Monday, 31 July 2017

Experts Out.

I just watched the opening title sequence of The Third Man on YouTube – just the titles, you understand, and the famous zither theme. It made me want to watch the film again.

The accompanying recommendations included a 4.38 piece in which Bogdanovitch explains why The Third Man is so brilliant. I don’t want to know why it’s brilliant. It just is. As soon as some expert starts explaining why a film is brilliant it loses the core of its appeal, because you become an observer of technique rather than being subsumed into the story and the atmosphere. The Third Man is the sort of film which is better felt than analyzed.

Film noir is all about being subsumed into the story and the atmosphere. It’s a kind of magic. So would Mr Bogdanovitch and all the other experts please shut up and allow us to be transported into another dimension unhindered by expert opinion.

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