The Third Man: Film Noir Throwback

In The Third Man (1949), Carol Reed (director) immerses audience members into the dark ominous ruins of post WWII Vienna. Reed is able to capture the classic eerie film noir atmosphere from the moment the movie begins and we are introduced to the zither. The zither is the instrument that scores the entire movie, pacing us through it’s entirety. It does so with perfection bringing us up with a lively tune in moments of action and right back down in times of gloomy late night enigma. Never once does the zither sound joyous, it continually carries a somber tone which matches the genre of film noir precisely.

The movie follows the point of view of the morally ambiguous as well as alienated protagonist, Holly Martins (played by Joseph Cotton), as he arrives in Vienna to see an old friend. The choice not to use subtitles in the film considering the many non-english speaking characters, felt authentic. It also helped put audiences in the shoes of Martins who is an outsider, unable to understand the people around him. Other characters include Anna Schimdt (played by Allida Valli), the female in distress who smiles a total of once in the film. The cast also includes the villainous Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles).

I believe all three characters to capture the cynical tone needed in a film noir but none better than Harry Lime. He is able to capture essence of the movie when he converses with Martins on a ferry go round overlooking Vienna. Reed shoots an aerial perspective of the city for the first time alluding the people of the ruins as tiny specks. Lime says to Harry “Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?” This type of cynical outlook drives the film to its finish and is the quintessential theme of film noir.

The use of post war Vienna as a setting matches the main characters’ cynical attitudes to perfection. The relic city’s dark, twisted, and corrupt nature is exposed in the film and juxtaposed to the cynical personality of the characters. The ruins aligned with the malevolent agenda of Lime amplifies the pessimistic atmosphere. Not only does the film create this essential atmosphere but there is constantly a sense of tension. Reed uses a European style of canted framing that breaks away from the conventional and develops a sense of tension on screen. The tension felt keeps audiences engaged to the very end.

One of the most import aspects of a film is its ending. It’s the very last bite the audience gets and will leave them with one final taste in their mouthes. Reed ends with a discomforting long take in the cemetery where the story began. The use of a long take leaves audiences yearning for interlace of Martins and Schmidt but doesn’t give it to us. The last scene doesn’t digest properly with most audience members, leaving us malaise. To give the audiences the light at the end we craved wouldn't have felt authentic and would have destroyed the near perfect dark aura created in The Third Man.