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great_badir -> RE: great_badir's New improved list! (19/10/2009 1:04:36 PM)
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[image]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XhwkaZooL._SS500_.jpg[/image]
Le proces (The Trial), Orson Welles (1962)
A good friend of mine has seen half a dozen, possibly seven, films in his life. He doesn't own a TV, DVD player or VCR of his own. He likes good TV drama, serious documentaries and a smattering of comedy, but otherwise he's not particularly interested in moving pictures or the light box. He's a reader, you see. He prefers to use his own imagination, than have someone telling him what thought processes his brain should be making. One day we were chatting about "difficult" books and, naturally, Ulysses featured quite prominently in the conversation. He then asked me if I'd read any Kafka, to which I replied "no, but I've seen the film of The Trial". "THEY MADE A FILM OF THE TRIAL!?!?!? (LONG pause). How?" (N.B. - I've since learnt that there was also big screen adaptation in the 90s, with Anthony Hopkins and Kyle MacLachlan, which I've not yet seen). And that was a question I couldn't really answer, mainly because I hadn't read the book at that point (I've since…struggled with and completed it, with each chapter being like some end of level boss in a computer game), but also because the film was made by Orson Welles. And a Welles films is never too easy to break down into manageable pieces, because it's either a daunting masterpiece, an interfered-with yet noble failure, a misunderstood think-piece or, quite simply, unmitigated turd.
So, what about Orson Welles? Talented, highly intellectual, playful, maverick, egotistical, something of a bastard, loved his food. Wasn't so keen on peas, though. Made some undisputed classics, made some dreadful rubbish. Also proud owner of one or two massively over-rated "masterpieces" (hello Citizen Kane and The Lady From Shanghai) and a couple of stone cold under-rated moments of brilliance (F for Fake, Touch of Evil and the ultra nasty The Stranger). Beyond all that, Welles' biography on IMDB reads like a what's-what of unrealised dreams, empty promises, broken projects and outright failures. His 1952 take on Othello was one of the last films he made with relatively little intrusion or influence from the studios, before thirty odd years of stalls, "personal projects" (which pretty much amounted to Welles and a few friends or family rehearsing various bits of classic literature in his back garden or basement) and made for TV fluff, presumably done for the money. Despite (or maybe in spite of) all those years of studio interference, Welles decided to take on Kafka's seemingly impossible to film story about an average joe brought up on some mystery charges, before being hounded by executioners and…well, you know the rest. Or perhaps you don't. Taking the advanced cinematography and technical wizardry of Citizen Kane to the next level (actually more like the next ten levels), it's all angular open-plan offices, cavernous back rooms, post apocalyptic exteriors - very Kubrickian years before Kubrickian became an adjective. Le proces also captures every single paranoid hell of central character Josef K, ably played by one time king of paranoid performance Anthony Perkins. And, of course, there's the obligatory Welles extended cameo. By 1962, the one time actorly pin-up had filled out admirably (if that's the right word, probably not) and in Le proces there he is, flopped on a bed in an enormous robe, as a law advocate. Type-cast he might've been, but Welles still had the acting magic to the extent that he overdubbed, it is said, as many as eleven actors in the film, as well as some of Anthony Perkins' dialogue. Some of these overdubs are obvious (Welles' Irish accent was never all that good), but some were so good the actors who were being dubbed (including Perkins) could not work out where their voices ended and Welles' began. By far the best and most impressive part of the film is the opening few minutes, which serves as a character free introduction to the basic theme of the original book and the film. Using pin-screen animation (google image it to see how impressive it was in 1962 and how impressive the technique has become since), Welles relays to the audience a fable from Kafka's book about a man who is prevented access to the law time and time again. It's a brilliant little sequence.
One of Le proces' other triumphs is that at no point does Welles take the easy road and try to make a join-the-dots adaptation that strips out all the weirdness and complexity. Such a treatment often ends in disaster (cf. most of the 80s and 90s Elmore Leonard adaptations, the aforementioned Ulysses and more recently Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia), but Welles, somehow, didn't fall at any of those hurdles. Hell, he probably relished every minute challenge the story threw up. Further, it's very much a free-jazz adaptation - the main themes and plot points are there, but Welles plays around with them, adding his own spin and (criminally, some would argue) completely changing certain elements. In fact, in some ways, the film is even more surreal and challenging than the source material. Like the later and much lambasted F for Fake (actually a personal Welles favourite of mine), Le proces is very playful. Unlike most of his other films where you can see and feel every inch of pain, graft, anger and apathy up on screen, Le proces makes you think of a man who's just having a great time doing what he's doing, belly laughing away at all the craziness he's putting onto celluloid. Something not seen in a Welles film since Citizen Kane and something which raises Le proces to "Great Adaptation" status.
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