Orson Welles makes one of the greatest entrances in film history in THE THIRD MAN
THE THIRD MAN (Carol Reed, 1949)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Wednesday, March 21, 1:45
Series runs March 19-29
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Rialto Pictures, the art-house film distributor founded by Film Forum programmer extraordinaire Bruce Goldstein, by screening fifteen works reissued over the last fifteen years, including 1949 Cannes winner The Third Man. Carol Reed’s thriller is quite simply the most entertaining film you’re ever likely to see. Set in a divided post-WWII Vienna amid a thriving black market, The Third Man is heavy in atmosphere, untrustworthy characters, and sly humor, with a marvelous zither score by Anton Karas. Joseph Cotten stars as Holly Martins, an American writer of Western paperbacks who has come to Vienna to see his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles), but he seems to have shown up a little late. While trying to find out what happened to Harry, Martins falls for Harry’s lover, Anna (Alida Valli); is told to get out of town by Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and Sergeant Paine (Bernard “M” Lee); meets a stream of Harry’s more interesting, mysterious friends, including Baron Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch) and Popescu (Siegfried Breuer); and is talked into giving a lecture to a literary club by old Mr. Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White). Every scene is a finely honed work of art, filled with long shadows, echoing footsteps, dripping water, and unforgettable dialogue about cuckoo clocks and other strangeness. SPOILER: The shot in which Lime is first revealed, standing in a doorway, a cat brushing by his feet, his tongue firmly in cheek as he lets go a miraculous, knowing smile, is one of the greatest single moments in the history of cinema. The Third Man is screening March 20 at 1:45; the Rialto series kicks off March 19 with Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso and includes such other seminal works as Jules Dassin’s Riffifi, Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar, Luis Buñuel’s Diary of a Chambermaid, and Jean-Jacques Beineix’s Diva, forming a kind of Film Forum’s Greatest Hits taking place on the Upper West Side.
Art, American consumerism, the Vietnam and Algerian wars, Hollywood, and the cinema itself get skewered in Jean-Luc Godard’s fab feaux gangster flick / road comedy / romance epic / musical Pierrot Le Fou. Based on Lionel White’s novel Obsession, the film follows the chaotic exploits of Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina, Godard’s then-wife), former lovers who meet up again quite by accident. The bored Ferdinand immediately decides to leave his wife and family for the flirtatious, unpredictable Marianne, who insists on calling him Pierrot despite his protestations. Soon Ferdinand is caught in the middle of a freewheeling journey involving gun running, stolen cars, dead bodies, and half-truths, all the while not quite sure how much he can trust Marianne. Filmed in reverse-scene order without much of a script, the mostly improvised Pierrot Le Fou was shot in stunning color by Raoul Coutard. Many of Godard’s recurring themes and style appear in the movie, including jump cuts, confusing dialogue, written protests on walls, and characters speaking directly at the audience, which is more or less along for the same ride as Ferdinand. And as with many Godard films, the ending is a doozy. Pierrot Le Fou is screening February 21 at 7:30 as part of FIAF’s “Cinema & Fashion: Carte Blanche to agnès b.” series, which also includes Godard’s Vivre sa vie the same day at 12:30 & 4:00 and concludes February 28 with Jacques Becker’s Casque d’or. 
When a pair of disaffected Parisians, Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey), meet an adorable young woman, Odile (Anna Karina), in English class, they decide to team up and steal a ton of money from a man living in Odile’s aunt’s house. As they meander through the streets of cinematographer Raoul Coutard’s black-and-white Paris, they talk about English and wealth, dance in a cafe while director Jean-Luc Godard breaks in with voice-over narration about their character, run through the Louvre in record time, and pause for a near-moment of pure silence. Godard throws in plenty of commentary on politics, the cinema, and the bourgeoisie in the midst of some genuinely funny scenes. Band of Outsiders is no ordinary heist movie; based on Dolores Hitchens’s novel Fool’s Gold, it is the story of three offbeat individuals who just happen to decide to attempt a robbery while living their strange existence, as if they were outside from the rest of the world. The trio of ne’er-do-wells might remind Jim Jarmusch fans of the main threesome from Stranger Than Paradise (1984), except Godard’s characters are more aggressively persistent. One of Godard’s most accessible films, Band of Outsiders will be playing a one-week engagement at Film Forum September 7-13, with no screenings on September 11.
