The Trial blows my mind - in awe of Welles' The Trial

[etimh]

Does anyone else here feel that The Trial is an absolute freaking masterpiece?! I hadn't seen it in awhile and watching it last night was totally blown away. Yeah, sure it has sound problems (at least the cheapo DVD I watched did), but who cares?! It just adds to the hallucinatory strangeness and almost psychotic unease that Welles so masterfully communicates with this film. I think I would rank it as one of my favorites. It really is SO weird! Tim

[Kevin Loy]

To me, the neat thing about The Trial, aside from Anthony Perkins' wonderful acting, is that it really does look and feel like a nightmare (as Welles says at the end of the pinscreen sequence). Obviously, we wouldn't normally expect to see a woman doing her laundry right outside of the courtroom, or investigators being punished in a small closet in K's work building (of course, in the sometimes free-associative and symbolic aspects of dreams, we regularly encounter such things), but I think that the fact that Orson unconsciously prepared us for that with the brief Kafka story at the beginning and his own parable about the logic of The Trial makes such juxtapositions work extremely well. It only serves to heighten the dread within us as we watch this man being punished without even knowing his crime by those around him, hopelessly flailing against such injustice, and while there is possibly a bit of truth to the fact that K is really no better than those who are oppressing him (he doesn't lodge a formal complaint against the investigators who tried taking his shirts simply because it would inconvenience him, and after complaining about the investigators trying to work him for a bribe, he goes on to attempt to bribe the man who is beating them in the broom closet), the fact still remains that he doesn't deserve this sort of treatment any more than anyone else. Overall, I can't really think of any other director who could do a better job of bringing Kafka to the screen.

That having been said, I do kinda agree with Anthony Perkins about the film being a smidgen too long, but given the long trajectory of chopped-up films, I'd rather have too much of a Welles film than too little of one (The Lady From Shanghai, for example).

As a side note, does anybody know if any of the other films that Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker made are commercially available? I remember reading somewhere that they completed a handful of short films, but the only name that sticks out in my memory is Le Nez (The Nose).

[Wilson]

I do remember seeing a laserdisc of Alexieff and Parker's work some years ago, but I don't recall what was on it.

[Harvey Chartrand]

I like the film's mood (that great sixties Euro-ambience) and Tony Perkins' neurotic performance. He opted to play oddballs in Europe rather than he-men at home in the USA and his career later suffered for it. But Perkins left behind a fascinating body of work -- especially from this era. Thirtysomething Perkins was often cast as weak young men seduced or pursued by lovely older women (ex. Ingrid Bergman in GOODBYE AGAIN, Melina Mercouri in PHAEDRA, and a host of worldly beauties in THE TRIAL).
I agree with Perkins' observation that THE TRIAL is a bit of a mess. I actually prefer the 1993 remake starring Kyle MacLachlan, the film version of Kafka's THE CASTLE (1968) with Maximilian Schell (an unheralded classic), and Steven Soderbergh's KAFKA (1991), shot in Prague and with extraordinary Wellesian black and white cinematography that switches to color when writer/detective Franz Kafka enters the mysterious castle in which the secret rulers dwell.

[Tony]

Welles always said that he and Perkins were always breaking up when they were making The Trial, and I think Perkin's whole performance is a comic masterpiece ("ovular?" "Pornograph?"). And if you think that's strange, when Kafka would read portions of The Trial to Max Brod and friends, he would also often crack up; I'm not sure what Brod and the others were doing, but Welles and Perkins were in the proper 'Kafkaesque' spirit, it seems.

I recall on the Welles/Bogdanovich tapes, when Bogdanovich tells Welles that he doesn't really like The Trial, Welles gets really hurt. It seems he really liked making the movie, and was very pleased with the end result. I just wish Perkins and Welles had worked together again in a Welles picture: Perkins would have made a wonderful Hal (perhaps with gay overtones) plus the young star in The Other side of the Wind, also tying in neatly with the gay subtext of that film. Or even in the Big Brass Ring, also with it's gay themes- (wait a minute-what am I saying??)

Seriously, I really think he was very underated as an actor, as he was one of the most sensitive and inteligent thespians in motion pictures; thank god they worked together on one Welles picture.

[jaime marzol]

the trial blows me away also. always has. it's fabulous. it's dark. it's wierd. it's a dark comedy. what more could we ask for? would be a great special interest dvd if salkind scent still had the plans of welles' set designs.

[colwood]

While I agree with many a critic that Kane was the best movie ever made (Period), I think that this may have been Welles best movie. I never cared for Kafka the writer but this film was like welles said in the prologue, it was a nightmare. A surreal vision that I loved. BTW, if anyone's interested I found an intersting review by Roger Ebert from one of the film's re-releases in 2000,

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps....023

Even if criterion came out with a dvd I don't think it would top the french dvd unless of course it had Filming the Trial included, though it looks like that won't happen.

[NoFake]

Interesting indeed! One comment: Though Ebert states that the novel "was prophetic, foreseeing Stalin's gulag and Hitler's Holocaust," he goes on to say that "The ending is problematical. Mushroom clouds are not Kafkaesque because they represent a final conclusion, and in Kafka's world nothing ever concludes."

True enough. But somehow he doesn't make the connection, which Welles articulated (was it in the Cobos interview?), that it was the Holocaust that made Joseph K's acceptance of his death impossible -- thus, his throwing of the (dynamite? Sorry, it's been a few years since I saw it). Welles wanted Joseph K to have the dignity of refusing to give the murderers the satisfaction of his capitulation.

[Chirpy_Sabz]

The trial was pretty werid and dark....I loved it

thats a very nice review by Roger Ebert...I especially found it interesting when he made the connection between what was going on in Orson's life and the character's life in the film.

I also liked Anthony Perkins performance.

My little brother didnt like it though. I guess it was too werid for him, he didnt understand it I guess. He liked Citizen Kane and Touch Of Evil...so I am happy atleast he liked something that Orson Welles made

[jaime marzol]

i found this very cool review at

http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart....view=tg

Two films have been made of The Trial, one by Orson Welles in 1961, another by David Jones with a script by Harold Pinter in 1992. Though somewhat dated, Welles’ stark, black-and-white version offers an inventive interpretation of the novel that is useful for class discussion. Anthony Perkins stars as a nervous Josef K., Jeanne Moreau as the vamp-like Fraulein Burstner, and Welles himself as the lawyer Huld. Steven Soderbergh’s Kafka (1991), stunningly shot in Prague and starring Jeremy Irons, does not follow a particular work by Kafka but offers a brooding meditation on political intrigue, bureaucracy and an isolated, visionary writer.

Martin Scorsese’s comedy After Hours offers an updated, Soho version of Josef K.’s nightmare, complete with a nightclub bouncer who recites the parable “Before the Law” verbatim.

......................

anyone know anything about these 2 books.

Anderegg, Michael A.
"Social Cameos, guest stars, and real people, with a special appearance by Orson Welles." In: The movies : texts, receptions, exposures / edited by Laurence Goldstein and Ira Konigsberg. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c1996.
--Main Stack PN1994.M78 1996
--Moffitt PN1994.M78 1996

Burgess, Anthony
"Orson Welles : the artist as bricoleur." In: One man's chorus : the uncollected writings / Anthony Burgess ; selected with an introduction by Ben... 1st Carroll & Graf ed. New York : Carroll & Graf, c1998.
--Main Stack PR6052.U638.A16 1998
--Grad Svcs XMAC.B955.O54 Modern Authors Collection Non-circulating; may be used only in Graduate Services.

[Knowles Noel Shane]

I never really appreciated the editing in The Trial until the one time I watched it while drinking vodka. Maybe I was in the same state of mind as the editor finally, but what I saw absolutely blew me away. I've never looked at the film the same way since. It is perfectly edited. Every edit cuts on the perfect frame. When I first saw the film, I just found it to be squalid and depressing. Then I discovered how funny it is. Maybe I'll drink vodka again some day and watch F for Fake, which I already love anyway.

[chrissie]

I think The Trial might be my fave OW film entirely from a style viewpoint. It is ALL style and manner, really, the 'story' being a mere device.

I wrote a short comic book script a few months ago where I sourced this picture. It's set in an oppressive, theocratic future and I used The Advocate (just in a couple of panels). Still looking for someone to draw it.

BTW, as a big Bowie fan, I'd say check out the video for Jump They Say for a similar visual style on some points, particularly the still, expressionist shots of people w/stoney expressions. I don't think it's intentional, but I like that video a lot and find the parallels interesting.

[Anton]

I also think "The Trial" is a great film just as it is, but one of these days I would like to see how the film plays with that missing computer scene put back in, even though Orson Welles himself wanted it out. The film is quite baffling in many ways and that scene restored might shed a little more clarity on all that he was trying to say. Of course that would put the film over the 120-minute mark, something Welles seems to have had a phobia about.

[Elmyr]

Specially to Kevin Loy and Wilson, but it might interest others too.
Thanks to the folks at Masters of Cinema, I came across this:
http://www.cinedoc.org/EN/actu/index.asp#
It seems to be a great release.

[marcoshark]

To me, the whole opening with the work of Alexieff and Parker's work with Welles narration sets a chilling tone for what is to come.

I saw one of the films by Alexieff and Parker at the NY Film festival back in the 70's and it got a huge response from the audience. I also remember PBS TV station in NYC (WNET) use to show their work quite often as well.

Chrissie: I have to dig out my promo CD-Rom for Bowies "Jump They Say" and give it another look. That was from the album "Black Tie, White Noise"?

Anyone else here notice the Welles/Kafka similarities to say Terry Gilliam's "Brazil"?!?