The website www.rottentomatoes.com is a useful resource in investigating viewer feedback from film audiences and critics. The British film noir The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949) achieved the respectable score of 100 from Rotten Tomatoes, meaning 100% of the critics’ 57 reviews rated the film “fresh” as opposed to “rotten”, garnering an average rating of 9.1/10, and with 94% of Rotten Tomatoes users liking the film. Sampling some of the reviews on the site, from the “top critics” to the RT users, we gained an insight into what elements can give a noir its appeal and success.
Elements that critics liked:
*Noir camera angles (“handsomely shot” “you feel as though the screen is glowering over you”)
*Orson Welles’ performance (“Haunting”, “dark” and “Welles at his scariest”)
*Themes of moral bankruptcy, moral judgement, use of villains and the “dark side of human nature”, corruption in the city and its inescapability
*Moods of disillusion, bleakness and tragedy
*Use of irony and mystery
There were no negative reviews or even comments from critics about The Third Man.
Elements that RT audiences liked in The Third Man:
-Sense of nihilism
-Depth and dark mood
-Action/chase scene
-Music (“perfect” “excellent fit” “represents shadows, hidden joy, and mere fright.”)
-B&W (“Black and white illustrates, in a paradox, the startling yet mere ecstasy of prancing upon a Vienna-isolated night.”)
-Wit of dialogue
-Symbolism
-Twist at the end
Elements that RT audiences did not like:
-Pacing (“it is slow to pick up at first.”)
-Implausibility of love (“The only thing about the tale that feels vaguely untrue is the love story beween Holly Martin (Joseph Cotten) and Anne Schmidt (Alida Valli), and even that may be part of the circular irony in Graham Greene's tale. Anne doesn't have any romantic interest in Holly, but he falls in love almost from the start, and this one sided crush could have been given more foundation.”)
In gathering opinions on The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941) again it achieved a score of 100 on the “tomatometer”, a scale counting up the proportion of critics who rated the film “fresh” instead of “rotten” with an average rating of 9/10. However only 61% of RT and Flixster users liked or wanted to see the film, giving it a far lower user score than any other audience data on a noir film we have seen yet, so it was interesting to see which elements put audiences off this film and to make assumptions about the age and gender of the audience demographic the film did not appeal to.
Elements of The Maltese Falcon that critics liked:
-The use of dialogue driving the narrative
-Intricate plot
-Strong performances
-Interior shooting
-Sense of claustrophobia and cynicism
-Black and white photography
-Pessimistic themes on the flawed nature of mankind, perversion and pain
Interestingly, there were no real criticisms of The Maltese Falcon from the critics.
Elements that RT audiences liked:
“The movie is strong at the direction and script. I felt the characters were coming to life as I saw it.
I liked the film also because it offers a fair amount of suspense and enigma, and nothing is what you expect until the end of the film.”
I liked the film also because it offers a fair amount of suspense and enigma, and nothing is what you expect until the end of the film.”
-Engaging pace
-Cast performances
-Script
-Pessimistic themes of love and betrayal
Elements that RT audiences disliked in The Maltese Falcon:
“The plot did not interest me in the slightest bit. I thought it was very boring.”
-Confusing plot
-Boring subject matter
In combing through these many different reviews of two different noir films from both top critics and regular moviegoers, it has lent us a far clearer insight into what conventions of film noir are especially successful and which parts can let the genre down. It has clarified our ideas for our own film including confidence in our notion to create a bleak and immoral story with weighty performances, but has emphasised the need for the script to be sharp, a twist to the storyline as a final coup-de-gras, and the pace to be engaging and timed perfectly. We have questioned whether perhaps we should further consider an action or chase scene in our film to best fit what audiences seem to appreciate in a film of this genre, but we may just choose to go on the success of The Maltese Falcon’s use of driving narrative through dialogue. It also sparked the idea for our film to possess a certain pessimistic irony. By Emily Atkinson
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