14 - Welles and Kafka

Summary

Films adapted from important novels almost always suffer unfavorable comparison with their literary sources. This is the line often adopted when discussing Orson Welles' 1962 adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, However, it seems to me that Welles' film is, in fact, a brilliant adaptation – a point that I will now try to elucidate especially in terms of the ways in which Welles treats those aspects of Kafka that revolt against the processes of mystification fostered by mass, modern bureaucracy.

Welles is a director noted for his manipulation of cinematic space. Hence, a likely first step in analyzing Welles' film is to examine Kafka's use of space in order to compare it with Welles' organization of film space.

Space, in terms of geography, constitutes an explicit element of at least one important plot motif in Kafka's The Trial. This motif involves a related continuum of events including K.'s being lost or K.'s being confused or disoriented geographically. For example, K. is literally lost when he enters the law court offices for his first interrogation. He adopts the ruse of “the joiner Lanz” in order to find the Examining Magistrate, but to no avail. In addition, on K.'s second trip to the law court, he is unable to find the way out of the building. Here, Kafka spends a third of a chapter on the matter of K.'s confusion, and on the sensation of sickness that that confusion engenders.