Critical analysis of the film ‘The Third Man’
According to the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), 1949’s The Third Man is the only non-American film to have made the American Film Institute’s top 100 films of all time, and ranks number one in the British Film Institute’s BFI 100, a similar list compiled in 1999. The Third Man was not only well-regarded decades after its release, but was a commercial and critical success in its own era.
What is so special about this film?
The creative talent involved with The Third Man was considerable, as was the creative tension between them. The co-producer was legendarily difficult mogul David O. Selznick, a micromanager extraordinaire whose other film triumphs included back-to-back Academy Award winning films Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940). The other producer, and the director, was Carol Reed (a man), equally as stubborn as Selznick, and a talent cited by no less than director Steven Spielberg as an influence. The screenwriter was Graham Greene, a former spy and acclaimed novelist who had nearly all of his books made into films.
The Third Man was developed by Reed and Greene from a single sentence scribbled down by Greene: I had paid my last farewell to Harry a week ago, when his coffin was lowered into the frozen February ground, so that it was with incredulity that I saw him pass by, without a sign of recognition, amongst a host of strangers in the Strand.” (Newley, 2004) Reed and Selznick fought every step of the way, and Orson Welles, whom Reed insisted to play Harry Lime, the central mystery figure to the film, was his usual temperamental yet brilliant self. Though selfishly refusing to complete some of the sewer scenes which appear at the film’s’ end, Welles also was responsible for writing what is arguably the film’s best speech and…
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Tags: audience, black & white, camera angles, Graham Greene, paranoia, top 100 films
