American Cinematographer - April 2000 - 24

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The Third Man
The Criterion Collection,

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The story goes that William
Wyler, after seeing The Third Man,
presented director Carol Reed with a
spirit level to place on his camera for his
next outing, in order to forcibly prevent
Reed from using any more Dutch angles.
Yet it is Reed's very modernism that
makes this 1949 film noir study of post¬
war corruption in Vienna such an invigo¬
rating movie experience. The film's
baroque visual style has caused many

Vienna

film buffs to wonder whether Orson

and

Welles (who delivers a delicious star turn

Harry Lime, the utterly venal but
strangely charming racketeer) strayed
from his acting chores on the set to take
as

a

hand in the film's direction. The

answer

may be yes and no. Welles was really an
actor-for-hire on this film, one whose

casting
can

was forcibly opposed by Ameri¬
distributor David 0. Selznick, but the

daring visual spirit of Welles's own Citi¬
zen Kane pervades Reed's film.
Featuring digitally restored image
and sound, The Third Man has been

given

a superb, vibrant transfer by Crite¬
rion. While there is noticeable flickering

of the image in some scenes, the clarity
and contrast level of BSC member Robert

100% BRUSHED

COTTON
W/ EMBROIDERED
AMERICAN

CINEMATOGRAPHER
LOGO

Krasker's rich, black-and-white images
excellent overall. You can see what

are

Criterion

up against in one of the
interesting supplements, a

was

disc's most

five-minute "before and after" demon¬
stration

detailing some of the staggering

22,000 repairs that were made to the

print.

$15.00
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an episode of Welles's The Lives of
Harry Lime radio series, and compare the
opening voice-over narrations of the

Elsewhere, the disc boasts the
exhaustive attention to detail that char¬
acterizes many

of Criterion's releases.

Writer/director Peter Bogdanovich offers
a scholarly introduction to the film. The
viewer

can

listen to

an

of Graham Greene's

abridged reading
script treatment,

British and American versions of the film.

(Selznick hated Reed's cynical introduc¬
tion in the British version and ordered
lead actor Joseph Cotten to deliver a less
morally ambiguous version for the
Yanks.) If all of these bonuses aren't
enough, the disc also offers archival
footage of Viennese composer Anton
Karas playing The Third Man's naggingly
catchy zither music, a look at the actual
sewers

where Lime loved to lurk,

plenty of vintage production photos
but not a single one of Welles looking
through the viewfinder.

-

The Graduate

Special Edition
MGM, $29.98
Has there
one-word line of

ever

been

a

greater

dialogue than "Plas¬
tics!"? With brutal economy, this excla¬
mation sums up the entire shallow,
upper-middle-class, suburban world that
track star Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) is
running from throughout The Graduate.
The screenplay of Mike Nichols's semi¬
nal 1967 study of the generation gap has
been justly celebrated through the years,
but this MGM DVD highlights the film's
equally memorable visual style.
An inventive, insightful director,
Nichols clearly had a lot of fun framing
the film's witty images with cinematog¬
rapher Robert Surtees, ASC, whose work
garnered an Oscar nomination. Anyone
who says comedies need not be wellphotographed should take another look
at the impeccable, widescreen composi¬
tions preserved on this DVD.
Although The Graduate has been
given a solid transfer by MGM, Nichols's
zest for risk-taking occasionally tests the
disc's technical boundaries. For example,
American Cinematographer - April 2000

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - April 2000
