This was a presentation I gave on M

1. The Trial (1962) By Ben Bourgon and Caroline Klimek
alternative poster by Swoboda @DeviantArt
Sunday, March 25, 2012

2. Topics of Discussion
• Reviews of The Trial
• Production
• Adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial
• Opening Sequence
• Women of Josef K
• Dream Logic, Surrealism, The Absurd
• Mise-en-scene, expressionism
Sunday, March 25, 2012

3. Mixed reactions
“An agonizing experience” - Charles Higham,
The Films of Orson Welles (1970)
“An astonishing work, and a revelation of the man” –
David Thomson, Rosebud (1997)
“I’d be lying if I said that watching The Trial was a
pleasant experience.” – Sam Woolf
“…this film was deeply confusing.” – Adam Cunliffe
…the film was an artful rant, exquisitely composed
but humourlessly written. – Parker Mott
Sunday, March 25, 2012

4. Production
“But that’s what makes those kind of
people great, and you have to love
them, because they’ve made hundred
of pictures without any money. And
here they were, willing to go ahead
with me when nobody else was, and I
was most grateful to them for that...
and gave me absolute freedom from
beginning of the picture to final cut.”
~ Orson Welles, (This is Orson Welles, pg. 246)
Sunday, March 25, 2012

5. Gare d’Orsay
Sunday, March 25, 2012

6. Sunday, March 25, 2012

7. Welles’ Adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial
Sunday, March 25, 2012

8. Adaptation
“Having read The Trial (albeit a while ago), I was very
interested going into this film to see how Welles would
translate this absurdist story onto film. I personally was
very impressed by Welles, and as someone who usually
cringes at film adaptations, thought he did a very good
job of capturing the confusion of Kafka’s novel. – Lisa
Aalders
Sunday, March 25, 2012

9. Sunday, March 25, 2012

10. Opening Sequence
Sunday, March 25, 2012

11. Sunday, March 25, 2012

12. Women in The Trial
“There has to be something said about the role of women in
this film. They all hold so much power in their ability to
render Mr. K helpless in some way. They all talk in such
circular ways or sex is involved. They are always on his
"case" (figuratively and literally). […]The women play a
strange role in his world.”
– Avalon McLean-Smits
Sunday, March 25, 2012

13. How do you see the role of women within this
film? Is this simply a 1960’s male fantasy or is the
situation more complex than that?
Sunday, March 25, 2012

14. The Many
Women Of Josef
K’s “Life”
Sunday, March 25, 2012

15. Dream Logic
Peter Bogdanovich: I think it is like some terrible dream.
Orson Welles: But it isn’t a reproduction of a dream – that’s a very important
point to make.’
Peter Bogdanovich: It gives you the feeling of a dream.
Sunday, March 25, 2012

16. Interpreting Dreams:
Condensation and Displacement
Condensation: “A dream object stands for several
associations and ideas[…]”
Displacement: “A dream object's emotional significance
is separated from its real object or content and
attached to an entirely different one.”
Sunday, March 25, 2012

17. The Surreal vs. The Absurd
“Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one
proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any
other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of
thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason,
outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation.”
– Andre Bréton, The Surrealist Manifesto
Absurdism, n. A philosophy based on the belief that
the universe is irrational and meaningless and that
the search for order brings the individual into conflict
with the universe” – Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Sunday, March 25, 2012

18. “A symbol hunter’s dream” in The Trial?
“It’s full of do-it-
yourself stuff. You can
make your own
symbols, if you want
to. But there isn’t a
single symbol in it.” –
Orson Welles
Sunday, March 25, 2012

19. Mise-en-scéne
“For me, the use of setting was crucial in
conveying emotion and meaning. Welles staged
the action in either elaborate, lofty spaces or
claustrophobic and confined ones, making use of
scaffolding, passage ways/halls, oversize doors,
etc…” – Katie Squires-Thomson
Sunday, March 25, 2012

20. Everyman
vs.
The
Monster
Sunday, March 25, 2012

21. Sunday, March 25, 2012

22. Sunday, March 25, 2012

23. Sunday, March 25, 2012

24. Behind Bars
Sunday, March 25, 2012

25. The Sexual Divide
Sunday, March 25, 2012

26. World of Men
World of Women
Sunday, March 25, 2012

27. Style
Sunday, March 25, 2012

28. Wide Angles
Sunday, March 25, 2012

29. Close-ups
Sunday, March 25, 2012

30. K’s Apartment Long Take…
Sunday, March 25, 2012

31. …to paranoia at Titorelli’s
Sunday, March 25, 2012

32. Lighting
Sunday, March 25, 2012

33. Climactic Sequence
Sunday, March 25, 2012

34. The Trial or The Third Man?
Sunday, March 25, 2012

35. The Trial by Orson Welles
“I feel the autobiographical quality unfolds in the
style, which is perpetually fraught with paranoia
and disorientation, very much vis-a-vis Touch of
Evil, only The Trial maximizes on the degradative
side of the male consciousness. The Trial,
therefore, comes off as that film where Welles's
diary flew open, and his personal secrets
disseminated on screen.” – Parker Mott
Sunday, March 25, 2012

36. Is this film consistent with your conception of
Welles? Has his full artistic control on this work
revealed anything to you about Welles as a
filmmaker?
Sunday, March 25, 2012

37. Ending
Sunday, March 25, 2012

38. Sunday, March 25, 2012

39. Ending
Q: Do you see the ending as a
mistake? What is its effect within the
movie as a whole, does it fit?
Sunday, March 25, 2012

40. Fin
Sunday, March 25, 2012

41. Sources
• Berthomé, Jean-Pierre and François Thomas. Orson Welles At Work. New York: Phaidon Press Inc., 2006.
• Bogdanovich, Peter and Orson Welles. This is Orson Welles. Ed. Jonathan Rosenbaum. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998.!
• Modern Film Scripts - The Trial: A Film by Orson Welles. Trans. Nicholas Fry. NEw York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.
• Orson Welles: Interviews. Ed. Mark W. Estrin. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2002.
• Perspectives on Orson Welles. Ed. Morris Beja. New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1995.
• Prescot Tonguete, Peter. Orson Welles Remembered: Interviews with His Actors, Editors, Cinematographers and Magicians. London: McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers, 2007.
• Rasmussen, Randy. Orson Welles: Six Films Analyzed,, Scene by Scene. London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2006.
• Thomson, David. Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles. New York: Vintage, 1997
Sunday, March 25, 2012