Noir Week 2015 Blowout Vienna. 1949. A city ravaged by battle and riddled with the counterfeit operations hiding in its torn streets and broken buildings- suckling at the lucrative teet of disease and death born from the terrors of the second world war. American pulp-western novelist Holly Martins comes to the Austrian capital at the request of a friend, Harry Lime. A friend immediately thought dead upon his arrival. Martins must now not only face the labyrinthine Viennese streets he is now lost and alone in, and the darkness that lurks in their murky shadows, but much more: a man. Different from any other he had ever met- or thought he knew… … Joseph Cotton’s wimpy and foolish author is as shady as many of the adversaries he faces: seemingly washed out but inexplicably determined and knowledgeable. This mystery mixture of commitment and distance (‘As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I’ll be on the next plane’) makes him much more compelling and interesting, but equally more untrustworthy. Being a noir, Martin’s delving into the savage world of pre-modern narcotics in the black-market European penicillin cartel is a dangerous one, and such rewards for but a few dead is unbelievably tempting (‘Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?’). Martin’s unwavering sense of good and resistance of such deals is a testament to his moral understanding when dealing with such folk. He’s written about bandits and marauders all his life- and when it comes to dealing with them first hand: he doesn’t disappoint. Reluctant, but fiercely invested right to the bitter end. … Superb supporting characters like the endlessly watchable and hardy heroine Anna Schmidt or the slimy duo of doctor and dastard- Lime’s associates- back up the excellent script with precision and natural enough portrayals despite cinema’s limitations back then. The Third Man really does all it can to defy these limitations and Hollywood ideals held in high practice throughout monochrome filmmaking. Gone, as mentioned, are the plastic and predictable portrayals of characters written for universal understanding without depth or complexity. Gone are the small sets, replaced with a sprawling and impressive cityscape captured perfectly in the frame. Find me one scene of this film that would look better in colour. I dare you. It is the age’s reliance on shadows that really helps this film excel, cameras tucked away in murky back-alleys watching men passing mysteriously through the crisp night air creates a superb and suspenseful atmosphere unparalleled by such trickery out of anything I’ve seen prior or post. It also scraps a massive orchestral chime to be replaced with a track from a Zither. A single instrument. Such a thing sounds ridiculous- but if mystery and minimalism were the aims of the game, why not carry that across the board. Needless to say it works very well, as the both light and melancholy vibes float their through the Viennese streets- lifting the atmosphere to a fever pitch and dropping it with a deafening hush when the action begins and it is time to get serious. … But the real success of this film for me rests on the shoulders of Orson Welles. Better known as Citizen Kane himself. Here- Harry Lime. Lime can be a slippery little sucker one time and a confident, arrogant and brash bomber the next. The Third Man is partly a study of the economic, social and moral damage of the war on even the most civilised and cultured city. Lime is the perfect embodiment of each of these and much more. Charming, handsome, charismatic and yet unmistakably deadly (‘I hardly think they’d check for a bullet wound if you fell down there’ a sentiment delivered to his best friend atop a Ferris wheel). His name, wardrobe and vocabulary are all sharp, dicing away the filler to bring people facts and results, departing with cutting remarks to leave the receiver speechless and defeated (‘Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.’) Such a quote defines him as a character- one whom realises that all the greatest things are born from violence and death- that no one is richer than the reaper. And yet you cannot question the fact he is right. His charm is matched with the horrors of his penicillin ring (‘they tested it on the children. The lucky ones died’), and thus his tale is one either of sympathy or hatred; and in that unforgettable final chase through the sewers- the very underbelly and hive of the mud that Lime dirties his hands on- you are filled with both. Willing him to get as far as he can- and then be put to his deserved end. … In summation, it’s a quiet, reserved noir that stands up rather remarkably today due to its revolutionary focus on bending the norm to create something uniquely chilling with its characters and setting as well as thrilling with its writing- particularly its climax. The Third Man has impressed me so much so that it could be in the running for the best noir of all time. Then again- we haven’t reached our final contestant... See you in Chinatown. … 7-Not so much a normal cinematic outing for the modern audiences, but if you can bear the lack of CGI or indeed any colour at all- and peel back the layers of mystery and doubt; you are sure to find at least something that you like, even if it is but Welles’ terrific villain. 10/10 (No.10)
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 22:27:51 +0000
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