The Trial (1963)

Another brilliant Wellesian vision. Harrowing, tedious and frightening

What The Trial lacks in comprehension (purposely at that) it makes up for in cinematography, set design, art direction and music. Essentially a nightmare tale, Joseph K. slowly comes to madness as his accusation for some unknown crime leads him into the abyss of a legal system, full of strange, abusive, mysterious, confusing people.
As a film I couldn't sit through it at once, I had to get up and return a couple times because the convoluted situation makes it hard to follow. This aspect is surely purposeful, Welles is a master of storytelling and images, and the production itself proves amazing.
I would highly recommend this for it's adaptation of Kafka's posthumous story, beautiful and horrible direction, cinematography, set and art direction and music. September 1, 2008

Orson Welles Production

The Trial won numerous awards for the leading actor and the screenplay and director, Orson Welles. Anthony Perkins was just a kid, long before 'Psycho.' This is a most unusual psychological study of society or a strange part of same. It is very talky.

Orson Welles plays the advocate, but he is still playing Randolph Hearst as in 'Citizen Kane. In fact, one of the characters was called Kane.' Josef was arrested at his own apartment and had to stand trial before his totalitarian neighbors. He was never told his 'crime.'

Doors play a big part in this strange movie in an abandoned Paris railway station. The outside facade is beautiful, like ours in America, but it being French makes it especially so. The empty part of inside is dark and scary. Josef doesn't know why he has been singled out for prosecution. His cousin tries to get him to marry her. Lenny is a sad character.

This is totally Orson Welles' movie, as producer, director, and advocate for the victim. His prescence was everywhere. He was a big man. August 26, 2008

Which version to buy?

I rented this fascinating film via mail order from Blockbuster Total Access a few weeks ago and enjoyed it so much that now I want to buy it. Which version should I buy?

I've come across at least *four* different versions here on Amazon.com; however, the features on the version I rented don't seem to match any of these versions. Two of the versions seem to point to the same list of customer reviews (6305772061 (The Milestone Collection) and B00004YKQD, both from 2000). The other versions don't currently have any customer reviews (B000C6NP9U (from 2006) and B000E28P9C (from 2000)).

The version I rented had decent picture quality (but I had to change the aspect ratio on my widescreen TV to 4:3 to make the characters appear normal width), decent sound quality (no audio sync issues), an interesting featurette on Orson Welles' films (focusing on The Trial), a featurette on the work involved with restoring the film (I believe it had a copyright from the early-1990s), a trailer, and an audio commentary track by film reviewer Jeffrey Lyons. Could this be yet another version, perhaps from The Orson Welles' Collection (B000C6NP0E, also from 2006)?

For the rental, Blockbuster's web site shows the image from Amazon.com part number B00004YKQD, but the features on the disc don't seem to match Amazon.com's description. Since it was a mail-order rental, the snap case wasn't provided--so I can't determine the item that way, either. The disc was one-sided and had an image from the film that resembled B000C6NP9U.

Which version should I buy? Customer reviews seem to favor The Milestone Collection version (6305772061), but the description for the item doesn't mention what features it comes with (if any). B000C6NP9U was released two years ago--six years after The Milestone Collection version--and uses the most accurate-looking depiction of the actual movie, yet there are no customer reviews for this version.

Can someone help me figure this out? Thanks! August 8, 2008

A total fiasco

From the grotesque miscasting of the mannered lurching permanently boyish Perkins to the sophomoric pseudo-psychologizing of the badly re-interpreted text, this is definitely the biggest mistake of Welles's career. He was OK rewriting Shakespeare & B-westerns but lordy he should have kept his hands off German/Czech modernist Kafka.

I saw Jean-Louis Barrault perform the André Gide version of Kafka's The Trial with his theatrical company on Broadway in the 1950s. Whatever stylistic touches the film contains appear to have been lifted from that sublime masterpiece.

I read a review on IMDB in which some airhead felt Welles was *compelled* to rewrite The Trial in view of the events of the Holocaust. Oh yes? Should Nietsche & Spengler be rewritten as well?

Ghastly how dumbed down we have become. And it's only getting worse. July 21, 2008

Very acceptable DVD transfer of Welles' most neglected works

No doubt Welles enthusiasts will be compelled to purchase the Milestone edition of perhaps Kafka's greatest work adapted for the screen, but for the casual fan of Welles and those interested in Tony Perkins' early film work before he was so unfortunately typecast after Hitch's "Psycho," this film is a highly successful realization of the nighmarish world only Kafka could envision. About a man who is arrested, tried and eventually executed without even knowing his crime, Perkins is memorable as Josef K, the timid and confused clerk whose protestations against his accusers fall upon deaf ears (the scene in the giant courtroom with hundreds of extras packed in is most memorable).

With Welles in the rather minor role as the Advocate and featuring familiar castmates Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Elsa Martinelli, and old favorite Akim Tamiroff ("Touch of Evil"), viewing this unsettling and disturbing vision is not only unique and moody, but an exercise in camera technique whereas Welles throws everything but the kitchen sink at the viewer to make Josef K's nightmare the audience's own through the use of elaborately staged sets--for example, Josef K's office with a sea of desks with his fellow worker drones and their typewriters clacking away, the Belle Epoque railway station in Paris, and other baroque yet abandoned buildings in what is today's Czech Republic.

Welles' totalitarian state is painstakingly visualized with each scene as the film moves forward to its eventual conclusion and K's execution. With pinscreen animations narrated by Welles himself the parable of "The Law" becomes all too familiar and real to the situation faced by K in the remainder of the film. At the time this film was made, only a genius like Welles could pull this off and make the film believable and, at the same time, a work of cinematic art.

While this DVD transfer is, by no means remarkable, it is for avid Welles fans and newcomers to his work, another opportunity to discover the gifts this director/actor gave to the art of film. September 6, 2007

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