Alex said "the struggle that he represents" he being Harry Lime. A] explain that more, B] even if Alex didn't consider that a loaded phrase, I think there's a damn important notion behind a struggle Lime and others who fake their deaths represent. Ha. No, but they would be resourceful, connected, maybe rich--are they doing it to escape "income tax"? Oh, in another Orson movie, "Lady From Shanghai (1948) a character also wants to fake his death.
So, my highlights of "The Third Man":
The major Orson Welles dialogue. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) insists on meeting Harry Lime (Orson), who was thought to be dead. You know the movie--Lime trafficked in diluted medicine and kids and others died as a result. Well Lime revealed to Martins that he was alive before the following exchange occurs, which takes place high up in a ferris wheel car:
MARTINS (Cotten): Have you ever seen any of your victims?
LIME (Orson Welles): You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.
LIME [to MARTINS, they're back down on the ground]: Holly, I would like to cut you in, old man. Nobody left in Vienna I can really trust, and we have always done everything together. When you make up your mind, send me a message. I'll meet you any place, any time ... Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.
AS Grant Morrison says, you need the world to experience World Wars so it doesn't have to again. So if peace yields a cuckoo clock and a spike of violence allowed for a dip for "good" things, the arts and peace, a return to strife (though in less powerful waves) is inevitable--at least for the next 5 years and 11 months, if you buy into 2012. So was Orson playing a globalist? Obviously your take on it is all you've got.
Just as auxiliary additions to this post, more dialogue from this scene, from before Lime says so long to Martins:
MARTINS: I was at your funeral.
LIME: It was pretty smart, wasn't it? Oh, the same old indigestion, Holly. These are the
only things that help - these tablets. These are the last. Can't get them anywhere in Europe any
more.
LIME: Do you expect me to give myself up?
MARTINS: Why not?
LIME: "It's a far better thing that I do..." Holly, you and I aren't heroes, the world doesn't
make any heroes outside of our stories. I've got to be careful. I'm only safe in the Russian Zone.
I'm safe as long as they can use me.
MARTINS: As long as they can use you?
HARRY: I wish I could get rid of this thing.
MARTINS: What did you expect me to be, part of your...
LIME: Part? You can have any part you want, so long as you don't interfere. I have never
cut you out of anything yet.
LIME: There's no proof against me, besides you.
MARTINS: I should be pretty easy to get rid of.
LIME: Pretty easy.
MARTINS: I wouldn't be too sure. I carry a gun.
LIME: I don't think they'd look for a bullet wound after you'd hit that ground.
LIME: Oh, Holly, what fools we are, talking to each other this way. As though I would do anything to you, or you to me. You're just a little mixed up about things in general. Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, so why
should we? They talk about the people and the proletariat. I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It's the same thing. They have their five year plans, and so have I.
MARTINS: You used to believe in God.
LIME: I still do believe in God, old man. I believe in God and Mercy and all that. The dead
are happier dead. They don't miss much here, poor devils.
LETS DO more Orson film reviews. |
