Preview

4. "The Third Man Is a Film About Morals and Loyalty." Show How This Is Conveyed.

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2009 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
4. "The Third Man Is a Film About Morals and Loyalty." Show How This Is Conveyed.
In his 1949 Film Noir The Third Man, Carol Reed presents the idea that betrayal of a friend is forgivable in the light of a greater good. Throughout the film it is seen that the requirement of maintaining loyalty and friendship is overridden when morals are tested. The film follows the ignorant journey of Holly Martins as he attempts to discover the mystery behind the death of his ‘dear friend’ Harry Lime. The canted camera angles and shadows allow the audience to identify the trustworthy characters from the corrupt, and Reed’s motif of re-occurring props and non-diagetic zither music establish the moral ambiguity of the films setting and atmosphere.
The obligation of betrayal is centrally shown through the protagonist Holly Martins, as his initial ignorant loyalty is presented through Reeds use of canted angles. In the beginning of the film Holly is stubborn, gullible and oblivious to the corrupt setting he has immersed himself in. His innocence is projected through the recurring straight angle on his face, in contrast, suspicious characters such as Harry are given a canted angle suggesting they’re not morally ‘straight’. Holly’s morality and loyalty to Harry is tested in the Ferris wheel scene as he becomes exposed to the true Harry. The scene begins with Holly sitting by the Ferris wheel, appearing dwarfed, hence reiterating his insignificance. The pair enters the carriage and significant camera angles are used on each of their faces to portray to the audience their differing moralities. A straight camera angle is used for Holly, and a tilted for Harry. Holly is exposed to Harry's true nature when he tells him about Anna being arrested and Harry simply says “Tough, very tough” showing that he doesn’t truly care about her. Also Harry draws Anna’s name in child-like scribble on the window of the carriage, reiterating that he isn’t concerned about her fate. A long shot of the carnival is given, Harry points to the people walking on the ground and says to Holly

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Existentialism and its worldview are believed to have derived from Nietzsche’s provocative and controversial statement “God is dead”. The underlying meaning to Nietzsche’s controversial statement is that empirical natural science has replaced metaphysical explanations of the world. As a result of this, according to Nietzsche we no longer have any sense of who and what we are as human beings. He concludes that no foundation exists anymore for the meaning and value of things. Nietzsche’s philosophy shines light on what film noir is. That is, an artistic response to, or recognition of, this alteration in our understanding of the world. To emphasize the existentialist attitude in film noir, various stylistic and thematic techniques are used. Common techniques or characteristics of film noir that we see in both The Maltese Falcon and The Killers include: unconventional or non-classical narrative patterns, opposition of light and shadow, disorientation of the viewer, incoherent plot lines, inversion of traditional values and its corresponding moral ambivalence, non-chronological ordering of events, and characters whose actions are not motivated or understandable in any rational way. The similarities of characteristics between existentialism and film noir are prominent; for example, Siodmak and Huston distinguish the alienation and disorientation of a post-Nietzschean world, one without transcendent meaning or value.…

    • 666 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the film, ‘All About Eve’, Joseph Mankiewicz presents a world of contradictory standards between the forces of a man and a woman that transcends back in 1950s, where women, such as Eve Harrington, are conceive as cold-blooded and merciless as they pursue differently from the society’s expectations, by the means of chasing their ruthless ambition. To an extent, Eve’s immoral actions is what may have influenced us, audience, to dislike Eve. However, Eve reconstructed her own identity with the heavy pressures coming from the society, Eve only wanted to find that sense of belonging and to be adored by everyone, and she find that the ‘theatre’ is a place that she can call hers. Furthermore, the conservative attitude of society on gender roles during the 1950s may also have an effect on the audience’s hatred on Eve. This film highlights the inequitable roles of being a woman and how men are treated differently by the society.…

    • 1119 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Film noir’s darker themes and stylistic features enable it to address and explore the crux of the existential angst that humanity endures. Thus, the fifties are revived in Bryan Singer’s film, ‘The Usual Suspects’ by its translation of The Classic Questions into a modern context. In certain scenes of this film- ‘Redfoot-LA’, ‘Meeting Kobayashi’ and the ‘The greatest trick the devil ever pulled...’ most notably- the work’s central preoccupation is expressed with remarkable vividness. Through the investigation of how the downward spiral which permeates the criminal world isolates those within it, how the futile attempt to escape one’s past can lead to entrapment and how the exploration of truth highlights the ambiguous nature between reality and illusion in these scenes, Singer concludes with a refreshing perspective on human existence and society.…

    • 1310 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Good Will Hunting Analysis

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Good Will Hunting is a movie with an all-star cast including Matt Damon, Robin Williams, and Ben Affleck just to name a few. Matt Demon plays the main character Will Hunting while Robin Williams and Ben Affleck play supporting roles as a psychology professor and best friend. The movie introduces Will as a janitor at MIT that is much smarter than he lets on. In fact, Will Hunting is a mathematical genius. Stellan Skarsgard plays a professor at MIT named Gerald Lambeau. Professor Lambeau decided to put an unsolved equation outside his classroom for his students to try and figure out but it was Will who solved it in just a few short minutes. For obvious reasons, this caught Professor Lambeau’s eye.…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    On the Waterfront

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Elia Kazan’s masterpiece, “On the Waterfront” tells the story of Terry Malloy’s battle between reason and will. At the film’s centre lie’s Terry’s choice between remaining “deaf and dumb” about the corruption lead by Johnny Friendly, or becoming a ‘stool’ pigeon and testifying against him. Terry’s ultimate decision to testify against Friendly demonstrates his transformation from being a “bum”, lost in his morality, to a hero and leader for himself and his fellow longshoremen. His choice to “rat” on Friendly is brought on by his newly awakened conscience, not anger. This conscience is a result of his developing love for Edie Doyle, and the pressing care of Father Barry. Together they push him towards making the morally correct decision. Terry’s anger in the film arises from the death of his brother Charlie, “one of [Friendly’s] own”. This however, it is not the reason he testifies, but rather a driving force. If Terry’s decision sparked from anger, he would have ignored Father Barry’s plea to “fight [Friendly] with the truth”, and sought revenge on Friendly. Instead, Terry’s conscience prevails and he listens to Father Barry.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “I was ratting on myself all them years, and I didn’t even know it.” Terry Malloy’s eventual realisation in Elia Kazan’s film, On the Waterfront (1954), reveals the philosophical nature of allegiances that the story of an exploited waterfront community’s resistance to an oppressive mob is centred on. Set on the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, the film explores how certain loyalties are detrimental to one’s dignity and integrity but necessary for survival. Whereas other loyalties are often innate to one’s being, born out of love and protectiveness. Kazan argues that ultimately, it is our moral conscience that decides where our dominant loyalty lies. Using a variety of personalities with conflicting morals and fluctuating loyalties, the director suggests to audiences that the most important loyalty we owe is to ourselves, that is, our moral conscience.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This analysis will examine the following focal points, panopticism, scoptophilic instincts, and visual pleasure. First, the analysis will examine panopticism in relation to embedded “secret politics” within the film, The Day I Became a Woman. Second, the analysis will compare both scoptophilic instinct with visual pleasure.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The movie Unbroken revolves around the life of US Olympian and athlete Louis "Louie" Zamperini. The film opens showing Louie flying as a bomb aimer of a United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber, during an April 1943 bombing mission against the Japanese-held island of Nauru. The plane he is abroad becomes seriously damaged resulting in many of the crew members becoming fatally injured. The hydraulics of the plane are shot and damaged, but the pilot, Phil, manages to salvage the plane at the end of the runway due to a flat tire.…

    • 94 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The plot in the movie and the novel had many differences. The exposition is one of the differences that made the movie confusing. Instead of Ponyboy leaving the movie house and getting jumped by the Socs, he starts to write The Outsiders. It was a huge mistake for Francis Coppola to leave this out because the exposition in the book involved a significant event, where the Socs showed the violent relationship they have between the Greasers. Another difference is When Cherry explains to Ponyboy that ‘Socs are cool to the point of not feeling anything’, without this scene in the movie, it is harder to understand how Cherry views the conflict between Socs and Greasers.…

    • 800 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Elia Kazan’s film, “On the Waterfront”, tells the story of a washed up ex-boxer named Terry Malloy and his fight against the organised crime syndicate controlling the shipping docks of Hoboken, New Jersey in 1954, but more importantly, according to Kazan himself: “This motion picture is about one thing only: a young man who has let his dignity slip away, and regains it.” Under Kazan’s direction, a variety of filming techniques and repeated symbols and motifs are carefully utilised to constantly support Terry’s self-perception throughout the film. However, it is this judgement of himself which evolves as a result of his profound development in both his character and his conviction to act upon his underlying moral values during the course of the film; from a lazy, insignificant “bum”, to a “somebody” who is respected for the sacrifices which he makes on behalf of his community. This transformation is not entirely self-induced, but rather brought on by a number of factors including his unwitting participation in Joey Doyle’s murder, his growing relationship and often intimate interactions with Edie, and Father Barry’s pressing care and Catholic influence.…

    • 1958 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Murder My Sweet Analysis

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Film noirs have had a history of using two diametrically opposed archetypes to illustrate acceptable and unacceptable desires, ambitions, and social behavior that need narrative resolution. The film “Murder, My Sweet” is no different. In this movie Ann and Helen are opposed against each other, vying for Philip Marlowe’s desire, while Marlowe himself and Ann’s father are opposed with each other with regards to their professional and social desires.…

    • 613 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    George is the main character and the movie starts off when he was little. George and his older brother were sledding down a hill with some friends and there was a thin part in the ice that George's brother sled into and fell in the water, George jumped into save him and as a result he lost his hearing in one ear. Later in life George takes over the banks due to his father becoming ill on George's and Mary's wedding night. In 1929 when the Great Depression or Black Tuesday when the stock market crashed crippling the US and world Economy. George tries to keep the bank open and help people by giving their honeymoon money and bank money to people. When his uncle takes over the bank he loses the banks money and Mr.Potter who wants to own the town and the bank. When George's uncle loses the money…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Regarding Henry Analysis

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The stipulations regarding one’s natural state and their reactions in the face of adversity resonates throughout the famous film Regarding Henry. In this classic, the main protagonist, Henry, is faced with the trauma of a gunshot wound to the head that rewinds him to his pre-learned experiences, like a child just starting to figure out the world once again. Because of this gunshot wound, Henry is transformed from his egocentric, cruel, business-man self revolving around his Id, which is the state of mind where he pursues everything he deems necessary for himself, to this kind, caring superego that exists only because of the traumatic event. Every learned experience Henry has ever endured is stripped away, and he starts his…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Patriot Movie Essay

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The British have been taken by surprise by the American colonists’ rebellion in 1775, which started the American Revolution, but the rebels suffered a major defeat at New York City in September 1776. The rebel army reformed and continued to fight. The surrender of a British army on October 17, 1777 convinced France to enter into an alliance with the American colonies, thus creating a bigger conflict. The British then shifted operations to the south, thought to be overflowing with loyalists, and Charleston, South Carolina fell on May 9, 1780. Gates, the hero of Saratoga, led an army of exhausted, starving Continentals and militia into battle against an equal number of redcoats at Camden, South Carolina on August 17. The redcoats charged and the Continentals were surrounded and slaughtered. The British thought that they had finally subdued the Carolinas, but they were wrong. -Historyonfilm.com…

    • 473 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nils Ekdahl and Anita Fierst are the VP and CFO of Circale Corporation which is in the path of expansion and had few acquisitions in the near past as a part of it. A pay roll cut of 20 million demanded by the CEO required in a span of four months due to untenable duplication of departments.…

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays