The Third Man and The Illusionist
I watched two good movies over the weekend-and oddly enough, both were set in Vienna, albeit about 50 years apart. The first was The Illusionist. I don't know why I wanted to see it-I like Edward Norton but I'm not a huge fan of his and the same goes for Paul Giamatti ( I swear I'm one of the few people who was less than thrilled with Sideways). Jessica Biel is on some show I would never watch and Rufus Sewell gives me the wig. And it looked to be some sort of romance in turn-of-the century Vienna and that is the sort of movie I usually give a very wide berth to-I think they're hard to do well and I usually find them sort of silly-and yet I wanted to see this movie. I have to say it was worth it-Edward Norton was mesmerizing-I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He's not great-looking and doesn't have a very prepossing demeanor but he was fascinating to watch. He plays the illusionist of the title, who falls in love as a young man with an equally young Duchess-who is forcibly separated from him. They meet again several years later-do they fall in love? Does her creepy fiance (Sewell, giving me the wig again) kill her? Is Edward Norton really summoning her spirit or is it all a trick? Will Paul Giamatti figure the whole thing out? I didn't think the plot was too hard to figure out, if you're paying attention-whenever I see a movie like this, I keep hearing Deep Throat say "follow the money"-meaning that if you pay attention to what's important the ending will not be a surprise-but it was worth the trip to get there.
I also saw The Third Man-set in Vienna shortly after the end of WWII. The city is in ruins and Hollie Martins, writer of westerns, has come to visit his old friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job. But Harry has died in a car accident and nobody is looking into it too closely except for Hollie, who
A) Doesn't have anything else to do and is baffled as to why no one really cares about his friend. Joseph Cotten, an actor I usually don't care for, does a great job of playing the befuddled American who can't speak any of the languages and is lost on the European Continent and
B) the British police (Vienna at this time was divided into sectors, British, American, Russian, French) who are VERY interested in Harry Lime and in what his friend Hollie Martins is doing in Vienna.
Hollie meets several of Harry's friends (and they are a motley crew) and business associates, along with Harry's girlfriend. He also has several run-ins with various refugees around Vienna-usually asking for money or needing a place to sleep-and in true noir fashion, these encounters are filmed from Hollie's point of view-meaning that if they speak a language other than English, he has no idea what anyone is saying-and neither does the audience. As Hollie finds out more and more about Harry, the less and less he likes him. And when he finds out why the police are so interested (Harry had an intern at a local hospital stealing penicillin, Harry would dilutes it and sell it on the black market with awful results) he is extremely unhappy. But Harry is dead, isn't he? Hollie is leaving Harry's girlfriend's apartment when he happens to look at a darkened doorway, which is then briefly illuminated by the opening of a shutter, high up across the street. This is one of the best scenes in the movie-the brief cut to the doorway, the shutter opening and the cut back to doorway with the light slanting on Orson Welles' face-for it is he who the elusive Harry Lime. He stands there for a few seconds, smiling/smirking at Hollie-and then he's gone. Was it really him? They dig up his grave to find the intern in it, so it seems Harry is very much alive and the manhunt is on. Will Hollie betray his friend and help the police? Will he help his friend and tell him the police are after him? He actually does both (along with falling for Harry's girl) after an excruciating, tension-filled chase in the Vienna sewers. This scene may have been shot in 1949, but it's more exciting than just about any action movie done in the past few years.
I don't want to give awy the ending, let's just say that it was perfect for this movie-beautiful and ambiguous.
I also saw The Third Man-set in Vienna shortly after the end of WWII. The city is in ruins and Hollie Martins, writer of westerns, has come to visit his old friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job. But Harry has died in a car accident and nobody is looking into it too closely except for Hollie, who
A) Doesn't have anything else to do and is baffled as to why no one really cares about his friend. Joseph Cotten, an actor I usually don't care for, does a great job of playing the befuddled American who can't speak any of the languages and is lost on the European Continent and
B) the British police (Vienna at this time was divided into sectors, British, American, Russian, French) who are VERY interested in Harry Lime and in what his friend Hollie Martins is doing in Vienna.
Hollie meets several of Harry's friends (and they are a motley crew) and business associates, along with Harry's girlfriend. He also has several run-ins with various refugees around Vienna-usually asking for money or needing a place to sleep-and in true noir fashion, these encounters are filmed from Hollie's point of view-meaning that if they speak a language other than English, he has no idea what anyone is saying-and neither does the audience. As Hollie finds out more and more about Harry, the less and less he likes him. And when he finds out why the police are so interested (Harry had an intern at a local hospital stealing penicillin, Harry would dilutes it and sell it on the black market with awful results) he is extremely unhappy. But Harry is dead, isn't he? Hollie is leaving Harry's girlfriend's apartment when he happens to look at a darkened doorway, which is then briefly illuminated by the opening of a shutter, high up across the street. This is one of the best scenes in the movie-the brief cut to the doorway, the shutter opening and the cut back to doorway with the light slanting on Orson Welles' face-for it is he who the elusive Harry Lime. He stands there for a few seconds, smiling/smirking at Hollie-and then he's gone. Was it really him? They dig up his grave to find the intern in it, so it seems Harry is very much alive and the manhunt is on. Will Hollie betray his friend and help the police? Will he help his friend and tell him the police are after him? He actually does both (along with falling for Harry's girl) after an excruciating, tension-filled chase in the Vienna sewers. This scene may have been shot in 1949, but it's more exciting than just about any action movie done in the past few years.
I don't want to give awy the ending, let's just say that it was perfect for this movie-beautiful and ambiguous.
posted by SHbookworm at 12:07 PM
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