Vienna Post-War Ambiguity and Redemption: The Third Man Film Analysis

Terms Auteur=Author Diegesis: the viewer constructs a diegetic world based on the material given to them Editing Flashback-forward: jump back or forwards in diegetic time

Mise-en-scene D cor Lighting High-key vs. low key lighting Deep space Offscreen space (viewer constructs the space)

Cinematography Contrast Deep focus Depth of field Angles Canted framing- Dutch angle Tracking shot

The Third Man, Carol Reed (1949) The Third Man, Carol Reed (1949) 20th century Vienna following World War II. British screenwriter-author Graham Greene shot on-location in expressionistic, documentary-style musical score by Viennese composer/performer Anton Karas Robert Krasker, Cinematographer (Oscar, 1950)

Vienna Vienna post-war moral ambiguity and ambivalent redemption. 60 million people killed in the war deliberately unsettling, tilted angles reflected the state of the ruined, fractured and dark city, filled with black marketeers, spies, refugees, thieves, and foreign powers seeking control. (filmsite) After the war Vienna was occupied by US, Soviet Union, UK, France 20% housing destroyed More than 3,000 bomb craters were counted Bridges damaged Sewers, gas, water pipes as well Marshall Plan (freedom restored) in 1955

Carol Reed Worked for the British Armys documentary unit Graham Greene had been a spy

Schemata a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model Readers use schemata to make sense of events and descriptions by providing default background information for comprehension, as it is rare and often unnecessary for texts to contain all the detail required for them to be fully understood. If a script includes someone at a restaurant the viewer doesn t have to be given all of the information to comprehend what is happening at that location Schemata and scripts supply the gaps in reader knowledge (that, for example, a restaurant is a place which serves food, that food once ordered is supplied, and that one must pay before leaving).

In constructivist psychology inferences are made In constructivist psychology inferences are made from the bottom up from the bottom up What psychologists call a bottom-up account.--A stimulus triggers our visual system, which in turn recruits our mind to make sense of what has popped out. Organization of sensory data is primarily determined by expectation, background knowledge, problem solving processes, and other cognitive operations

Perceptual Capacities (Deficiencies) Perceptual Capacities (Deficiencies) Physical: Limitations in visual perception allow for a series of stills in a successive sequence to be viewed as continuous movement

Prior Knowledge and Experience: Prior Knowledge and Experience: We draw on schemata derived from The natural world Other artworks Other Films (or stories) Other Television

Organized by the following: Organized by the following: Conclusions are drawn on the basis of the perceptual input Background knowledge Problem solving processes Conclusions about the stimulus are drawn often inductively on the basis of premises furnished by the data Organized clusters of knowledge guide our hypothesis making

Causal connections: Causal connections: When information is missing, perceivers infer or make guesses about it When events are arranged out of temporal order perceivers try to put those events in sequence A spectator comes to the film already tuned, prepared to focus energies toward story construction Comprehending a narrative requires assigning it some coherence Causal connections are especially important in remembering stories If the text as presented omits causal connections, perceivers tend to supply them when retelling the tale

canonic story format(35) canonic story format (35) introduction of setting and characters explanation of state of affairs complicating action ensuing events outcome ending

Breaking Canonical format Distortions in comprehension and recall tend to occur at points when narrative violates or ambiguates this ideal (meaning conventional) scenario Early statement of the protagonist s goal permits the perceiver to fill in the causal and temporal connections more exactly Without goal statements-- perceivers insert their own goals

Exposition: Exposition: is the insertion of important background information within a story

Contemporary Western Perceiver Contemporary Western Perceiver does typically expect expository material at the outset, a state of affairs disturbed by a complication, and some character ready to function as a goal oriented protagonist

To read narrative continuum is in fact to arrange itat the quick pace set by the reading material in a variety of structures, to strive for concepts or labels which more or less sum of the profuse sequence of observations Roland Barthes

Notion of plausibility: how things really work in the world Notion of plausibility: how things work in specific genres

Stylistic schemata: may go unnoticed, but viewers possess an understanding of it Ex. In mainstream cinema: a long shot is followed by a closer view The spectator also assumes, for example, that objects and human beings persist in space even when they are not onscreen That a character possesses the same individual identity on successive appearances Memory must be seen not as a simple reproduction of a prior perception, but as construction guided by schemata hypothesis forming the viewer/reader frames and tests expectations about upcoming story information

Suspense When an action backs up an already confirmed hypothesis, it is redundant and cannot trigger the full anticipatory range of hypothesis casting

Primacy Effect Primacy Effect Initial information establishes a frame of reference to which subsequent information is subordinated as far as possible Ex: When a character is presented as virtuous they will tend to be considered so even in the face of some contrary evidence

Delayed Gratification (Retardation) Delayed Gratification (Retardation) Essential to narrative structure Expository interruptions Blocked expectations balanced with immediate ones Delay in satisfying hypothesis can be exploited to trigger new expectations A viewer s hypothesis can be clearly validated, invalidated, or left dangling Perceptual hypotheses tend to be vague and open ended and they are seldom disconfirmed

Hypothesis Forming in Stories Hypothesis Forming in Stories Suspense: anticipating and weighing the probabilities of future narrative events (Opposite comparison) When an action backs up an already confirmed hypothesis, it is redundant and cannot trigger full anticipatory range of hypothesis casting Our whole sensory apparatus is basically tuned to the monitoring of unexpected change EH Gombrich wait-and-see strategy: If a story does not confirm a hypothesis, the perceiver is unlikely to go back to a previous page to sort it all out. They will wait to see if unfolding action will clarify things. A perceiver eagerly rushes on. The detective tale: perceiver wants to know who did it and also how the detective is going to figure out who did it

Delayed Gratification (Retardation) Delayed Gratification (Retardation) Essential to narrative structure Expository interruptions Blocked expectations balanced with immediate ones Delay in satisfying hypothesis can be exploited to trigger new expectations A viewer s hypothesis can be clearly validated, invalidated, or left dangling Perceptual hypotheses tend to be vague and open ended and they are seldom disconfirmed

Plot: Plot: Undisturbed stage The Disturbance The Struggle And the elimination of the disturbance

Fabula Fabula vs vs Syuzhet Syuzhet The fabula (story) embodies the action as a chronological, cause-and- effect chain of events occurring within a given duration and spatial field. A mental construct or pattern that spectators create through a process of assumption and inference based on prototype, template, and procedural schemata. The syuzhet or plot is the actual arrangement and presentation of the fabula by the film. Style names a film s systematic use of cinematic devices.

Touch of Evil critiques American law and justice, placing Mexico in a hierarchical position relative to the United States by highlighting American police corruption and portraying the righteousness of Mexican authorities. Mexican cop attempts to nail the American cop for perversion of justice

Quinlan Frames suspects Overtly racist betrays border film conventions Vargas is the superior policeman Conspires with Grandi Grandi s drug smuggling may be north/south (against convention) Turns stereotype of: Mexican=crime on its side Homosexuality (implicit 1950 s serves to demonize anglos)

In 1954, Senator Patrick McCarran of Nevada suggested that subversive agents easily could be included in the wetbacks that crossed the Rio Grande illegally, thereby creating a link between migration and enemy infiltration.

As a result, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and U.S. Border Patrol were authorized by President Dwight Eisenhower to deport massive numbers of Mexican laborers in a most antidemocratic fashion, regularly arresting Mexican Americans, placing them in interment camps, and refusing them due process, activities that continued from 1954 through 1957 (Pease 91)

Quinlan and Vargass relationship represents the antagonistic relationship between the United States and Mexico during Operation Wetback, while Quinlan s refusing Sanchez s civil rights mirrors the lack of rights of migrant laborers at the hands of the McCarran Commission

, the American public still embracing a rhetoric of nationalism and maintaining a skewed view of Latino-as-illegal was not interested in a film that placed Mexico in a hierarchical position relative to the United States via highlighting the violation of Mexican American s civil rights by U.S. governmental agencies and elucidating the corruption of American law enforcement while portraying Mexican police as abiding by a higher standard.

a dispute between Quinlan and Vargas, two people of opposing political and national alignment, whose struggle is over control of natural resources, technology, and the cultural legitimacy which would justify their presence within a space where only one or the other can fit.

because Vargas can function equally well within both spaces, he becomes threatening to the power and authority held by Quinlan

Vargas does seem to function well on both sides of the border, not only adhering to the higher standards of the Mexican side but, apparently, performing the rhetoric of Americanism more proficiently than the Americans while on the U.S. side.

In short, Vargas explodes the American-held myths that put the United States in the dominant position of the U.S.-Mexico binary: Vargas is a legal border crosser that repudiates the stereotype of Mexicanas-illegal, assists with the self-destruction of the rhetoric of Anglo superiority, and unravels the notion of superior American nationalism by adhering to higher standards of law enforcement than do his American counterparts.