Again we are thrust into a new space. After miring ourselves in the world of Baron Kurtz and the inside of Anna Schmidt’s apartment, the story seems to be suddenly picking up speed. We will soon be popping in and out of Vienna spaces at an alarming rate. Today’s frame shows Holly taking his first few steps into the tchotchke-stuffed apartment of Harry’s Doktor Winkel. Holly has spent the first…

We’re no longer trapped in Anna Schmidt’s apartment with a bombardment of police officers, but Anna’s nightmare continues nonetheless: she’s been detained at police headquarters by Major Calloway while they pore over her personal belongings. Interestingly, the cut from the previous scene (set at Anna’s apartment building) to this one does not initially offer us an establishing shot of the new…

We find ourselves still mired in the police-infested apartment that we have been stuck in for the last three frames. Here we find ourselves in the eye of the cop-storm. Holly and Anna have retreated into some dark corner of the apartment (the tea kettle in front of Anna says “kitchenette”) for a brief moment of privacy, and the only MP visible is a fuzzy figure whose white helmet could seemingly…

From the standpoint of a film enthusiast, the story of The Turin Horse, Béla Tarr’s fateful and fabled final film, began last year at the 61 Berlinale where the film premiered and won both the Silver Bear and FIPRESCI Prize. Critical praise poured over the film, as did the lament for a filmmaker putting a self-imposed cap on his output. But behind the scenes in Berlin was a small but mighty…

Our thirtieth still from The Third Man immerses us in a moment of visual pandemonium: so many human figures are clashing with each other directionally and compositionally that it just seems like a throng of people have wandered aimlessly in front of the camera. If we were to chart each individual’s eyeline in this shot, we would have a messy grid of disconnected angles, visually conveying a…

Lest we forget, we are inside Anna’s Vienna apartment, which is literally crawling with police (last week Matt called them a plethora of police). This scene contains more policemen than we have seen anywhere else by far, an occupation on a smaller scale than most, but no less invasive. The nearly limitless supply of faceless MP’s, clearly identifiable by their telltale white helmets with “MP…

THE MADMAN— Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage…

Anna Schmidt has journeyed into the uncanny, and what she finds there is a nightmare world of cold, impersonal “justice.” A plethora of policemen ramble around Anna’s apartment—even Anna’s unkempt, Cat Lady-esque landlord makes sure to point out that, while the Austrian police are nowhere to be found (is there even such a thing?), American, British, and Russian officers make themselves at home, rifling…

Today’s frame puts us up close and personal with Fraulein Anna Schmidt, her face has just turned slowly up toward the windows of her apartment and seeing the shadowy figures inside, Anna’s eyes have slowly closed. Whatever is visible  in those windows is so horrible to be practically unseeable, never shown to us directly, and Anna herself blocks them from her mind. Is this some kind of…