Favorite Director

[kid-glove]

Will keep the response brief.

Slight misunderstanding for I brought up W-M for Equa's statement on the need to dissect Sujatha's overbearing signature in Shankar's script (not just dialogues!) to keep check on over-crediting Sujatha in that particular collaboration. To a much larger degree, I find CK to be more of W's signature. Now what's common about CK, Trial and ToE, they are all cinematic. Work of a filmmaker who understands the language of cinema. Not "illustrated texts". Illustrated best in his adaptation of "heavy" literature (Kafka's Trial) - now normally I'm against it. For I think in great works of literature, the form it's given in writing couldn't be visually rendered in contracted duration and default structure of film. Mini-series best compares to works of literature. The expansiveness is important in case of, let's say, "Crime and punishment" (700 odd pages with thousands of words, each playing a function) that isn't feasible as a 3-hour film. In fact, the best works of literature had already found its best form. The "roundness"(that would be lost if it were adapted and constricted to 120 page script.) is vital and whole point of its existence. Raison d'etre. In that respect, film best compares to short fiction in narrative depth. Now take Kafka, Welles gives a whole different treatment to one of the shorter works (which was edited, compiled in different order and published by one of Kafka's friends after his death), "The Trial". It's largely unfilmable for its Kafkaesque maze-like narrative.

Like Camus's reading of Sisyphean struggle, Welles interpretation of K's new-found boldness, vanity at end of it(rather than crumbling down), is superbly spun 'absurd' ending, which originally is of K's solemn submission in the book. Deliberate rearrangement of chapters makes it a different animal altogether. Kafka's black comedy is elusive in words, while Welles is able to get that mood and feel easily, for films is easy to immerse and readily apparent. Acting is key to this. Welles also renders the epistemological drives & existential feel in tight-edged fashion, that's not easily reduced to binary terms, serious or farce. Many films would fall into this quirky little genre (A Serious Man, Barton Fink Synecdoche NY, for eg.) In The Trial, The sets range from Paris to Zagreb, but the overall middle-eastern Europe feel is key as I see it. Casting Perkins as "K" also brought out the Jewish anxiety (and obscure sexuality) of Kafka's novel. Of course, it's not a stretch to say that Kafka had anticipated the holocaust. It'd not be the first time he contemplates antisemitism. Welles picks on this subtext, and builds sets that evokes concentration camps. And not to mention the way his camera looks at the prisoners(?) waiting for their judgment in the alley. Yet, he carefully makes the "Totalitarian" world less specific. It could stand as a microcosmic model (labyrinth-like with the buildings, from flat to commercial spaces, secretive court, etc as one compact unit) of a failing system that seems perfect and works mechanically from outside.

Welles captures K's journey like a dream (ever wondered how we jump to many different places in our dream without fuss.) In all this, Welles never resorts to exposition. It plays on surreal dreamlike fabric, but never tries to work out the symbol-hunter's brain (as revealed by Welles in his book. He hates symbolism.). But it's still a visceral experience. We begin the film with K sleeping on his bed, and end with his death. Perhaps what we are seeing is "Cobb" (who would have woken up in another level of 'reality') whose inescapable anxiety and guilt is compounded by lack of real information about the 'crimes and misdemeanors'. But it's also abuse of power and control, authoritative plutocracy, and therefore a real perversion of "self" that it drives one to. The film works on multiple levels to me.

Normally I'd not liken his work in "The Trial" to CK or ToE (it'd be pompous to suggest that there are direct parallels), but I find many similarities in terms of high contrast, deep focus, and overall filming/editing style. I rate him only behind Griffith in terms of influence. A feeling that is shared by critics of Cahiers, from Bazin, to Godard and my personal fav. Rosenbaum. Bazin dissect's Welles directorial style of C.Kane in "What is cinema?", chapter "Evolution of the language of cinema". Bazin and Rosenbaum are of such influence that I'd end up paraphrasing both if we want to take this discussion further...