An American pulp novelist arrives in postwar Vienna to meet his friend Harry Lime and finds out he recently died. Then he discovers Harry may not be dead at all. Reed's film sets its moral story in the ruins of Vienna and gives you one of cinema's greatest villains.
The Third Man is a 1949 film noir, mystery and thriller film directed by Carol Reed. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 cinematography and 2 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Touch of Evil uses several of the same techniques.
Tilting the camera sideways so the horizon runs diagonally across the frame. The crooked picture makes a scene feel unstable, uneasy or morally off.
How this film uses it
Reed and cinematographer Robert Krasker tilt the camera sideways throughout the film, a shot known as a Dutch angle. It makes postwar Vienna feel morally unstable. This is a city where the normal rules don't apply, where a charming man can sell watered-down penicillin to dying children and stay charming.
Where to see it
The chase through the sewers. The tilted angles make the shape of the tunnels confusing. The camera never sits level, and that matches the moral world of the film.
Lighting a scene with strong contrast between bright light and deep shadow, a style borrowed from old paintings called chiaroscuro. How lit a character is hints at their moral or mental state.
How this film uses it
Krasker's photography gives Vienna its defining look: pools of lamplight on wet cobblestones and figures stepping out of doorway shadows. The black-and-white is pushed to such extremes that the city itself seems to be making a moral point. Harry Lime's reveal (the cat, the doorway shadow, the lamplight) is the most famous use of chiaroscuro, the strong contrast of light and dark, in film noir.
Where to see it
Harry Lime's doorway reveal. You get the shadow, the cat and then light suddenly on the face the film has been hiding. The way it is shot makes his appearance feel bound to happen and also like a line being crossed.
Giving the characters an object, secret or goal that everyone chases. What it actually is barely matters, because its job is to set the characters against each other.
How this film uses it
Harry Lime is the film's MacGuffin, the thing everyone in the story is chasing. Holly is searching for him, Anna is grieving for him and the military police are investigating him. What I find remarkable is that the film actually delivers its MacGuffin. Harry appears, speaks and explains himself. Then you see the real subject: Holly's romantic naivety, and what happens when the myth you built your world on turns out to be a monster.
Where to see it
The Ferris wheel conversation. Harry delivers his 'cuckoo clock' speech. He stops being a mystery to solve and turns out to hold a real philosophy of his own.
Telling the story through a character you can't trust, because they are lying, mentally unwell or fooling themselves. At some point, you have to rethink what you were told.
How this film uses it
Holly Martins is the worst possible investigator for this story. He loved Harry Lime and can't see him clearly. Whenever someone tells him about Harry's crimes, he dismisses it or explains it away. The film takes Holly apart step by step, and each scene strips off another layer of the story he told himself about his friend.
Where to see it
Holly defending Harry to Major Calloway. He is so loyal that he argues against the evidence at the same moment it is being handed to him.
Questions
The Third Man: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does The Third Man use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in The Third Man (1949): Dutch Angle, Chiaroscuro Lighting, The MacGuffin and Unreliable Narrator.
Who directed The Third Man?
Carol Reed directed The Third Man, released in 1949. CineCode also covers Oliver! (1968).
What films are similar to The Third Man?
Films that share techniques with The Third Man include Touch of Evil (1958), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Fight Club (1999), Amadeus (1984).
