Discovery of Harry Lime - The Third Man

 This shot introduces the audience to a low key, dark and dingy cityscape. The use of single source lighting created by the street lamp increase the enigma and bleakness of the setting. This makes it feel lonely and suggests to the audience that something significant will happen in this area. The wet look cobble stones and to the cold and melancholy feel of the scene which is familiar to the film noir genre a long with strong shadows and silhouettes. In this case the shadows are caused by the big, gothic looking, looming buildings on a drab looking street.

The Scene starts with Harry's friend wandering around the town square when this view caught his eye. The dim door way with a high intensity spot light focused on a cat at a man's feet. His initial thought is that he is being followed and so calls out to the enigmatic figure in the door way. The use of a tilt shot adds confusion and disorientation which shadows what the character would be feeling. The low intensity street light is a form of natural lighting which makes the scene seem dim and dull. 

In this still we can see a close up of the cat and the man's shoes. Again the cat is lit up with a high intensity spot light which draws the audiences attention to the feet of the man. This heightens the feeling of tension and confusion so as to what will soon be revealed. This use of lighting highlights the enigma which is often present in film noir films. 

In this shot we see the revealing of Harry (Orson Welles) who was believed to be dead. The high intensity spot light and close up on Harry smiling is supposedly caused by a woman opening her window above where he is standing revealing his face. The way his face is lit up is quite ghostly which adds to the enigma of the film, as he was supposedly dead! The light disappears and Harry disappears just as quickly when the shutters above him are closed suddenly.

This shot shows the escape of Harry. We cannot see his actual body but we can see the strong silhouette which has made a feature of the dark, dingy walls. Strong shadows are a common convention used in film noir movies  including Double Indemnity. The use of a shadow in this scene again adds to the mystery of Harry's unexpected introduction as we still have not seen him properly, this will make the audience and the other character question whether they really did see Harry or whether he was just a ghost or figment of imagination.