December 2012 Archives

Does art have the power to make us good people? The director offers us plenty of evidence that artists are more sensitive, more compassionate, more empathetic. But he also offers us plenty of evidence that art does not make us better people. Before the Second World War, Germans were considered the most cultured people on the planet. Why are people who worship art capable of barbaric behavior? Why do we study art? Does it have the power to change us? Is Hempf correct? Are people incapable of change? 

Why is Martina Gedeck given the name Christa-Maria? Why is her code name, Marta? Does the film have a religious dimension? 

Why does Wiesler attempt to help Dreymann? Is he in love with Dreymann? Is he in love with Christa? Does Christa need to be sacrificed for the sake of Dreymann? 

Anna and Holly have very different responses to Harry Lime's crimes. How do you account for their different reactions? Why does Anna choose not to leave Vienna? Why does she choose not to benefit from the capture of Harry? What do we know about Anna's life during the war? What do we know about Holly's? Do their different experiences of the war affect their responses to Harry? 

What do you make of the film's final shot?

Why does Holly write Westerns? Will he continue to write Westerns after his time in Vienna? 

Critics have often said that the city of Vienna is a character in The Third Man. How is the city used as not only a setting but as a character? 

Why is this important to the content of the film? 

Do the multiple perspectives bring us closer to or further away from the truth? 

Do the individual narratives distinctively differ? Are they all Welles/Toland's visions or do they show individual narrators' perspectives? 

Do the perspectives of the individual narrators always make sense? That is, would Susan know the content of her own narrative? Would Jed have access to the information in his narrative? 

Do the narratives work with each other or contradict each other? 

Do the more subjective narratives support or refute the newsreel? 

Does the answer to Rosebud tell us anything? everything? nothing? 

Why don't we get to see the reporters' faces?