The Third Man (1949) – Screening & Lecture, November 21

The Third Man (1949) is masterpiece of Cold War film noir, a movie both of its time and timeless. It’s a British story of Americans in a broken Europe. The setting is Vienna after the Second World War, a city divided between American, Soviet, British, and French military occupations. Into the ruin and wreckage comes an American hack writer looking for a lost friend.

The script was by the sarcastic and sorrowful novelist Graham Greene; the director was Carol Reed. Joseph Cotten plays the American “scribbler with too much drink in him.” Librarian and cinephile Marko Petrovic will offer a short introduction on the making of the film and on the unforgettable performance of Orson Welles.

Is anyone ever really innocent in a film noir? Corruption, cynicism and guilt were the central themes of the genre, and central themes of the era in which film noir flourished. Senior lecturer of American Studies George Blaustein will put film noir in historical perspective.