Movie-the third man essay

Martins soon discover from a German caretaker/porter in the apartment where Harry lives that his old friend Harry Lime had been killed in a vehicular accident on Thursday and that his coffin was taken to the cemetery. The sense of mystery is then emphasized as a large proportion of the shots here are done in a heavy angle tilt creating a sense of disorientation for the viewer (Hillier, 1985: 192). This feeling of disorientation is worked to match Holly Martins arrival into the dilapidated city ignorant of Vienna’s black market and other amoral attitudes. The viewer then gets a hint of Holly’s displacement in one of the earliest shots of the film when he confidently walks under a ladder to get inside Harry’s apartment which arguably warns the viewer and Harry to tread lightly against the systems at work in post-war Vienna which could lead him into so much trouble. Under a contrasting conflict of right and wrong, the film then portrays a stance of tension and confusion as Holly rushes to the gravesite to attend Harry’s funeral. There were only a few attendees to the ceremony as the priests said prayers in German. One grieving dark-haired girl was later identified as Anna Schmidt, Harry’s mistress who is a Russian exile and refugee.

After the ceremony, a British military officer, Major Calloway offered Holly a lift and a drink in town. In the bar, Holly soon reminisced about their friendship suggesting a latent homosexual attraction to a friend he last saw in 1939. Through Calloway, Holly found out stunned to learn that Harry had been accused of shady deals as an exploitative, morally corrupt, black market racketeer and dealer engaged in trafficking activities of adulterated and diluted penicillin which was highly in demand during the period and was wanted by the police.

The previous scene had explained how the cat likes to nuzzle against his shiny black shoes of his master Harry Lime. While this scene lets the viewer realize that it was Lime after being told in a previous scene that the cat only likes Lime, it also says another aspect of his character in Moss (1987, 189). A contradictory attitude of a man who casually causes death and madness among children though adulterated medicines while having affection with an animal is presented. In the meantime, Lime’s coffin is disinterred and findings revealed that the dead body belonged to a police informant Joseph Harbin, a medical orderly who had acted as a police informer against Lime (Moss, 1987: 190). Anna is then summoned to the International Police Headquarters and Holly shouts to her that he has seen Lime. In Calloway’s office, Anna is visibly stunned and seeks confirmation that Harry is still alive but when asked to reveal information in exchange for her own freedom from deportation to the Russians, she voiced out he worries for Harry therefore depicting how Holly failed in his love-struck advances to Anna. The gripping confrontation between Holly and Harry in the amusement park reveals Harry Lime’s unrepentant side and symbolic of Holly loosing his innocence forever (Moss, 1987: 191). A fairground park which was the choice of a meeting place for Holly and Lime remind us on the beginnings of friendship forged during childhood that Holly decides to end by a disloyalty to his friend.

Likewise this reminds us on another tone, the children of Vienna and their absence as we see an empty carousel. In a visual metaphor innocence is betrayed or lost innocence in Lime as a child and of Holly upon the discovery of his friend’s dark side. Holly lost his oldest friendship and Anna loses the only man she ever loves and his blind morals and innocence. Lime does not retains any amount of goodness marked by greed in the character he represents and provided his explanation in a famous looking down upon the people beneath the large Ferris wheel at the prater Amusement Park and compares them to dots.

The Films of Carol Reed. Columbia University Press, 1987. Hillier, Jim. Cahiers Du Cinema. Britain: Routledge, 1985. Ferro, Marc. Cinema and History.

Wayne State University Press, 1988.