The Third Man......
I don't comment on entertainment or films very often and for good reason. You wouldn't be much interested. I admit to having eclectic tastes in the cinematic arts area and I am not much of a current run movie goer. I like what I like....and there's not much of what I like coming out of Hollywood these days.
I stayed up much to late last night watching a movie I've only seen snippets of over the years. I've never seen the whole movie, but I've always been enthralled by the films background music and have heard it since childhood. It's zither music. Like I said...eclectic.
I had gone to turn the TeeVee off at about 11 p.m. and as the Mrs. and I are wont to do I flipped over to one of our "default" channels, Turner Classic Movies for one last look. [as an aside, TCM is Ted Turner's one saving grace..24 hours of classic flicks with no commercials. It's like he's repenting for CNN!] The host, the congenial Robert Osborne, was just introducing the film, "The Third Man" English version.. as opposed to the American version. I didn't know there were two. IMDB.com, the authoritative online film database lists it as the 40th best film ever as voted by their knowledgable readers and I've read where it was also voted the best British film ever made. I'll wager it's the least famous "famous" film in existance.
Based on a Graham Greene story, "The Third Man" is of the film noire genre, both in philosphy and in fact....much of it is filmed at night or very darkly. The story is a mystery and is good, but what makes the film for me is the photography and in fact the cinematographer won an Oscar for his work. The odd low angles, the sharp oversizesd shadows and contrasts of the shots suit my style as a photographer. Set in post WWII Vienna, the filming in 1949 was done mostly on site in Austria amid the still very much visible rubble remaining after the war and adds to the character of the images.
Only four actors among the myriad in the cast were recognizable to me. Joseph Cotten, a young Trevor Howard, Orson Welles and Bernard Lee, who later played "M" in the James Bond series. The rest of the ensemble are European character actors who make the movie all at once dark, artsy and quirky. I think quirky by design. Any film that features a continual light backdrop of the same theme played by a zither virtuoso has to be termed quirky. Especially the almost comical loud flat notes when anything suspenseful happens.
The closing scene is, in my opinion, one of the best in filmdom, both as a photographic image and as an unclosed romantic mystery. Try "The Third Man", you might like it. I can't wait to see it again to catch more of the nuances.
I don't comment on entertainment or films very often and for good reason. You wouldn't be much interested. I admit to having eclectic tastes in the cinematic arts area and I am not much of a current run movie goer. I like what I like....and there's not much of what I like coming out of Hollywood these days.
I stayed up much to late last night watching a movie I've only seen snippets of over the years. I've never seen the whole movie, but I've always been enthralled by the films background music and have heard it since childhood. It's zither music. Like I said...eclectic.
I had gone to turn the TeeVee off at about 11 p.m. and as the Mrs. and I are wont to do I flipped over to one of our "default" channels, Turner Classic Movies for one last look. [as an aside, TCM is Ted Turner's one saving grace..24 hours of classic flicks with no commercials. It's like he's repenting for CNN!] The host, the congenial Robert Osborne, was just introducing the film, "The Third Man" English version.. as opposed to the American version. I didn't know there were two. IMDB.com, the authoritative online film database lists it as the 40th best film ever as voted by their knowledgable readers and I've read where it was also voted the best British film ever made. I'll wager it's the least famous "famous" film in existance.
Based on a Graham Greene story, "The Third Man" is of the film noire genre, both in philosphy and in fact....much of it is filmed at night or very darkly. The story is a mystery and is good, but what makes the film for me is the photography and in fact the cinematographer won an Oscar for his work. The odd low angles, the sharp oversizesd shadows and contrasts of the shots suit my style as a photographer. Set in post WWII Vienna, the filming in 1949 was done mostly on site in Austria amid the still very much visible rubble remaining after the war and adds to the character of the images.
Only four actors among the myriad in the cast were recognizable to me. Joseph Cotten, a young Trevor Howard, Orson Welles and Bernard Lee, who later played "M" in the James Bond series. The rest of the ensemble are European character actors who make the movie all at once dark, artsy and quirky. I think quirky by design. Any film that features a continual light backdrop of the same theme played by a zither virtuoso has to be termed quirky. Especially the almost comical loud flat notes when anything suspenseful happens.
The closing scene is, in my opinion, one of the best in filmdom, both as a photographic image and as an unclosed romantic mystery. Try "The Third Man", you might like it. I can't wait to see it again to catch more of the nuances.
