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…

What lurks beyond the open door? The porter points his thumb in the direction of the ominously half-closed passageway, the threshold between one space and the next, made unsettling by its visual inaccessibility. In this way, doors and windows act as stand-ins for the cinematic screen itself, a rectangle/square (depending on the aspect ratio) that offers a limited vantage point into a separate…

A man leans or the camera leans, it’s hard to tell which, and a question is weighed. The porter’s ponderous expression is likely connected to his grasp of English, as he tries to put his story into words Holly can understand. But he has much more than that to ponder. At about this instant, the  trembling zither soundtrack has dropped suddenly, leaving us in a Vienna we have not really interacted…

Another canted frame (which we’ll see plenty more of throughout The Third Man) as Holly Martins re-questions Harry’s former porter, who heard (but did not see) the car accident that allegedly killed Harry. As Jeremy mentioned, the circumstances surrounding Harry’s death are becoming increasingly suspicious, even while the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Thanks to the porter’s candid…

Since we last looked at the situation a couple of notable facts have come to light.  From Anna, Holly learns that in Harry’s last dying moments he made plans not only for Holly, but for Anna as well. Also from Anna, Holly hears that Doctor Winkel, Harry’s own doctor, happened to be passing by the scene and was able to tend to Harry as he died. Thirdly, Holly discovers that the driver of the truck…

The forging of a new relationship, frozen in time: the expressions on both Holly’s and Anna’s faces, crystallized as they are for our analysis, seem to etch these characters’ emotions into fleshy stone. (After all, aren’t cinematic stills sculptures in light, as petrified and revealing as, say, the emphatic strength exhibited by Michelangelo’s David?) As much as both Holly and Anna may be playing…