By Jeremy Ambrose

Warning: The essay below discusses many crucial plot points including the film’s ending. Watch the film first and read this piece afterwards…

When seeking to understand the grand and stylish piece of entertainment that is The Third Man, the key perhaps lies in a close look into the life and personality of its writer, the hugely popular Graham Greene. A man of contradictions (and said to have had bipolar disorder) Greene struggled in a seemingly never ending wrestle between the sins of the flesh that he found so enticing and his Catholic faith. He frequented the Sacrament of Confession and committed adultery, struggled with faith, but could not rid himself of it and created works considered profane, yet grace-filled. Perhaps the two major characters we encounter in this film, two men who stand as polar opposites of one another, are actually the two men within Greene the author, as he seeks to discover himself, exploring the paths that lie before him and the ultimate consequences of each path.

For us then, these two men can also be imagined as the two possibilities and paths of the human person and likewise, we can gain some insight from the arcs of both characters.

The film itself is two-paced. From the very beginning the audience is swept along and thrown off-balance alongside Holly Martins as he disembarks his train on the lookout to meet his old school friend Harry Lime. The camera tilts and imposing angles draw us into a cock-eyed vision of Vienna, where nothing is as it seems and confusion reigns, not only on the streets, but in the governing authorities too, since the carve up of the city by the four victorious nations of the war. Holly’s bumbling around from scene to scene allows us to get a sense of his simplicity, as he tries to navigate this strange, foreign landscape. He is a man who wants to uncover the truth, a man faithful to his friends, a man who believes in justice and ultimately in God. Even though he exists in a realm of shadows he is no typical film noir leading man. He does not cope well in punch ups, can’t hold his liquor and fails to sweep the girl off her feet. He is uncool, unsuccessful and yet he is the man of integrity in the film. He is the man who doesn’t seem to win, even though he is seeking to do what is truly good.

And then there is Harry Lime…

In possibly one of the greatest scenes of all time, the director Carol Reed, carefully sets up the audience by clever technique and well planned dialogue, using a perfectly orchestrated series of shots to build the atmosphere so that when the eventual ‘reveal’ comes, it does so with such a heightened sense of style that it sweeps the viewer off their feet, setting the film off with a new pace – one dictated by the simultaneous charm and moral corruption of the man revealed. The climactic moment reveals a man standing in a doorway as a window is opened and a beam of light falls upon the previously shadowed figure, lighting up the clear, large face of Harry Lime. In an instant we recognise something glamorous, something attractive, something that is heightened by the strings of the zither and honed in on by the camera, capturing that rascally and likeable grin, with a slight glimmer of amusement and a solid dose of self assuredness.

There is a glamour here that can never belong to Holly, a glamour that reveals why Holly would have been so fond of this “best friend” of his. Perhaps it also explains the magnetic love Anna feels towards Harry and finds impossible to let go of, a love that blinds her to the goodness of Holly who stands before her. Harry exudes charisma; charisma that has the power to seduce and yet, beneath the glamour of it all, what is revealed but corruption? The glamour of Harry Lime seems to reflect another type of glamour that Catholics are taught to reject when making their Baptismal promises…

What we have here are two different men depicted. There is the man of justice and purity embodied in Holly, and the man of corruption and worldly power embodied in Harry. The same city streets that trap Holly and throw him off balance are navigated with speed and confidence by Harry. The same woman ‘loved’ by both men, has her heart opened to Harry and shut to Holly. Holly is defined by his closeness to people, involving himself even where he shouldn’t and finally being led to see Harry’s victims, the children in hospital, up close in an encounter that convinces him to help the police to catch his ‘old’ friend. Harry, on the other hand, keeps himself at a distance, at such a distance that people appear as dots, and dots are far easier to wipe off without upsetting one’s conscience. All Harry’s successes have come at a price, the price of his own humanity. He may claim to still believe in “God and mercy and all that” but his life choices seem to cheaply put these beliefs to the side making them as meaningless and ultimately as distant as the ‘dots’ he views from the top of a Ferris wheel. He may be glamourous, he may have won Anna’s love and faithfulness, but something else lurks beneath the surface.

Likewise, beneath the crumbling Vienna, is the sewer, Harry’s lair. Here amongst the sickening odours flows the waste of the world above. Like the glamour of evil, the glamour of Harry is lost when truth is finally revealed and we see the frantic eyes of a man searching for escape, but trapped like a rat in this sewer, trapped by his own sinfulness and the consequences of such a ‘glamorous’ life.

Holly, in some way, can be seen to represent the man of faith in the world today. He is out of place and appears a loser when standing next to the man of the world, the man of power and the man of ‘glamour.’ Yet, he makes choices, real choices that cultivate a freedom Harry can never have. The last we see of Harry are his fingers poking through the grate of the sewer, seeking an elusive freedom impossible for him to gain. And Holly? What is the last we see of him? Do we see him finally triumphant?

The answer appears in the wonderful final shot of the film. Holly stands leaning on a cart, with the horizon behind him, waiting for Anna, who appears as a dot in the distance, walking down the path as the camera remains waiting with Holly. Thus we wait too, watching as Anna walks closer and closer to the foreground, closer to where Holly waits, becoming larger as she walks towards us. Again, we see the opposite of Harry, who prefers to remain at measured distances for his own selfish reasons. Holly remains where he is in order to eradicate the distance, in order for authentic human encounter. For over a minute the shot is held.

How often do we see such a scene today? Not often I would suggest, because today’s audiences would not have the patience for such scenes and such stillness. Yet, what time we are given, what identification we are offered, as we stand with Holly, without any shortcuts via fast edits. Rather, we too wait and anticipate what human encounter will occur as the result of his patience and ours. Anna’s steady and unflinching walk to the foreground says so much and captures everything that has happened in the film. She walks and he waits for her. She gets closer. He waits. She is closer still. He waits. He is a man of faith. And she walks past him, not a word spoken, nor a look given. She has not forgiven the perceived betrayal of Harry, her lover and his friend. The brilliance of this scene lies in the fact that we are given the time to consider what will happen as we watch her approach. We start to build expectations. We are given time to wait with Holly, and then the film masterfully surprises us with something that is not really surprising at all – that is, she continues walking until she leaves the frame and all we have is Holly, standing alone, with nothing else to do but light up a cigarette. It is the natural course and yet, it seems so unnatural. Her refusal to acknowledge Holly at all – is it his defeat? Is it his failure, or just a natural consequence of doing what is right, and standing for justice? Whatever the answer, Holly looks foolish. He is ignored, left standing alone. And yet he is the one who is truly free. His triumph lies, not in worldly rewards, which one could argue do not exist for him by the end of the film, but rather, in the ability to make good choices, and the ability to offer himself as a gift to the other. Even if that offer is rejected, it is worth far more than Harry’s grasping at self preservation. It is freedom for goodness, a freedom for love and if the result be that one appears foolish in the eyes of the world – well, would one rather choose differently? Would we rather gain worldly glamour and lose ourselves as Harry did?

Perhaps these questions were the same that Grahame Greene asked himself. Perhaps these two men stood within his imagination as the two men he could possibly be. Perhaps the truth of his existence was in a “third man”, a man somewhere in-between the other two, who despaired at his own inability to wrest himself from the allures of such a life, and yet never stopped hoping in divine grace to accomplish what he couldn’t. Perhaps this third man is every man in their continual struggle as he pursues the path to true freedom, swaying between the poles of Holly and Harry, until grace working through nature finally finds its completion and man emerges victorious with a true love that can never simply pass him by.