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The Trial (1962)

An unassuming office worker is arrested and stands trial, but he is


never made aware of his charges.
Director: Orson Welles
Writers: Pierre Cholot (adaptation), Franz Kafka (based on the
novel by) | 1 more credit
Stars: Anthony Perkins, Arnoldo Fo, Jess Hahn | See full cast &
crew
Josef K. (Anthony Perkins) is sleeping in his bedroom, in an apartment he shares
with other lodgers. He is awakened when a man in a suit opens his bedroom door.
Josef assumes the glib man is a policeman, but the intruder does not identify himself
and ignores Josef's demand to produce police ID. Several detectives enter and tell
Josef he is under open arrest. In another room Josef K. sees three co-workers from
his place of employment; they are there to provide evidence regarding some
unstated crime. The police refuse to inform Josef K. of his misdeeds, or if he is even
being charged with a crime, and they do not take him into custody.
After the detectives leave, Josef converses with his landlady, Mrs. Grubach
(Madeleine Robinson), and neighbor, Miss Burstner (Jeanne Moreau), about the
strange visit. Later he goes to his office, where his supervisor thinks he has been
having improper relations with his teenaged female cousin. That evening, Josef
attends the opera, but is abducted from the theater by a police inspector (Arnoldo
Fo) and brought to a courtroom, where he attempts in vain to confront the stillunstated case against him.
Josef returns to his office and discovers the two police officers who first visited him
being whipped in a small room. Josefs uncle Max suggests that Josef consult with
Hastler (Orson Welles), a law advocate. After brief encounters with the wife of a
courtroom guard (Elsa Martinelli) and a roomful of condemned men awaiting trial,
Josef is granted an interview with Hastler, which proves unsatisfactory.
Hastlers mistress (Romy Schneider) suggests that Josef seek the advice of the artist
Titorelli (William Chappell), but this also proves unhelpful. Seeking refuge in a
cathedral, Josef learns from a priest (Michael Lonsdale) that he has been
condemned to death. Hastler abruptly appears at the cathedral to confirm the priests
assertion.
On the evening before his thirty-first birthday, Josef is apprehended by two
executioners and brought to a quarry pit, where he is forced to remove some of his
clothing. The executioners pass a knife back and forth, apparently deliberating on
who will do the deed, before handing the knife to the condemned man, who refuses
to commit suicide. The executioners leave Josef in the quarry and toss dynamite in

the pit. Josef laughs at his executioners and picks up the dynamite. From a distance
there is an explosion and smoke billows into the air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_(1962_film)

Franz Kafka Biography


Author (18831924)
Author Franz Kafka explored the human struggle for understanding and
security in his novels such as Amerika, The Trial and The Castle.

Synposis
Born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, capital of what is now the Czech Republic,
writer Franz Kafka grew up in an upper middle-class Jewish family. After
studying law at the University of Prague, he worked in insurance and
wrote in the evenings. In 1923, he moved to Berlin to focus on writing, but
died of tuberculosis shortly after. His friend Max Brod published most of
his work posthumously, such as Amerika and The Castle.

Early Years
Writer Franz Kafka was the eldest son of an upper middle-class Jewish
family who was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, a
kingdom that was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Kafka had a difficult relationship with both of his parents. His mother, Julie,
was a devoted homemaker who lacked the intellectual depth to
understand her son's dreams to become a writer. Kafka's father, Hermann,
had a forceful personality that often overwhelmed the Kafka home. He
was a success in business, making his living retailing men's and women's
clothes.
Kafka's father had a profound impact on both Kafka's life and writing. He
was a tyrant of sorts, with a wicked temper and little appreciation for his
son's creative side. Much of Kafka's personal struggles, in romance and
other relationships, came, he believed, in part from his complicated
relationship with his father. In his literature, Kafka's characters were often
coming up against an overbearing power of some kind, one that could
easily break the will of men and destroy their sense of self-worth.

Education
German was his first language. In fact, despite his Czech background and
Jewish roots, Kafka's identity favored German culture.
Kafka was a smart child who did well in school even at the Altstdter
Staatsgymnasium, an exacting high school for the academic elite. Still,
even while Kafka earned the respect of his teachers, he chafed under their
control and the school's control of his life.
After high school Kafka enrolled at the Charles Ferdinand University of

Prague, where intended to study chemistry but after just two weeks
switched to law. The change pleased his father, and also gave Kafka the
time to take classes in art and literature.
In 1906 Kafka completed his law degree and embarked on a year of
unpaid work as a law clerk.
Love and Health
At work Kafka was a popular employee, easy to socialize with and seen as
somebody with a good sense of humor. But his personal life still raged
with complications. His inhibitions and insecurities plagued his
relationships. Twice he was engaged to marry his girlfriend, Felice Bauer,
before the two finally went their separate ways in 1917.
Later, Kafka later fell in love with Dora Dymant (Diamant), who shared his
Jewish roots and a preference for socialism. Amidst Kafka's increasingly
dire health, the two fell in love and lived together in Berlin. Their
relationship largely centered on Kafka's illnesses. For many years, even
before he contracted tuberculosis, Kafka had not been well. Constantly
strained and stressed, he suffered from migraines, boils, depression,
anxiety and insomnia.
http://www.biography.com/people/franz-kafka-9359401
Because Franz Kafka has become the poster boy for twentieth-century
alienation and disoriented anxiety, his work is often introduced in the
context of Kafka's own experience of alienation. A Czech in the AustroHungarian empire, a German-speaker among Czechs, a Jew among
German-speakers, a disbeliever among Jews; alienated from his pragmatic
and overbearing father, from his bureaucratic job, from the opposite sex;
caught between a desire to live in literature and to live a normal bourgeois
life; acutely and lucidly self-critical; physically vulnerable--Kafka nowhere
found a comfortable fit.
Throughout his life, Kafka's memories of his childhood, and in particular of
his childhood relationship to his upwardly-mobile, harsh father, remained
bitter.
While a law student, he associated with many members of Prague's
burgeoning scene of young, German- speaking writers.
Kafka knew writing was his vocation, but did not feel he could make a
living at it--nor did he particularly want to try. It was something purer and
more desperately personal to him--a "form of prayer" and a temporary
respite from his demons.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/trial/context.html

Historical Context of The Trial


Kafka lived at a time of enormous tension in Austria-Hungary and in all of
Europe. During his formative years, nationalism (a desire for
independence and self-control along ethnic or national lines) was on the
rise within the pan-national Austro-Hungarian Empire, leading to the
hostility that exploded into World War I when Franz Ferdinand, heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in 1914. Seventy million

people participated in the war, nine million of whom died, and by its end
in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German and Ottoman empires
had ceased to exist. The war was also significant because so many
technologies were used for the first time, such as tanks, airplanes, poison
gases, and new forms of artillery, resulting in a previously unimaginable
scale of destruction. Kafka did not fight in World War I, first because his
job was considered essential, and later because of his tuberculosis,
although he wanted to enlist. After the war, Hungary split off from Austria
and became Communist. Scholars still argue about whether Kafka's
writings support Communism or malign it, or even if Kafka is political at
all. As for his religion, Kafka wrote that he felt separate from his Jewish
heritage, though some scholars define him as an exemplar of Jewish
literature. He died before World War II, but all three of his sisters perished
in the Holocaust.
http://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-trial

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/175398-aspects-of-orson-orson-welles-the-trial-astudy-in-transcendental-so/

SYNOPSIS: The film, based on Franz Kafkas posthumously


published novel The Trial (1924) is about a man, Josef K, who
is arrested and put on trial, but never explained why. Kafka was
an attorney, and the story reflects his experience with the
criminal justice system in his home city of Prague (now in the
Czech Republic). The film opens with an allegory from the
novel, which encapsulates the novels central point: a man
goes to a city containing the law, but a guard at the gate
warns him not to enter. The man obeys, but spends his entire
life persuading the guard to let him in. Just before the man dies,
the guard says that this door was made just for him, but now he
must close it. The story itself begins with Josef awakened at
6:15 AM by two inspectors who inform him that hes arrested
and suspiciously scrutinizes all of his words. Although under
arrest, he is not taken into custody and the inspectors
interrogate him intermittently during his daily routine. As he
goes through his normal activities, everyone he talks to speaks
to him as though he is guilty of something, just as the
inspectors do, and he continually attempts to defend himself. At
the end of the film, two inspectors throw Josef into a pit, toss in
dynamite, and Josef dies in the explosion. Filmed first in
Yugoslavia, and later in Paris when finances dried up, many of
the sets were constructed in a large and empty Paris railway

station. The film and Anthony Perkinss performance were


ridiculed when the movie was first released in 1963. Orson
Welles is reported to have said, Say what you will, but 'The
Trial' is the finest film I have ever made. In 2000, the original
negative of the film was discovered and it was again theatrically
released. Subsequent responses to both the film and Perkins
have been more favorable.
http://www.philfilms.utm.edu/1/trial.htm

The Trial (1962)

Nightmare like
Elusive tale throughout the film supposed to just believe what
people who claim to be in an authoritative position say not even
confirmed that the gentlemen who out Mr K under open arrest are
policeman/people of authority.
Mr K tortured, taunted and at the mercy of a mysterious higher
power.
Allegory of the individual against authority.
Symbolic of man fighting against implacable evil
Power of women render Mr K helpless in some way - is it a fantasy
or deliberate? Conspiring against him/working with authorities?
Feeling of a dream or maybe nightmare
Space convey meaning and emotion elaborate and lofty spaces
or claustrophobic/confined ones
Lighting hard in black and white
Fraught with paranoia and disorientation
Occasional banal dialogue
Lost in a bureaucratic system a maze
Feelings of entrapment and bewilderment
Everything is connected to everything else, yet nothing is
connected.
The Law or State is not represented by any particular voice, person
or locale its intangible cant find it/fight it its abstract.
Over-sized law threatens to bury him alive
Power corrupts
Travels further up the food chain of authority, discovers more
depravity and corruption.
Welles uses expressionistic tools in his film making to highlight the
absurd nature of the film.
The women he becomes involved in, in their own way, are functions
of the system that persecutes him.

1:28 close up of woman pan shot up of Mr K when she unbuttons his


vest his voice goes wobbly showing a different power the power of
women the women have some sort of sexual prowess and control over
Mr Ks emotions and feelings.
0:22 Im sorry apologising for nothing
havent done anything wrong and still apologising
I havent done anything wrong and Id still feel guilty
thoughts are innocent
I am sane, I am innocent, I have committed no crime.
Strong dialogue in this scene camera angle is high focuses on Mr K
his thoughts and emotions

1:13 Mr K sees the accused high shot looking down temporarily


above them
Wanders through them and camera is low showing his authority
Speaks individually and camera angle is eye height between 2
characters they are both on the same level
Tone of voice of Mr K is strong, demanding, confronting
1:33 Advocate and Bloch
Camera showing back of Bloch no identity accused doesnt
matter who he is hes guilty to them anyway
Ominous voice of advocate speaking overpowering
Loud tone of voice power and control over Bloch
Bloch kneels down submissive small
I am on my knees sir
Low camera shot of Bloch kissing Advocates hands as if advocate
is looking down on him displaying his authority
Trial Scene Hoards of people above Mr K centre of attention low shot
highlighting
the grand scale of his accusation
When Mr K speaks, camera angles are far away hes not made
centre of attention
Closing the doors he is so small in comparison to grand scale of
doors similar to him being so small against a group of people
conspiring against him

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