Moving Narratives 2 BAFI202 - 29th November

Tuesday 29th November 2016       Moving Narratives 2.      Kaz Rahman

The Third Man

Locations - In today's session we watched the 1949 film "the third man". The film itself was interesting too watch as it was set in Vienna, the main shots were all around the city and I thought it was clever the way they used old stock footage at the start to signify the end of the Second World War, the film featured many bombs out buildings associated with post war.

Story - I thought the story for this film was interesting, the way the main character played by Joseph cotton went about his life, it was evident that he was a well known author for his western interest. He almost became somewhat a detective as we discover that one of the main characters played by Orson Welles (Harry Lime) is not actually dead. The whole film has become centered around the death of Harry Lime, also good to note that citizen Kane was another film that was played by these two main actors, after watching both I feel as if citizen Kane had a big influence on the making for "The Third Man"

Cinematography - one key element that I picked up was the way that almost half the shots within the film had been tilted, after researching about this film I discovered that it's called a Dutch tilt, good way to set the scene within a film, we can get a feel that an image is out of place. From watching the angles and taking note of the story as it unfolds, I feel as well as the music that the tilts make the piece feel out of place, until the very end we as the audience members don't understand the whole plot twist which is made clear towards the scene where a cat wanders off into the shadows of a dark alley where a man stood in the pitch black, holly Martin (Joseph cotton) referred to the man as a spy.

I felt that the use of low key lighting was fantastic, it's what's to understand who we are looking at until they step out into the open, gives the characters a sinister look. I thoroughly thought the film had been lit well, especially within the sewer scene, it wasn't until the dark tunnel chase as the end that we were unable to struggle to find Harry Lime.

The music I thought was somewhat upbeat, it reflected the tragic situations that we were viewing on the screen, I though that the tube was very catchy as well, it felt like the tune was always played as a signification that Harry Lime was about to appear.