The Third Man

I recently saw The Third Man, the 1949 noir classic directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles as the mysterious Harry Lime. The plot doesn't make a ton of sense; basically you have an American pulp writer who shows up in Vienna to meet a childhood friend (Lime), but who learns that he -- i.e., Lime -- has been killed in a car accident. After attending the funeral and talking to a British military officer -- who alleges that Lime was a racketeer -- the American begins to suspect that the death wasn't accidental after all; a femme fatale enters the picture, witnesses are murdered, and soon enough the American is getting deeper and deeper into something he may or may not understand, and which may or may not be true.

Far more important than the loose plot strands is the murky atmosphere of the film; shot in black-in-white, the camera moves at strange angles through the imperial, apocalyptic landscape of post-war Vienna. Gothic chuches, apartment palaces with ornate facades dripping with statuary, high-ceilinged rooms with triple mouldings and broken chandeliers, and most of all a labyrinth of streets and steps and underground tunnels are all in ruins, much like the continent itself.

Having recently been to Vienna, I was interested to recognize many of the plazas and statues in the film, and somewhat disheartened to realize that -- like anything that has been reconstructed and preserved, primarily for the benefit of tourists -- the new version, while clearly more pleasant and productive than what it replaced, seems to lack a certain vitality. Not coincidentally, this is also a theme of the movie. There is a monologue in which Orson Welles discusses how great art arises out of social upheaval, whereas the Swiss -- known for their stability -- are most famous for a cuckoo clock (the point is effectively made even if the statement is technically false). 

In what is perhaps the most gripping scene of the movie, toward the end, the villian -- who has been selling diluted penicillin on the black market -- is shot by the ersatz hero in the sewers, and we see nothing more than his fingers futilely attempting to push through a grate leading up to the street. Wounded, he begs -- with a single nod and a glance -- for his pursuer to shoot him again. The movie ends and we are left in a world that is safer and more sanitized, but that much less artistic and exciting.

This post is about the allure of ruination, and the desire 2 be 'put out of ur misery.'

Comments

[Gavin Plumley]

Funny that you should perceive a lack of rigour in the plot... I've always thought it was remarkably strong, with the amazing atmosphere working in tandem. That said, you are bang on about Vienna losing something of its zest and punch. Greene calls it the 'smashed and dreary city'; what's left now the Mahlers, the Klimts, the Freuds and, more painfully, the Nazis have gone?