anna again and the two begin talking about the Harry that they remembered. As this conversation takes place there are several jump cuts showing a man lurking in the shadows of the street. As Holly leaves having confessed his feelings for Anna and being subsequently rejected, he senses the man’s presence in a dark vestibule. A tenant in one of the upstairs apartments turns her lights on to reveal Harry Lime. Angered not only by Harry’s dealings in the drugs but also now his apparently faked death, Holly agrees to help Calloway take Lime down.
“In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” (Harry Lime, “The Third Man”)
Harry and Holly finally meet face-to-face at a deserted carnival; serving as an informant to get information but also hoping to find some shred of his old friend Holly is horrified at the conversation the two have. Harry talks carelessly about the insignificance of life, using the analogy how small people appear to be from atop the rickety old Ferris Wheel and even tells Holly how easily he could get away with murdering him by shooting him and throwing him off the top of the wheel, as nobody would investigate such an apparent accidental death as a homicide. This scene more than any other in the film cements one of the main themes; that nobody is who we think they are. Not just Harry, but Holly isn’t the co-conspirator or sleaze Calloway thinks he is, Calloway isn’t the crooked cop Holly thinks he is and so on.
Holly and Calloway’s officers drive Harry into the sewers, leading to an amazing foot-chase sequence that really defines the entire film. The dark silhouettes in the sewers cast confusing shadows with the addition of the police lights, making for an exciting and suspenseful pursuit. In this scene it is also evident how much the movie benefits from being filmed in black and white as the implications of light and dark are a central theme and this is the first time the two are so starkly contrasted together. Lime nearly escapes his pursuers in an eerily filmed camera angle showing a shot of the streets above with his fingers suddenly probing out from under a street-grate before he realizes it won’t open. By only showing his hands protruding from below his prospects of escaping are illustrated simply by showing the ground surface as being out of reach.
The film ends almost as it began; at Harry Lime’s funeral- for real this time. What makes this ending so powerful is that even though the “bad guy” is caught and killed, there is just no way to have a happy ending at a funeral.
As much as I enjoyed “The Third Man” it doesn’t belong on this list, period. Not because it isn’t an amazing film, but because it is simply a hypocritical entry. The AFI is very clear that this list is comprised of the 100 Greatest American Films, and even states in their criteria that the films must be “an American Film… with significant creative/financial production elements from the United States” yet “The Third Man” is an English film, directed by an English director, based on a novel written by Graham Greene, an English author, released by an English production company and filmed in English studios. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is EASILY one of the best I’ve ever seen, but I just want a little consistency. If cinematic masterpieces like Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” or F.W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” were excluded on the basis of being foreign then for all intents and purposes this one should have been too.
No comments:
Post a Comment