The Trial (1962)
Directed by Orson Welles
Poor Josef K., waking up to the police in his apartment and never really understanding why. Anthony Perkins is impeccably cast as K.—his apprehensive comportment juxtaposed with Welles’s uneasy spatial relations and harrowing light. The Trial unfolds like sleeping in reverse; K.’s straitlacedness and seemingly guilty conscience would seem more logical as a labyrinthine nightmare. In the face of accusation, wherever it stems from, K. remains chained to his ideals; he is a solipsist in a bureaucracy gone mad. It took four major European cities for Welles to complete his version of Kafka’s unfinished novel, a doggedly lunatic odyssey. Samantha Vacca (Jan 30, 31, 12:30pm, 2:40pm, 7:30pm, 9:50pm at Film Forum’s Welles centennial)