epeck15

Normally, I am reluctant to slam another person's comments about a film, but I have to take issue with Noel-74. First of all, the arrogance of comments like, "You've got to be a complete idiot to believe you're seeing something new" takes me back to the self-important little twerps of my undergraduate days. So, Noel-74, if you are an undergraduate, my apologies. Let's hope it's just a stage you're working through. If you're over the of 25, please stay clear. I mean, seriously, your comment that there was something sinister in making abject poverty look so beautiful. Can any person look at the scenes depicted in that movie and feel anything other than horror at the conditions in which so many of our brothers and sisters live? Not to get all touchy-feely on you, but if you came away from that movie thinking about how beautiful it all looked, I'd say it was you, and not the movie, that could use a little more introspection. I liked this movie a lot. I thought it was moving, chilling, depressing and unpredictable. Even the ending (NO SPOILERS HERE) could have gone a bunch of different ways, several of which would have been more conventional than what we are left with. A very good film, with excellent acting.

Like most people who post reviews on this site, I love movies. I'm not a professional reviewer, but I've seen lots of movies in my day. And from that vast list, most of which has long since faded into my mind's oblivion, a very few stand out. Casablanca. Chinatown. The Godfathers. Bridge On The River Kwai. Annie Hall. The Third Man stands in that company, and maybe at the front. This site contains so many excellent reviews of this movie and its cinematography, its music, its Graham Greene-inspired plot and dialogue. I won't try to re-do what so many reviews have already done. No, I'm writing this comment to honor Joseph Cotten. This movie will always be associated in the first instance with Orson Welles, who, as most readers will know by now, is on screen for but a few minutes. And while those minutes may represent the most memorable small role in the history of cinema, it's Joseph Cotten who carries this movie. His performance as the bumbling, naive, yet ultimately heroic Holly Martins, is perfect. It's an incredibly demanding role, because in order for the movie to work, we have to see Holly as childlike in his adoration of the evil Harry Lime (played by Welles), adolescent in his pursuit of Lime's bereaved girlfriend, slippery enough to have been Lime's one-time running mate, yet clever enough to unravel a mystery that's fooled the cynical British army cop, Major Calloway, played brilliantly by Trevor Howard. And all that and more, we have to like him. Cotten, who is in virtually every frame of the movie, pulls it off. Nowadays, little is written about Joseph Cotten. Maybe it was his man-on-the-street looks. More likely, he'll always be seen as a lesser satellite in Welles' galaxy. Pity, because he was great, and his performance as Holly Martins in The Third Man, is fantastic.

I love Sandrine Bonnaire. Not love her in the "sell my possessions and move to Paris" love her, but love her in movies. In this movie especially. Every second she is on the screen, I was riveted to her. Her somewhat jerky and stiff physical mannerisms, her plain but beautiful face. And even though from the start we sense that her character is odd, creepy even, we can also feel her almost childlike panic and pain early on when we learn she can't read. It's enormously moving, and it creates a sympathetic bond with her that complicates how we view the events that follow. I just love her, and that probably clouded my overall estimation of the film. That's not to say the film is otherwise weak. It's not. The exploration into the class conflict between the rich and their help was excellent. And so was the portrayal of the sociopathic personality, shifting from sweet smiles to cold-bloodedness in a process devoid of emotion. Chilling, especially so when the sociopath is a waifish beauty. It's a very good movie made great by Sandrine Bonnaire's performance.