Sometimes an artist's greatest works arise out of a short whirlwind of creative activity, a kind of concentrated period of labor. For example, Faulkner produced his most acclaimed novels in the short span of eight years. Carol Reed is another prime...
[more]Sometimes an artist's greatest works arise out of a short whirlwind of creative activity, a kind of concentrated period of labor. For example, Faulkner produced his most acclaimed novels in the short span of eight years. Carol Reed is another prime example -- between 1947 and 1952, this director made "Odd Man Out," "The Fallen Idol," "The Third Man," "Outcast of the Islands," and "The Man Between." This deluge of films established Reed as one of the top directors to emerge out of Britain.
"The Third Man," in particular, is a contender for the title of greatest suspense film of all time. Locale is perhaps the most forcefully drawn character in the film: the inky, labyrinthine world of crumbling, post-war Vienna. Running through Vienna's dark, endless alleyways, a pulp writer peels away layer after layer of fact and fiction from this modern-day Inferno in a desperate attempt to discover the truth about a friend's death. Based on a novella by Graham Greene (who also collaborated with Reed on "The Fallen Idol"), "The Third Man" is a tour de force of intrigue and filmic technique. Reed's tight camera work creates a visual dialogue around the problematics of identity and Cold War politics.
Reed's films are marked by a combination of sympathetic character treatment and sensitivity to political issues. "Odd Man Out," one of the hallmarks of post-war British cinema, follows a wounded IRA gunman on the run in Belfast. Encountering a cross-section of Belfast society -- each of whom may just as easily hinder as help him -- this character slides across the wet, murky streets in a constant state of insecurity and doubt. From this place of fear, the film expands into an allegory of redemption: the IRA gunman, who commits murder in the film's first minutes, becomes a conduit of goodness. While operating on a broad political level -- exploring the relationship between a member of the IRA and his war-torn country -- the film mines the human spirit and posits inherent tendencies towards altruism and community.
Reed explores characters on the fringe, or in the midst, of a world always already in a state of alienation. His characters tread the in-between space, never able to capture one identity or another. For Reed, identity is ultimately a false state of mind rather than a steadfast quality. We are all third men, trapped in a hall of mirrors; our only recourse is to tap into those universal human qualities that will lift us above the world's confusingly warped dimensions.
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