Unit 9 - Film Noir

The Third Man - Trailer

The Third Man is a 1949 film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene.
Starring:

• Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins

• Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt, 

• Orson Welles as Harry Lime

• Trevor Howard as Major Calloway

Set in post-World War II Allied-occupied Vienna, the film centres on American writer Holly Martins, who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime, only to learn that he has died. Martins stays in Vienna to investigate Lime's death, becoming infatuated with Lime's girlfriend Anna Schmidt.

The use of black-and-white German expressionist-influenced cinematography by Robert Krasker, with its harsh lighting and Dutch angles, is a major feature of The Third Man. Combined with the use of ruined locations in Vienna, the style evokes exhaustion and cynicism at the start of the Cold War.

Greene wrote a novella as a treatment for the screenplay. Composer Anton Karas' title composition "The Third Man Theme" topped the international music charts in 1950, bringing international fame to the previously unknown performer. The Third Man is considered one of the greatest films of all time, celebrated for its acting, musical score, and atmospheric cinematography.

Kiss Me Deadly - Trailer

Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 American film noir produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, and Wesley Addy. The film follows a private investigator in Los Angeles who becomes embroiled in a complex mystery after picking up a female hitchhiker. The screenplay was based on the 1952 crime novel Kiss Me, Deadly by Mickey Spillane.

The film received the condemnation of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which accused it of being "designed to ruin young viewers", a verdict that director Aldrich protested. Despite initial critical disapproval, it is considered one of the most important and influential film noirs of all time.

Touch of Evil (1958) - "You Have No Future" Scene

In a memorable scene from Orson Welles' 1958 film noir masterpiece, "Touch of Evil," Marlene Dietrich, in the role of the enigmatic brothel madam and fortune teller Tanya, delivers a chillingly prophetic line to the corrupt Police Captain Hank Quinlan, played by Welles himself. The haunting exchange, a cornerstone of the film's fatalistic tone, sees Quinlan asking Tanya to read his future, to which she replies, "You haven't got any." When a bewildered Quinlan presses her, she elaborates with the iconic line: "Your future's all used up."

This pivotal moment encapsulates the film's central themes of decay, corruption, and inescapable destiny. The scene is drenched in the atmospheric, shadowy cinematography that defines film noir, with Dietrich's world-weary and melancholic delivery adding to its profound impact.

Her character, an old flame of Quinlan's, acts as a weary observer of his moral decline. Her pronouncement is not one of malice, but of sad resignation. 

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) - Box Sequence

In the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly, the final "box scene" is a shocking and apocalyptic ending that reveals the story's terrifying secret.

Throughout the film, the brutish private detective Mike Hammer has been searching for a mysterious black box. In the final scene, he tracks it to a beach house where he is confronted by the woman who manipulated him, Gabrielle. She is a perfect example of a femme fatale, a French term meaning "fatal woman." In film noir, the femme fatale is a character who uses her beauty and charm to trick the male hero and lead him into deadly situations for her own gain.

Driven by greed, Gabrielle shoots her partner and, against all warnings, opens the box. Instead of jewels or money, the box unleashes a blinding, white-hot light and a horrific screaming sound. It contains raw atomic energy, a symbol of the nuclear bomb. The light sets Gabrielle on fire as the house begins to explode. The scene is a powerful Cold War-era warning, suggesting that humanity's greed and curiosity have led it to discover things too powerful and dangerous to control. The final shot of a nuclear apocalypse destroying the California coast is one of the most famous and chilling endings in cinema history.

The Third Man (1949) - Ferris Wheel Scene

In the classic film The Third Man, the Ferris wheel scene is the tense first meeting between the hero, Holly Martins, and the villain he thought was dead, his old friend Harry Lime.

Lime takes Martins to the top of the giant Ferris wheel in Vienna. From high above, the people on the ground look like tiny dots. In a chilling moment, Lime asks Martins if he would really care if some of those "dots" stopped moving forever in exchange for a lot of money. This single question reveals Lime's terrifying lack of morality; he sees human lives as worthless things he can profit from through his black market medicine scam.

The director, Carol Reed, uses a famous high-angle shot looking down from the wheel. This camera angle is important because it forces the audience to see the world from Lime's god-like, inhuman perspective, making the people below seem small and insignificant. The scene contains Lime's famous "cuckoo clock" speech, where he justifies his evil by arguing that conflict and chaos create greatness, while peace creates boredom. It perfectly establishes the film's central theme: the struggle between friendship, morality, and cynical survival in a broken, post-war world.

Citizen Kane - "How to Run a Newspaper" Scene

In Citizen Kane, the "newspaper scene" uses a filmmaking technique called a montage—a series of short clips edited together to show time passing quickly—to show how a young Charles Kane builds his media empire.

He buys the boring New York Inquirer and promises to protect ordinary people. However, he immediately starts filling the paper with sensational stories about scandals and crime to beat his competition.

The montage uses quick editing and exciting music to show Kane's brilliant energy and the newspaper's rapid success. This scene is important because it reveals Kane's character: he is powerful and charming, but also arrogant. It shows how his good intentions are quickly corrupted by his hunger for power, teaching us how easily the media can be used to control what people think.

Blade Runner - Final Scene - Tears in the Rain

The Final Scene of Blade Runner: A "Tears in Rain" Climax

Bladerunner features "replicants", artificial beings created for servitude, also called androids. In the dystopian world of Blade Runner, replicants are targeted for "retirement" (a euphemism for execution) for a simple and stark reason: their presence on Earth is illegal, and they are considered a dangerous threat to human society. This policy stems from their origin as manufactured slaves and a violent rebellion that cemented their status as fugitives.

The final, poignant scene of Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction noir, Blade Runner, is a masterclass in cinematic storytelling, culminating in one of film history's most iconic monologues. The confrontation between the blade runner and the rogue replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) atop a rain-drenched, dystopian Los Angeles building transcends a simple hero-versus-villain showdown, instead offering a profound meditation on memory, empathy, and the nature of humanity.

The climax begins with a tense and brutal chase, as Deckard attempts to "retire" the last of the Nexus-6 replicants. Batty, whose four-year lifespan is rapidly expiring, toys with Deckard, demonstrating his superior strength and agility while also showing signs of his own physical decay. The chase culminates with Deckard desperately trying to leap between rooftops, failing, and finding himself clinging for his life, his fingers slipping.

In a startling act of mercy, Batty, the very being Deckard was sent to kill, saves him from falling. With Deckard now safely on the rooftop, Batty, aware his end is imminent, sits down and delivers his famous "Tears in Rain" monologue. It is a moment of unexpected grace and profound sadness.

Holding a white dove, Batty reflects on his short, extraordinary life:

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."1

With these words, Batty's manufactured body finally gives out. He slumps over, dead, and the dove he was holding flies up into the perpetually gloomy sky, a stark symbol of a released spirit.

This monologue, much of which was famously improvised by actor Rutger Hauer, encapsulates the film's central themes. It reveals that the replicants, artificial beings created for servitude, possess a rich inner life and a profound capacity for experience and memory, arguably making them "more human than human," as their creator, Eldon Tyrell, had boasted. Batty's final act of saving his pursuer demonstrates a capacity for empathy that the supposedly human Deckard has struggled with throughout the film.

As AI and robotics advance, Bladerunner is a valuable film in helping us to think more deeply about the issues that may arise.