‘The Third Man…a revelation…’
Martin Scorsese, THE INDEPENDENT, 2015
There is no mention in Graham Greene’s novella
The Third Man, or in his screenplay, or even
the shooting script, of Café Marc Aurel –
to which, in the movie, Joseph Cotten
aka Holly Martins, writer of Westerns,
has lured his friend Orson Welles aka
Harry Lime, racketeer, only to be
thwarted by Allida Valli aka
Anna Schimdt, actress at the Josefstadt
Theater, and Harry Lime’s faithful lover.
***
On a rainy day trip to old Vienna,
knowing the Café did not exist
and never did, we were determined
to see the extant Weiner Riesenrad,
from whose brief circular zenith Orson Welles
meditated on the human condition,
democracy, and Swiss-made cuckoo clocks.
So who better to ask for directions
among the shopping crowds on Kaernterstrasse
than two young men in smart-casual attire
manning a stall promoting the Marcus
Aurelius Foundation, whose mission is
‘to support young people to live a life of
clarity and purpose’ through Stoicism.
Where else than the city of Freud and Mahler
to learn how to live with the fear of death!
***
Marcus Aurelius – sixteenth Emperor
of Rome and last of the Pax Romana –
is most famous now for his Meditations,
a collection of his stoical
aphorisms, two of which are as follows:
‘We love ourselves more than other people,
yet care more about their opinion
than our own…’ – and ‘If it is not right do not
do it; if it is not true do not say it…’
The Emperor while campaigning against
the Germanic Tribes died, allegedly,
in Vindobona, present day Vienna.
Some say he had just inscribed
the following: ‘Act as if every
action is the last action of your life’.
***
The Café’s name is secure in black and white
celluloid above a shop front
in a partially bombed square
just round the corner from Marc-Aurel-Strasse:
the interior lit from a distance
to look like a café – though the action
was filmed at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood,
London. The film unit on the spot
must have decided the place needed a name
so perhaps Greene, the ever ironic
Balliol history graduate, suggested
Marcus Aurelius – and Carol Reed,
the director, chose the shortened version
to fit. Did Greene mention that the emperor
most probably died somewhere else,
namely Sirmium, one of the oldest
cities in Europe, and birthplace of ten
Roman emperors, now present day
Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia?
Both Harry and Marcus elusive in death?
***
The Emperor was cremated and deified.
In Rome’s Piazza Colonna – off
the Via Del Corso, where the Jews
were paraded and mocked each Mardi Gras –
is a column commemorating
the Emperor’s victories in battle
(though not, of course, his Meditations),
probably begun in his lifetime.
When Christianity prevailed his statue
topping it was replaced by one of St Paul
aka Saul of Tarsus, Anatolia –
now present day Turkey – the city
where Mark Antony first met Cleopatra.
***
In the movie, whose constant backdrop
are the literal ruins of bombed Vienna,
with the four Occupying Powers – Britain,
France, Russia, and the USA – playing
a key role in the story as both
dei and diaboli ex machina,
nobody ever asks where the Jews have gone.
By David Selzer