Not a bad film, considering pinter doesn't understand kafka
Added 4/23/2006
Kafka is my favorite modern writer. Anyone who wants to understand Kafka should read Ruth Tiefenbaum's Moment of Torment, which quite convincingly makes the case that Kafka was a passive homosexual, who used his famous code to tell the truth about himself in a way that wouldn't destroy his position in society.
The literary world has always recognized the eery power of Kafka's oeuvre, but has always been puzzled about exactly what it means, if anything. So we get rather absurd interpretations such as that the Trial is a novel about bureaucracy, etc.
There is a great deal of academic posing - Kafka exegesis, one might say, or explaining the incomprehensible, but certifiably great Kafka to the masses (or to students rather).
The novel The Trial concerns a young man who is suddenly 'arrested' or rather put under surveillance by the authorities, because he is homosexual. He refuses to acknowledge his guilt, but nevertheless frequents women in an attempt to placate his accusers. The women are anything but alluring, and the only real seduction scene (homosexual of course) occurs when Titorelli is tickled...
The film accepts the standard academic theory that it is all about the horrors of the bureaucratic state, which trivializes the novel.
The Trial is not the greatest of Kafka anyway. Probably his masterpiece is America (The Lost One), especially its final chapters about the paradisiacal Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, where all of society's rejects go, in particular men like Kafka....
His best story is undoubtedly Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk. The mouse folk aren't mice or Jews, but homosexual men. Kafka wrote it on his deathbed.
4 out of 5 people found this helpful.
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LIKE A DOG!!!!!!!!
Added 12/7/2005
Guilty! guilty! we are all guiilty! guilty of what? it doesnt matter we are all guilty of something always, all the time, at least society teach us that, we learn to live with that sorrow from the day we born, till the day we die, you better dont walk tall, speak to your chest and you will have no tribulations, society will not attack you and you will be not accused of the crime of pride, well Kafka states we have to fight against all of this not to live by societys conventions and decide things for ourselves,Kafka was a rebel deep inside and a revolutionary of ideas and peoples agreements same as Wilde.
This movie worths to watch
HM
3 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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Great move--TERRIBLE DVD
Added 4/4/2002
I give the movie five stars. The DVD, one (see below). I won't focus much on the merits of the film aside from saying that the story of the film is one of the most important works of the twentieth-century and is central to the modern, and post-modern, human experience. I saw this movie at the Angelika in New York when it came out. One of Hollywood's crimes was not giving it a distribution deal in the U.S. I have to admit that, the first time I saw it, I was somewhat disappointed by the portrayals in general. However, I hadn't read the novel in several years despite being a Kafka devotee. I reread it yet again and later viewed the film on video tape. The more I watched it, the more I realized what a wonderful job Harold Pinter did with the screenplay.Now, as far as the DVD itself goes, this is one of the WORST transfers I have ever seen. Thanks go to the folks at Fox Lorber for another disappointing product. I think my original VHS copy had better image quality than this. Furthermore, as another reviewer notes, this film is beautifully photographed, yet the DVD is full screen only. The principals of Fox Lorber should be locked up for not releasing this in widescreen. As for the extras? Yeah, right. There is a chapter selection function. How's that? There's not even a general menu, no trailers, interviews, etc. Nothing. Poor ole Franz. Still not being treated properly after all these years.
13 out of 14 people found this helpful.
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It's an allegory!!
Added 8/9/2001
At some point in your life you begin to question all of the reasons you used to give yourself to explain why you do what you do. Not only that, you discover that other people, who you thought were on your side are really standing on the sidelines judging you. You are, in other words, on trial: you need to justify your way of life not only to yourself but to others. What brings this on, perhaps, is the recognition of your own mortality, or the recognition that your ambitions may never be realized because your future depends upon others who have little interest in your concerns. This is really what Kafka's novel _The Trial_ is about: it is an "existentialist" allegory, where the "trial" stands for the fact that you find yourself at some point, unexpectedly, needing to account for and justify your life, but it is never quite clear what (if anything) you have done wrong, who it is that you have to justify yourself to or why.
This film version of Kafka's novel is particularly nice, for its portrayal of what Sartre would call a "bad faith" response to this situation. Kyle McLaughlin is perfect as a brash, arrogant young man who has begun to question his life and has begun to see the eyes of others who judge him harshly -- but who refuses to take his situation totally seriously. He turns to others for help: the law, an artist, a priest, but fails to really even heed their advice to the degree it appears to warrant (deciding, for example, to flirt with the seductive nursemaid of his lawyer, rather than listen to his counsel).
**Spoiler alert** The ending does not seem to me to be at all puzzling or obscure (as several others have suggested in their reviews of the film), when the film as a whole is "read" as an allegory of life and the despair of a universe where there is no fixed meaning. It turns out, in fact that his situation is much more serious than he has been treating it: he will die an ignominious death ("like a dog" as he says). Just prior to death, he glimpses something in a window -- in terms of the allegory, perhaps, he has an insight into the possible "meaning of it all" -- and yet the insight is only partial, or transitory. It does not save him -- and then it is all over, as suddenly and unexpectedly as it began.
11 out of 13 people found this helpful.
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It's an allegory!!
Added 8/9/2001
At some point in your life you begin to question all of the reasons you used to give yourself to explain why you do what you do. Not only that, you discover that other people, who you thought were on your side are really standing on the sidelines judging you. You are, in other words, on trial: you need to justify your way of life not only to yourself but to others. What brings this on, perhaps, is the recognition of your own mortality, or the recognition that your ambitions may never be realized because your future depends upon others who have little interest in your concerns. This is really what Kafka's novel _The Trial_ is about: it is an "existentialist" allegory, where the "trial" stands for the fact that you find yourself at some point, unexpectedly, needing to account for and justify your life, but it is never quite clear what (if anything) you have done wrong, who it is that you have to justify yourself to or why. This film version of Kafka's novel is particularly nice, for its portrayal of what Sartre would call a "bad faith" response to this situation. Kyle McLaughlin is perfect as a brash, arrogant young man who has begun to question his life and has begun to see the eyes of others who judge him harshly -- but who refuses to take his situation totally seriously. He turns to others for help: the law, an artist, a priest, but fails to really even heed their advice to the degree it appears to warrant (deciding, for example, to flirt with the seductive nursemaid of his lawyer, rather than listen to his counsel). The end doesn't seem to me to be at all puzzling or obscure (as several others have suggested in their reviews of the film), when the film as a whole is "read" as an allegory of life and the despair of a universe where there is no fixed meaning. It turns out, in fact that his situation is much more serious than he has been treating it: he will die an ignominious death ("like a dog" as he says). Just prior to death, he glimpses something in a window -- in terms of the allegory, perhaps, he has an insight into the possible "meaning of it all" -- and yet the insight is only partial, or transitory. It does not save him -- and then it is all over, as suddenly and unexpectedly as it began.
9 out of 10 people found this helpful.
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Not a bad film, considering pinter doesn't understand kafka
Added 4/23/2006
Kafka is my favorite modern writer. Anyone who wants to understand Kafka should read Ruth Tiefenbaum's Moment of Torment, which quite convincingly makes the case that Kafka was a passive homosexual, who used his famous code to tell the truth about himself in a way that wouldn't destroy his position in society.
The literary world has always recognized the eery power of Kafka's oeuvre, but has always been puzzled about exactly what it means, if anything. So we get rather absurd interpretations such as that the Trial is a novel about bureaucracy, etc.
There is a great deal of academic posing - Kafka exegesis, one might say, or explaining the incomprehensible, but certifiably great Kafka to the masses (or to students rather).
The novel The Trial concerns a young man who is suddenly 'arrested' or rather put under surveillance by the authorities, because he is homosexual. He refuses to acknowledge his guilt, but nevertheless frequents women in an attempt to placate his accusers. The women are anything but alluring, and the only real seduction scene (homosexual of course) occurs when Titorelli is tickled...
The film accepts the standard academic theory that it is all about the horrors of the bureaucratic state, which trivializes the novel.
The Trial is not the greatest of Kafka anyway. Probably his masterpiece is America (The Lost One), especially its final chapters about the paradisiacal Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, where all of society's rejects go, in particular men like Kafka....
His best story is undoubtedly Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk. The mouse folk aren't mice or Jews, but homosexual men. Kafka wrote it on his deathbed.
4 out of 5 people found this helpful.
|
LIKE A DOG!!!!!!!!
Added 12/7/2005
Guilty! guilty! we are all guiilty! guilty of what? it doesnt matter we are all guilty of something always, all the time, at least society teach us that, we learn to live with that sorrow from the day we born, till the day we die, you better dont walk tall, speak to your chest and you will have no tribulations, society will not attack you and you will be not accused of the crime of pride, well Kafka states we have to fight against all of this not to live by societys conventions and decide things for ourselves,Kafka was a rebel deep inside and a revolutionary of ideas and peoples agreements same as Wilde.
This movie worths to watch
HM
3 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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Great move--TERRIBLE DVD
Added 4/4/2002
I give the movie five stars. The DVD, one (see below). I won't focus much on the merits of the film aside from saying that the story of the film is one of the most important works of the twentieth-century and is central to the modern, and post-modern, human experience. I saw this movie at the Angelika in New York when it came out. One of Hollywood's crimes was not giving it a distribution deal in the U.S. I have to admit that, the first time I saw it, I was somewhat disappointed by the portrayals in general. However, I hadn't read the novel in several years despite being a Kafka devotee. I reread it yet again and later viewed the film on video tape. The more I watched it, the more I realized what a wonderful job Harold Pinter did with the screenplay.Now, as far as the DVD itself goes, this is one of the WORST transfers I have ever seen. Thanks go to the folks at Fox Lorber for another disappointing product. I think my original VHS copy had better image quality than this. Furthermore, as another reviewer notes, this film is beautifully photographed, yet the DVD is full screen only. The principals of Fox Lorber should be locked up for not releasing this in widescreen. As for the extras? Yeah, right. There is a chapter selection function. How's that? There's not even a general menu, no trailers, interviews, etc. Nothing. Poor ole Franz. Still not being treated properly after all these years.
13 out of 14 people found this helpful.
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