The Third Man Analysis

The Third Man (1949)

Director: Carol Reed

The Third Man is a classic noir thriller. During the titles of this film the sound track plays:

Harry Lime Theme Tune

It begins with a voice over like the beguinning of Essex Boys. Close up of hands on the Black Market, this represents the time of working outside the law, selling watches.

An image of broken glass shows the fractured and defeated Vienna, then the body floating indicates the genre of the film and and that nobody cares. The sunken ship shows the distressed city.

The outfit is a classic thriller convention, the trilby hat links to Once Upon A Time In America. The whole outfit is black which symbolises darkness, which could symbolise what is to happen.

The man then walks under the ladder, which is known as an unlucky thing to do, a sign of what is to come.

The lighting is chiaroscuro, non-ambient.

It then cuts to a tilt, low angle shot which creates a sense of disorientation. As the German man begins to speak there are no subtitles on the screen which puts us as an audience in the same shoes as the main character, Holly. The high angle shows the vulnerability.

The shot then cuts to a girl, the introduction of Anna. Her is enigmatic, the audience find it hard to read which refers to the famous portrait of the, Mona Lisa.

We can see that the mysterious Harry Limes and Holly have a close friendship like Ordell and Louis in Jackie Brown. As an audience we start to paint a picture of Harry Limes' world, it is very upside down because of him being a criminal- Hell = Heaven and Heaven = Hell.

Later on we see that Anna is in fact an actress, she can put on masks and play roles which makes her even harder to read.

A tilt shot of Holly looking down a street shows the chiaroscuro and non-ambient lighting, as he stands on a wet and dark street, a classic thriller convention, like in Jackie Brown where we see Ordell drive off into the vanishing point.

Later on we see a man shouting in the street, there is panic which adds anxiety to the audience. A little boy shouts and points at Holly, then Anna pulls him away and they decide to walk off, but the child carries on following Anna and Holly, the child is almost like some sort of demon. The child of the night represents the hostility of Vienna to the allies (France, Germany, USA and England). As Holly begins to run, the city becomes a labyrinth, the buildings turn into on-lookers which refers back to earlier in the film.

Cat got your tongue scene:

A light goes on, chiaroscuro lighting, the light on Harry's face, his facial expression is very 'quizacle'.