The
Trial
(1962/Orson Welles/Criterion 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture (1080p Blu-ray): B Sound: B+
Extras: B+ Film: A
I
have a bit of an obsession with directors who find their groove and
tear off a sustained sequence of absolute, unimpeachable cinema art.
Francis Ford Coppola is - and probably always will be - at the top of
this list: The
Godfather
(1972), The
Conversation
(1974), The
Godfather Part II
(1974), and Apocalypse
Now
(1979); it's an inconceivably commanding, epic run of work. An
argument could be made for Stanley Kubrick at second place: Dr.
Strangelove
(1964), 2001:
A Space Odyssey
(1968), A
Clockwork Orange
(1971). (Maybe tack on Barry
Lyndon
(1975)?) Martin Scorsese makes a strong case too - Raging
Bull
(1980), The
King of Comedy
(1982), After
Hours
(1985) - except that the latter two are still cult, not mainstream,
classics. Steven Spielberg never had more than two back-to-back
triumphs. Ditto Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder and John Ford and
David Lynch. And on it goes.
An
unexpected challenger entered this conversation late in 2023. Orson
Welles' career is one defined by studio interference, backbreaking
budget constraints, and generally unrealized potential. But as the
years go on and cinema catches up with his genius, more of his work
is salvaged and reappraised. For decades, it seemed like the one-two
of Citizen
Kane
(1941) and The
Magnificent Ambersons
(1942), even in its butchered form, represented Welles at something
of a peak, with flashes of the old fire dotting the rest of his
career: A
Lady from Shanghai
here, a Chimes
at Midnight
there.
The
Trial
(1962), Welles' oft-maligned adaptation of Franz Kafka's novel, was
never one of those flashes; more like a gust of wind that snuffed out
the light. Previously available in terrible presentations marked by
muddled soundtracks and muddy visuals - when it could be seen at all
- it rarely reared its head in the conversation about Welles'
filmmaking. Indeed, even when Welles was alive, his most ardent
champion, Peter Bogdanovich, wrote it off as something like
worthless. Bogdanovich eventually came around after Welles urged him
to see it again (with Welles seated next to him), and Welles himself
often spoke about how the making of the film was his most joyous
experience as a filmmaker.
The
rest of us finally had a chance at a reawakening when a beautiful
digital 4K restoration of The
Trial
was released theatrically and then on disc by the Criterion
Collection. Suddenly here was this compelling, unnerving, baroque
noir that smashed together modernism and classicism and post-war
Europe and Cold War absurdity. Like Kafka, and the inane culture
that has made him prophetic, the film is dark and smudgy and
dangerous and hilarious and utterly contemporary.
There's
Josef K (Anthony Perkins), a middle-manager in his minimalist
Soviet-style apartment, believing he's destined to bigger things when
he's accused by some nameless person of some nameless crime and so is
forced to defend himself in some faceless system in front of a
faceless mob that moves in the ruins of an old world destroyed by a
long-ago war. There's the Advocate (Welles), an agent of this
bonkers system, who may or may not be able to help - everything's a
riddle to nowhere - and his sexy nurse/lover Leni (Romy Schneider),
who steals off with K for some extracurriculars in the thoroughly
ruined antechambers of the Advocate's lair. There's the court artist
(which court - the legal court, or a regal one?) Titorelli (William
Chappell), a Pop-inspired celebrity, based on the number of young
girls vying for his attention through the slats in his walls, who
meets K in his atelier and gives him nothing but more doubletalk.
Everything leads K in loop-de-loops - even his
execution-slash-suicide-slash-immolation. And it's all bookended by
pinscreen art of giant castle walls, with Welles reading Kafka's
short story ''Before the Law'' to start the film and adding some
narration to close it.
It's
a wonderfully esoteric, evocative film. (Pair with Scorsese's After
Hours
for a perfect double feature.) And it's not surprising it didn't
connect in 1962. Perkins is jumpy and wiry and, coming two years
after Psycho,
I imagine it was hard to shake Norman Bates from his visage. It's
still hard to do, 64 years after Hitchcock's masterpiece. The
cinematography is so specific - from its claustrophobic set-ups to
the night and interior scenes that are less black and white and more
a Frank Stella black-on-black painting on celluloid - that a bad
print would kill any chance of deciphering what's in front of you.
The physical landscape and locations are exceedingly dour, which
you'd expect from Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe at the start of the
1960s. And the audio can be a challenge, from the track itself,
which can sound like it's burbling out of some water, to the dubbing
of the non-English-speaking actors, which Welles himself did for many
of the parts.
The
restoration fixes most of the technical deficiencies - the audio is
still a challenge, but its uncanniness adds an exceptional dimension
to the film's overall sense of dislocation. And what we're presented
with is unquestionably one of Welles' great achievements. And it
comes in a sequence that should make us reconsider this period of his
career: Touch
of Evil
(1958), The
Trial
(1962), Chimes
at Midnight
(1965). Remarkable films, all, and the kind of daring,
boundary-pushing, paradigm-shifting work that, for a long time, we
were told Welles was incapable of after Kane,
or at least Ambersons.
There
has never been a question of Welles' importance to cinema, and while
each rediscovery confirms his place in the pantheon it also
complicates the easy narrative that has surrounded his career. Here
is an artist who didn't live hand-to-mouth, aborting film after film
and making bad commercials because he lost his muse. Instead, here
is a genius who was so far ahead of his time that the times didn't
know what to do with him, who was forced to scrounge for financing
and materials to capture as best he could (which was often not good
enough) the ideas and visions knocking around in his head.
This
is no great revelation in 2024. Only a stubborn fool would try to
discount Orson Welles as an overhyped wunderkind who never achieved
his potential. But what this revived The
Trial
does is decisively knock the legs out from under that argument. Here
is a great film made by a great filmmaker at the height of his
powers, in the midst of a creative burst nearly unparalleled by his
contemporaries or inheritors (in America at least). And in this
triptych of films, of which The
Trial
is the center panel, Welles gave us a view of the future of cinema.
It's only now that we're ready for what he had to show us.
Criterion's
4K edition of The
Trial
is an across-the-board upgrade from the film's previous home video
incarnations. Extras include a trailer; a wonderful and insightful
new commentary from historian/author Joseph McBride; and archival
interviews with Welles, Jeanne Moreau, who appears in a kind of
glorified cameo as K's sultry and mysterious neighbor, and
cinematographer Edmond Richard. There is also Filming
The Trial,
a 90-minute documentary consisting of Welles speaking with USC
students in 1981 after a screening of the film. In grand Wellesian
tradition, he originally intended to make a different documentary
about the making of the movie, with the Q&A as one part, but it
was never realized and the USC footage became the film. That's not
to undercut the discussion. It's great viewing, not only for Welles'
memories but because Welles was never better than in front of a live
audience. And here he's really in his element.
Technically,
the film looks and sounds as good as it likely ever will. But there
are a few caveats.
Regarding
the soundtrack, as mentioned above many of Welles' films -
particularly those shot in Europe - suffer from lackluster audio, for
all sorts of reasons. Here, is is presented in a PCM 1.0 Mono
(48kHz, 24-bit) lossless mix. Those issues are mitigated as best as
possible here, but there are still many moments where it sounds like
actors are physically in one space and speaking from another. It can
be distracting, though never so problematic that it ruins the
experience. (If memory serves, Chimes
at Midnight
has similar issues that really make parts of watching the film a
challenge.)
On
the visual side, there are similar moments of distraction. The first
comes at the start of the film, with K on his apartment balcony
speaking with the police. There's this strange static-like effect
that occurs on the ceiling of the balcony. It occurs on both the 4K
(2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.66 X 1, Ultra High Definition image with no HDR
of any kind) and Blu-ray discs, so it's clearly a result of the
restoration process. Is it fixable? Doubtful. But it's worth
noting. The other thing that can pull attention away is just how
deep the blacks can be. Characters in shadow can on occasion feel
like black cutouts on the screen (like the digital inserts Warners
added to Eyes
Wide Shut).
Again, this won't ruin the experience, just give you a sense of the
uncanny.
But
everything else is so gorgeous and fine that it's easy to forgive
these lapses - especially when you consider the state The Trial had
been in. I'll take some weird static and way-too-black missteps if
it means being able to, you know, accurately decipher the last shot
of the film - which you absolutely couldn't before.
-
Dante A. Ciampaglia
