The Third Man *****

Over 100 years ago, D.W. Griffith and his great cinematographer Billy Bitzer invented the close-up. In honor of the centennial of that ground-breaking moment, James Cameron decided to shoot one.

The close-up, like the edit, is a distinctive facet to the art of film making. It's one of the things that makes films different. With a close-up, you can tell four pages of dialogue with a glance or even just a deep look into one's eyes with the camera. What's more powerful? That shot of the eyes or a nice speech. James? He'll take the four pages.

As I was watching today's movie, I kept thinking about what it is that bothers me about Titanic. Is it the worst movie ever made? Certainly not. It actually had the potential to be one of the truly great films of all times, but falls short due to the minimal attention paid to the characters. For example, name one character on the boat aside of Kate and Leo. Anyone? Actually, now that I think of it, Molly Brown was a passenger. That says all you need to know; one of the most interesting female characters of all time and I almost forgot about her.

The story itself is painted with the broadest strokes possible with no nuance or subtlety. When the boat starts to go down, do I need Gilbert Grape to tell me that "This is bad"?

Directors like John Huston and Orson Welles couldn't get away with sloppiness like this because they did not have $500 million to spend on special effects, and even the best effects available back then looked phony. But even if they were available, they wouldn't be necessary. For example, I guarantee that Welles' first appearance in the Third Man is more memorable than the whole damn Titanic going down.

"How could that be?," you might ask. "What's the difference?" Well, Titanic is obviously about the Titanic and unless you have the thinking capacity of lead paint, you know the boat's going down. But from the opening scene of the Third Man right through the first hour of the movie, all everyone talks about is Harry Lime. Is Harry Lime dead? Was he killed in an accident? Was he murdered? Was he blackmailing people?

The movie takes place in post-World War II Vienna, which was divided up into four segments, one for each of the four Allies. The city itself is chaos completely dominated by the black market.
Into the mess steps Holly Martins, a drunken writer of bad dime westerns, at the invitation of his friend Lime, only to hear that Harry is dead. He does go to the funeral and there is a casket, but he never sees the body. Add to this, that everyone seems to have a different story about what happened. The police don’t care because, as they tell Martins, Lime’s a blackmailer and no one cares how he died as long as he’s dead.

Martins gets a job with a local literary society as a lecturer, which allows him to stay in Vienna and start investigating on his own. Most of the people Martins talks to are either frightened or just lying since they are all crooks. The only one that Holly is making any headway with is Harry’s girlfriend.

Everyone else is not only withholding information from Martins, but starting to get worried about the questions he is asking. After asking the police again why they are not investigating Lime’s death, Martins gets to see all of the evidence against his friend. It appears that Lime was heading up a ring of crooks that stole penicillin, diluted it and sold it back to sick men, women and children with illnesses like meningitis and gangrene. Major Galloway of the police also told Lime’s girlfriend.

That’s when Lime finally makes his first appearance through the shadows. Welles swore to me that he had nothing to do with the directing of this film, but the style is distinctly his. Carol Reed was more of a standard, bread-and-butter, director. The Third Man almost uses the camera and lighting as a special effect in itself – high angle shots, low angle shots, shots tilted to the left and to the right, shadows, flames and smoke creeping across the screen. There are also a lot of staircases and shots where the ceiling and floor can be seen - all favorites of Welles.

The shots vary so often that actors seem to look different each time they appear on screen. If the film is completely Reed’s, then it is the best work of a very distinguished career.

The script is also a treat with the great Graham Greene’s lean, sparse dialogue. The one bit of indulgence in the screenplay is the legendary Cuckoo Clock speech (and if you haven’t heard it yet – I refuse to give that away). This script is plotted so well that Greene gives away his big secret a little over half way into the movie and the rest is still gripping. I’ll go one step further – I told you what the big secret is and it will still be gripping.

Let me put it this way. You watch your favorite scene in Titanic and then watch the Ferris Wheel scene and tell me which is better. If you say Titanic, then you’ll probably be surprised by the ending, so with that in mind - the boat sank.