The Trial (1962 film)

• 1. Adaptation And Screenplay Choices

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  Orson Welles declared immediately after finishing the project that The Trial was the best film he had ever made. He began writing the screenplay in 1960 and spent six months rearranging Franz Kafka's original chapters into a new sequence. The final order read 1, 4, 2, 5, 6, 3, 8, 7, 9, 10 instead of the literary executor Max Brod's arrangement. Welles modernized several elements to fit a 1960s audience while keeping the core absurdity intact. He introduced computer technology into the plot and changed Miss Bürstner from a typist to a cabaret performer. The opening scene features Welles narrating Kafka's parable Before the Law over pin screen animation created by Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker. These artists used thousands of pins to create animated prints for the prologue. Welles also altered the manner of Josef K.'s death from the book's dignified suicide to a fatal stabbing in the heart. In the film version, Josef K. refuses the knife offered by executioners and yells You'll have to do it before dying like a dog.

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• 2. Production Logistics And Locations

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  Welles started filming in Yugoslavia during 1961 with a budget of 650 million French francs provided by producer Alexander Salkind. He constructed an office set inside an exposition hall just outside Zagreb where 850 secretaries banged typewriters at 850 desks simultaneously. Communist restrictions prevented shooting in Prague so the production moved sequences to Dubrovnik Rome Milan and Paris instead. Salkind struggled to collect promised capital which forced Welles to use the Gare d'Orsay abandoned railway station for interior scenes. The director defended this choice stating that everything was improvised at the last moment due to the absence of traditional sets. He edited the film while technically on vacation commuting from Málaga Spain to oversee post-production work. Welles filmed additional sequences in Paris including the prologue and epilogue for his self-financed Don Quixote adaptation. The production faced constant financial pressure as investors withheld funds throughout the shoot.

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• 3. Casting Decisions And Performances

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  Anthony Perkins starred as Josef K. while Jeanne Moreau Romy Schneider and Elsa Martinelli played women who became involved in the trial. Welles initially hoped to cast Jackie Gleason as the Advocate but took the role himself when Gleason rejected the part. He dubbed dialogue for eleven actors in the final cut including lines delivered by Anthony Perkins. British actor Peter Sallis dubbed Max Haufler's Hungarian dialogue into American-accented English. Henry Jaglom claimed Welles used Perkins' known homosexuality to add texture suggesting a fear of exposure within the character. Welles stated he knew Perkins was gay and intentionally used that quality to create repression against three gorgeous women trying to seduce him. Film critic Roger Ebert theorized the dynamic could be interpreted as a nightmare where women make demands Josef K. is uninterested in meeting. Perkins later stated his greatest professional pride came from starring in a Welles-directed feature. While filming in Zagreb Welles met 21-year-old Croatian actress Olga Palinkaš who became his companion Oja Kodar.

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• 4. Visual Style And Cinematography

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  The film features disorienting camera angles and unconventional use of focus throughout its runtime. Pin screen animation created by Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker opens the movie with thousands of pins forming images. Welles arranged sets to accommodate the abandoned Gare d'Orsay railway station creating gigantic spaces people have objected to. The cinematography includes scenes where light dissolves and montages of light appear on screen according to Pauline Kael. James Chapman noted the visual style contributed to the film's polarizing reception among critics. The final scene shows smoke from a fatal dynamite blast forming a mushroom cloud while Welles reads closing credits. Critics praised the scenic design and inventive lighting choices made during production. The camera placement moves through the set in ways that challenge traditional filmmaking conventions.

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• 5. Initial Release And Critical Polarization

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  Welles planned to premiere The Trial at the Venice Film Festival in September 1962 but the film was not completed in time. Festival organizers showed West Side Story instead which won an Academy Award. The Paris premiere occurred in December 1962 after Welles jettisoned a ten-minute sequence about a computer scientist played by Katina Paxinou. He explained the cut noting something went wrong because he only saw the film as a whole once during mixing. The US theatrical release arrived in 1963 earning $1,403,700 in North America and the UK without making a profit. Charles Higham dismissed the film as an agonizing experience in his 1970 biography calling it dead like a tablet found among dust. Contemporary analysis remains far more positive with Roger Ebert awarding four stars for its exuberant use of camera movement. Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half out of four stars describing it as gripping if confusing. Pauline Kael wrote that the film embodied the dissolving of light-plot sets.

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• 6. Posthumous Restoration And Legacy

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  No copyright was ever filed on The Trial resulting in public domain status within the United States. In 1981 Welles planned to create a documentary on the making of the film using a 16mm camera shot at USC. Cinematographer Gary Graver filmed Welles addressing an audience but the director never completed the proposed documentary. The footage now resides in Germany's Filmmuseum Munich where it has been restored. A restored version based on the long-lost original 35mm negative appeared on DVD by Milestone Films in 2000. Rialto Pictures released a 2K restoration playing in DCP format across various North American cities as of 2015. Criterion Collection issued a 4K restoration on the 19th of September 2023. Today the film enjoys enthusiastic reviews with 84% of 44 critical reviews on Rotten Tomatoes awarding positive scores. Fernando Martín Peña voted The Trial one of his ten favorite films in the British Film Institute's 2002 Sight & Sound poll.

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