[100 Scenes] 3) The Third Man (1949): The world doesn't make any heroes

Writing up the 100 Scenes project, I'm finding, is not dissimilar to making a mix tape: What should I put in next? How does it compare and contrast to the last one? Am I using up all the good stuff too early? Unfortunately, like mix-making this tends to lead to my worst waffling tendencies. On Monday, I had finally decided to write up a romantic scene from the last decade, but changed my mind Tuesday night, when I switched to a funnier but no less romantic clip from the last decade that figmentj reminded me of, which held until I woke up this morning and decided to go with a classic drama from the 1940's. Look at Decisive Boy go!

In the end, I suppose the timing doesn't matter, as I'll be doing up both of those within the next week or two. Nor does it matter that I'm going for the obvious scene from The Third Man (or one of them, anyway; I can think of at least three others). No, I think the most important thing here is that I can finally use my Orson Welles icon with legitimacy:

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First of all, there's no way for me to discuss this scene without spoiling the bajeezus out of a brilliant film—that crack about my icon up there might even be considered spoilery, if you want to split hairs—so consider yourself warned. Pulp writer Holly Martins arrives in post-war Vienna to visit his old friend Harry Lime, just in time to learn that Harry has recently been hit by a truck and killed. He ends up remaining in the city for an extended stay, and one funeral and several interactions with Harry's cohorts later (including his girlfriend Anna and, if they can be called cohorts, the police), Holly makes two shocking discoveries about his late friend: one, he was a murderer and racketeer, watering down medicines to sell the overage on the black market; and two, funeral or no, he isn't actually dead.

This brings us to the scene in question, the one on the Ferris wheel (the same wheel on which Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy share their first kiss in Before Sunrise). Before they converge on this spot, the two men have seen but haven't spoken with each other since Harry faked his death. Thus they enter the gondola with a lot to say and a lot of shared history under their belts, leading to a conversation with more layers than a slab of baklava. It's a dramatic tightrope, in danger of falling apart if director Carol Reed hadn't cast Joseph Cotten as Holly and Orson Welles at the peak of his dramatic powers as Harry. Graham Greene's screenplay cracks like a bullwhip, with so much communicated in the spaces between the lines and so much bubbling under the surface, and Cotten and Welles, who had already worked together countless times on radio, stage, and screen and would do so countless more, let their old-chum characters' lines wrap around each other in the manner of two people who know each other all too well.

What strikes me about the scene is its understatedness; this is a fight, one laden with threats, allegations, and the real possibility of violence, but they never shout, never truly lose their tempers no matter how much is on the line. The remarkable thing is that even with all that restraint, the dynamic of their conversation takes several noticeable turns—it's one thing to show changes in emotions laid bare, but quite another to show them in emotions kept under wraps. Holly starts out angry and self-righteous, and Harry aloof and banking on their familiarity. When that fails to sway him, as does his amoral moralizing, we're treated to one of the most beautiful moments of dramatic tension ever crafted. There's a threat, but like everything else it's below the surface: "There's no proof against me," he tells Holly after opening the gondola door well above the pavement, "except you." Holly's response is one of deserved fear, but he says not a word; he simply steps to the door frame and holds on, an unspoken guard against an unspoken ultimatum. Even better, though, is when Holly counters with the news that the police have dug up his alleged coffin. Listen to the ever-so-quietly startled turn Welles's voice takes, and watch his face: it barely moves, but you can see the machinations behind his eyes as he realizes that the upper hand he thought he had was never really there.

By the time the ride comes to an end, the two men, both thoroughly spooked, have returned their words to the false convivial tone they started with, coming (like the ride we've just taken with them) full circle. It's a scene that doesn't need any sweetening, but sweeten it they do with Harry's parting shot, one of cinema's truly great Bad Guy Lines, reportedly written by Welles himself: "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." Perfect.