One hour and fifty eight minutes struggle desperately to hold in the gargantuan volume of jaw dropping imagery that Orson Welles pumped into his 1962 masterpiece “The Trial.” The screenplay is based on Franz Kafka's highly regarded novel of the same name.
The story on its own is the fabulously original and compelling chronicle of Joseph K (Anthony Perkins), a man accused of an unknown crime in a world where everything has been decided. His heated and utterly inconsequential struggle is the locomotion which Welles uses to lead his viewers through some of the most breathtaking ocular sequences in 20th century film.
Everything associated with Orson Welles was huge and almost incomprehensibly dramatic; laced from head to toe with superlatives. His contracts were the largest, his films the best, his confidence unrivaled and his fall unprecedented. Orson's sudden exile from Hollywood in the 40's put a large damper getting funding for his post “Citizen Kane” work. It is for just this reason that “The Trial” was filmed and produced entirely in Europe.
Shot in the style of great epics, the film is instantly recognizable as a Welles production. Fantastically theatrical spotlighting is unrelentingly coupled with enormous sets to emphasize the solitude that is paramount within the story. Indoor vanishing points and monumental crowds are more frequent than dialogue. It is, in fact, nearly impossible not to laugh at the magnitude and near perfect orchestration of every shot. It is as if each frame was fished out of a bottomless sea of museum quality photography. Visually, “The Trial” is nothing less than an improvement on “Citizen Kane.”
A critic might point out the weakness and repeating nature in some of the spoken lines, particularly those of Joseph K., but this would be argument for the sake of argument only. The mood is never touched by any inconsistencies on the actors' parts. “The Trial” is a superb rendition of the kind of genius Welles was capable of. It is, in his words, “The best film I ever made."
The story on its own is the fabulously original and compelling chronicle of Joseph K (Anthony Perkins), a man accused of an unknown crime in a world where everything has been decided. His heated and utterly inconsequential struggle is the locomotion which Welles uses to lead his viewers through some of the most breathtaking ocular sequences in 20th century film.
Everything associated with Orson Welles was huge and almost incomprehensibly dramatic; laced from head to toe with superlatives. His contracts were the largest, his films the best, his confidence unrivaled and his fall unprecedented. Orson's sudden exile from Hollywood in the 40's put a large damper getting funding for his post “Citizen Kane” work. It is for just this reason that “The Trial” was filmed and produced entirely in Europe.
Shot in the style of great epics, the film is instantly recognizable as a Welles production. Fantastically theatrical spotlighting is unrelentingly coupled with enormous sets to emphasize the solitude that is paramount within the story. Indoor vanishing points and monumental crowds are more frequent than dialogue. It is, in fact, nearly impossible not to laugh at the magnitude and near perfect orchestration of every shot. It is as if each frame was fished out of a bottomless sea of museum quality photography. Visually, “The Trial” is nothing less than an improvement on “Citizen Kane.”
A critic might point out the weakness and repeating nature in some of the spoken lines, particularly those of Joseph K., but this would be argument for the sake of argument only. The mood is never touched by any inconsistencies on the actors' parts. “The Trial” is a superb rendition of the kind of genius Welles was capable of. It is, in his words, “The best film I ever made."
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