Film and the City: Vienna Noir – The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
Last Week's Connection: Berlin and Postwar Realities
We revisited Berlin, observing its transformation from a thriving metropolis in to ruins in due to World War II.
Germany Year Zero was presented as an example of two significant film cycles:
German Trümmerfilme ("rubble film")
Italian Neorealism
Both cycles aimed to depict postwar realities in an unflinching, realistic manner, opposing the fascist filmmaking mandated by the Nazi regime.
This week, the focus shifts to the immediate postwar era, specifically Vienna, Austria.
Today's Outline
Vienna under Allied Occupation.
The Third Man as an "Outsider" Representation of Vienna.
Comparing Ruins: Germany Year Zero vs. The Third Man.
The Third Man as Film Noir.
Background of The Third Man
Genesis: In spring , British producer Sir Alexander Korda sent Graham Greene to Vienna to write a story for director Carol Reed.
Korda specifically requested "a film about the four-power occupation of Vienna."
The resulting film, The Third Man, is a product of Greene's and Reed's collaboration and the city itself, serving as a microcosm of the postwar world (Carpenter ).
Greene's Perspective: He considered the film to be the primary text, viewing his novel merely as a means to its production, stating it "was never written to be read but only to be seen" (quoted in Palmer and Riley n).
Accolades:
Won the Grand Prix at Cannes in .
Released in the US in .
Ranked by the British Film Institute as "the best British film of all time" in (More ).
Occupied Vienna: A Realistic Portrait
Korda's Vision: He requested a story "about the four-power occupation" rather than a typical thriller, romance, or melodrama.
Contemporary Reception: Many contemporary reviewers considered The Third Man an accurate visual and emotional portrayal of Vienna.
On-Location Filming: Director Carol Reed utilized the city's actual landscape to convey postwar realities:
Piles of rubble, bombed-out houses, narrow streets, and mazelike sewers.
The overall dreariness and drabness of a city struggling to sustain life.
These elements symbolized the underlying tensions, apprehension, and desperation of its inhabitants (Carpenter –).
Postwar Challenges:
Refugee Crisis: Vienna was crowded with refugees from Eastern Europe (like the character Anna), attempting to obtain false papers or death certificates to avoid Soviet repatriation.
Overcrowding: The influx of refugees exacerbated living conditions.
Black Market: A proliferation of black market activities, including the sale of penicillin stolen from military hospitals, became common (Carpenter –).
Opening Narration: Tourist Image vs. Local Reality
Purpose: The opening narration was added during the final editing stages to provide background, as Reed believed the situation in Vienna would be "too unfamiliar to the filmgoing public" (Carpenter ).
Contrasting Images: The narration prepares the audience for the reality, which starkly contrasts with Vienna's romanticized self-images:
It documents how this reality destroyed the Vienna beloved by natives and tourists.
Tourists, like the Viennese, were shocked to see their memories or expectations of Vienna in ruins.
Iconic landmarks like St. Stephen's appear, and the "blue" Danube is shown, but a dead body floats in it, subverting the idyllic image (Jarka ).
Vienna: Before and After World Wars
Post-WWI Vienna: According to Korda, Vienna after World War I was not the dreamy city of Franz Joseph's era.
Defeat had eroded social conventions, revealing disagreeable realities.
The streets were filled with unemployed soldiers, wounded veterans, middle-class housewives driven to prostitution, and importuning currency speculators.
Antisemitism was a prevalent part of Vienna, as much as landmarks like the Spanische Reitschule (Spanish Riding School) (quoted in Jarka ).
Clash of Images: This juxtaposition of the ugly and the beautiful, a grim present and a glorious past, has long characterized Vienna's international image.
Foreign films historically favored a romanticized past.
Realism was primarily left to literature (Jarka ).
Impact on the Tourist Industry
Initial Concerns:
The film was perceived as a threat to Vienna's self-image, an attack on city pride and local patriotism.
This "image sensitivity" highlighted the city's vulnerability during its reconstruction phase (Jarka ).
There were significant worries that the film could "damage the tourist business" (Jarka ).
Long-term Effect: Paradoxically, The Third Man is no longer seen as a threat.
It has become an "evergreen" cultural phenomenon, attracting tourists (bringing in "greenbacks").
Tourism now capitalizes on Vienna's misery and corruption of as a "titillating counter image" to today's prosperous Vienna (Jarka ).
An Outsider's View of Vienna
Non-Viennese Creation: A key intriguing aspect of The Third Man's impact on Vienna's image is that it was not made by Viennese creators, who are typically productive in crafting their own self-image (Jarka ).
Film's Point of View:
Creators: Adapted from a short novel by Graham Greene (an English writer) and directed by Carol Reed (an English director).
Protagonist: The narrative centers on an American, Holly Martens (played by Joseph Cotten), who arrives in Vienna for the first time.
Audience Proxy: Both Holly and the audience are positioned as strangers in this "strange city."
Their journey through the "bizarre moral and emotional labyrinth" of the narrative is shared.
Holly serves as "our guide and proxy in this threatening and extraordinary landscape" (Nicholls ).
Authenticity to Reality in Film
Definition of Authenticity: In film, authenticity, or "valid information," can be achieved on several levels (Schwab ):
Events: Accurate depiction of historical occurrences.
Visual Rendering: Truthful portrayal of sites.
Thematic Quintessence: Capturing the essential spirit or underlying truth of a period.
"Sense of Place" in The Third Man:
The city of Vienna is an active, palpable entity, almost a character itself, setting conditions for its inhabitants.
It transforms into a "desert, a trap, a labyrinth or even hell" for the characters.
This impression is primarily achieved through the predominance of location shots (Schwab ).
Depicted Features of Reality: The Third Man authentically portrays the daily struggles of postwar Vienna (Schwab ):
Shortages of food, fuel, and electricity.
The black market as a means of survival.
Cigarettes functioning as currency and points of contact with occupiers.
Lack of freedom of movement.
The precarious status of refugees.
The threat of arbitrary acts by occupiers.
Film Noir
The Surface of Noir: Coherent Aesthetics
Lighting: Low-key and chiaroscuro lighting sculpt a three-dimensional space, creating a dark mood with extreme and proliferating shadows.
Cinematography: Skewed camera angles and lonely characters in empty spaces evoke urban alienation.
Setting: Noir films typically depict the city at night and in the rain, inhabited by morally corrupt and violent individuals.
Narrative Structure: Often features a voice-over narration telling the story in a flashback.
Characters and Relationships:
Families are often incomplete.
Characters frequently betray and double-cross one another.
A crisis of masculinity often coincides with the presence of the femme fatale.
The femme fatale is a sexualized, duplicitous, and dominant female character.
Her transgressions are typically punished, often by her murder in the final scene (Mennel –).
The Urbanity of Noir: A Desperate Space
Urban Environment: Films noir present a desperate urban space where endangered, besieged city dwellers experience isolation, unrest, and fear.
This is a disrupted, disconnected urban labyrinth.
It illustrates the negative consequences arising from these specific urban characteristics.
Filmic Representation of Dysfunction:
The cinematic fragmentation of the cityscape, coupled with claustrophobic, disturbing cinematography and mise-en-scène.
These not only symbolize the division of humans from one another but also metaphorically reveal the fragmentation of their lives and even the disintegration of their minds in this urban space.
The dysfunctional city is depicted as intrinsically, inescapably, and almost naturally leading to corruption, betrayal, and murder among its inhabitants (Schapp ).
Simmel's Metropolitan Type
Matter-of-Fact Attitude: The metropolitan type possesses a "matter-of-fact attitude in dealing with men and with things."
This attitude often combines formal justice with an inconsiderate hardness.
Indifference to Individuality: The intellectually sophisticated person is indifferent to genuine individuality because relationships and reactions stemming from it "cannot be exhausted with logical operations" (Simmel ).
Calculating Mindset: The "modern mind has become more and more calculating" (Simmel ).
Harry Lime's Blasé Attitude
Utilitarianism and Moral Degeneracy:
Lime uses human beings solely as means to an end.
He disregards law, decency, and modesty, committing his crimes with "the greatest calmness and self-complacency" (Dern –).
His coolness towards victims clearly reveals his moral degeneracy (Dern –).
Erosion of Values: Through Harry Lime, Graham Greene genuinely questions "what are the foundations for moral behavior in a world where personal and social values have been so eroded?" (Gribble –).
Identification with Totalitarianism:
Lime embodies the attitudes from which a police state emerges and articulates them clearly.
On the Prater wheel, he tells Martins, "In these days, old man, nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, so why should we?"
He is the "ultimate utilitarian," referring to people below as "dots" worth "twenty thousand pounds apiece" ().
All his personal relationships are self-interested:
His friendship with Martins in school provided a scapegoat.
His relationship with Anna was for sexual partnership.
By refusing to think "in terms of human beings," Lime politically aligns himself with totalitarian dictators like Hitler and Stalin, who viewed "the people" as masses to be manipulated for personal ends (Carpenter ).