Film Analysis: The Third Man

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The Third Man, is a film directed by Carol Reed in 1949 and Graham Greene wrote the screenplay. The film tone is noir, which means; lack of colour. Often, a film noir story will be created around a cynical and cold-hearted male character. The film was set in post-war, Vienna, Austria. The protagonist Holly Martins, a writer of western novels, learns that his friend Harry Lime, who has invited him to Vienna, recently died. Martins feels as though someone is hiding something and he tries to figure out who the ‘third man’ was that helped carry Lime off the road after the accident. Reed was able to use countless techniques to present the audience with various moral issues, such as loyalty, integrity, friendship and moral corruption. During the …show more content…

The audience witnesses how war and destruction have created a pessimist within Lime. People like Lime have decided to live their life dealing of the black market and choose to structure their lives without the help of the government. Limes personality is somewhat linked with that of a sociopath. Sociopath engages in criminal behaviour, they do so in an unplanned manner, with little regard for the risk or consequences of their actions. After Martins finds out Lime is still alive there is an uncomfortable scene in a Ferris wheel. When Martins confronts Lime about his illegal penicillin trade and he responds with, ‘…Victims? Don’t be so melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really… tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could offer to spare?...’. This scene is when the audience loses all likeability and compassion for Lime because of his moral corruption and the way he portrays himself. The long shots from the Ferris wheel where they are nearing the top, and lime describes people as ‘dots’ promotes his pessimistic view of others and their meaningless to

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