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-Good evening.

Official YIFY movies site:
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Thank you for coming.

There are two mics.

Does that mean
they're both mine,

or are we...

One is for the
making of 'The Trial, '

or just a few stories about
it, and it would seem to me that

this was the best place to
get some questions and try

some answers...

and hope not to bore you.

My cinematographer,
Mr. Gary Graver...

All right, reel one, take one.

Okay.
Again?

I never did that very well.

Okay.

Any questions?

Yes, sir?

-How did you decide on the
variety of different types of

music that you
used in the score?

I noticed there were...

-Repeat the question, please.

-I noticed there were classical
elements of the music in the

score and also jazz, and I was
wondering how you decided on the

different elements and where
each type of music would go in

the film.

-Well, you know, that's...

There are two ways of
answering that kind of question.

One is pompously to pretend
that I had a master plan...

and the other is to admit that
I put it in where I thought it

would sound good, you know?

Which sounds like
begging the question,

but it's the truth.

The basis, of
course, is the Gesualdo,

which is the basic music of it,
which became a hit as a result

of that.

Nobody had ever heard it,
and there was one very limited

record of it, and after that in
Europe it was played all over

like a hit tune.

In fact, a lot more
people heard that music

than saw the movie anywhere.

It's an extraordinary
piece of music because...

it's got musical ideas in it
that didn't turn up again for

200 years.

And it's curiously
romantic for baroque music,

and full of doom, and beauty,
and I liked it for the picture.

I don't know if I would now.

As you notice, I
came in afterwards.

I never like to see my movies
because I like to remember them

as being so much better
than they really were.

And that's true.

Sir.

-What inspired you
to make 'The Trial?'

-Well, that's a story.

I take you to the
mountains of Austria where,

with my family, I was

enjoying the winter sports,

hoping I would be able to pay
the hotel bill at the end of it,

and had just completed being
interviewed by Oriana Fallaci

who had stated in the Italian
press that I was undoubtedly the

next American president.

My constituency at the
time consisted of my wife and

daughter, so I didn't see much
future in it... for me in the

White House... and I was
waiting for the phone to ring,

which is what all of you will
be doing if all of you are rash

enough to go into
the film business.

And a family of people called
the Salkinds came into my life.

They are a
dynasty of filmmakers.

Old Man Salkind, who was an
adorable little old gentleman

who hadn't paid a
bill in about 32 years...

but loved movies,

genuinely loved movies,

and his
son Alexander came to see me.

Now, the Old Man Salkind has
gone to dwell beyond the morning

stars, and Alexander is a sort
of dean of the Salkind tribe

because it's his son who has
made the 'Supermans' and the

millions, and millions, and so
on that the Salkinds have made.

The old man, the
adorable old man,

had made a famous movie...
at least in my youth in the

textbooks on movies it was
considered a great movie...

which was the 'Don
Quixote' of Chaliapin;

and he had made the
first Garbo movie;

and he had a
distinguished career.

They had then escaped from
Europe and become Mexican film

producers where they'd made
about 40 Mexican pictures,

the quality of which I'm
not prepared to speak about.

They arrived in this little,
tiny Austrian Alpine village in

a taxi cab which they had
taken from Innsbruck...

and for which they did
not have the money to pay.

This is really true.

And that didn't
come out 'til later,

and they said, "We want you
to make 'Taras Bulba...'"

and, well, 'Taras Bulba' is a
wonderful story... Gogol is my

favorite Russian
writer... and I thought,

"That's absolutely wonderful!

These people have come all
the way up into the Alps,

and they're all ready
to make 'Taras Bulba.'

Splendid!"

And I started to
write a script of it,

and then...

I must stop and say that
they had to borrow the money to

get in the cab back to
Innsbruck, but that was supposed

to be because of problems with
the exchange... they hadn't been

able to get Austrian
shillings or something.

Later, I was to discover that
they didn't have any money at

all, which I think is admirable.

You know, here they were
making a trip across Europe,

coming to ask me to make
a movie for which they didn't

have a cent.

They didn't even have to eat.

And they came back
again in another taxi,

and they said, "We've just
read that Yul Brynner is making

'Taras Bulba' in the
Argentine," which,

indeed, he did.

I saw a little piece of it for
the first time the other night

on television.

It was pretty bad,
but there it was...

'Taras Bulba.'

And they said, "We
can't have two of them,"

and I said, "That's true."

And they said, "We
have here a list of movies

we are ready to finance.

You pick out the one you like."

They didn't say, "What
do you want to make?"

They said, "Here is
our list," and I said,

"I couldn't add
to this list any?"

"No," they said,
"here they are."

And there were about 82 titles,
most of which were impossible,

and the most likely of
which was 'The Trial.'

So I said, "We'll
do 'The Trial.'"

So we made 'The Trial.'

And I know that kind of answer
is very disappointing because

you want to think of a filmmaker

as having studied in his library

the work which sings the
most perfect song to him,

and that I had spent my life
wanting to realize Kafka on the

screen... I had never
given a thought to it.

But it was a book I
admired, a writer I admired,

and it was a challenge I
was very happy to accept.

And challenge, indeed, it was

because we went to Yugoslavia to

shoot it, and I had designed all
the scenery which was going to

be physically a
very different movie.

The scenery begins coming
slightly apart all the time so

that it was sort of
flying away into the darkness.

So it was a very
elaborate and, I think,

interesting, maybe
pretentious visual idea for it.

And all of this was to have
been built by the Yugoslavs.

And we did those Yugoslav scenes
which did not require sets.

We needed an enormous building
where we could do that office

scene, where all the
people are typing, you know?

And they did, indeed, get from
all of any 10,000 typewriters,

and 10,000 desks,

and all that, and we shot that.

And then the Yugoslavs did a
trick which they sometimes do.

I don't mean the
Yugoslavs as a race;

I mean the
Yugoslavs as producers,

because like all people who have
lived under occupation for a

long time... the Irish, for
instance and particularly...

The Yugoslavs had lived for
400 years under the Turks,

and we must understand that all
people who are occupied for a

long time learn as an act of

honor to steal from strangers.

Quite seriously.

In other words they
won't steal from each other,

but if a stranger comes with a
lot of money from Hollywood or

whatever it is,
steal if you can.

And in the case of 'The
Trial, ' they did what they do to

hundreds of
Italian co-producers.

They got us right up to the day
where we were going to be in the

studio... which we never got to
see for some mysterious reason.

There was always a breakdown
of a car or... so we never got to

look at it.

Finally, they came to
that day and they said,

"We made a
miscalculation in the money

and we need another $300,000."

Well, the Salkinds didn't have
the money to pay our hotel bill

in Zagreb, much less for these
sets which had not even begun to

be built.

And the Yugoslavs believed that
they had us by the well-known...

situation...

As, indeed, they had done with
many co-productions and so on.

And I said to Old Man Salkind,

"Get tickets on the night train.

Don't say anything.

We're all leaving town."

So we all left town to the
astonishment of the Yugoslavs

who had expected that they'd be
able to get the other half of

the picture and own it in
order to provide the sets.

So we arrived back in Paris.

There were no sets,
there was no money.

I should explain that, in my
reading of the book... and of

course everybody reads the
book as a different book,

and my reading is probably more
wrong than a lot of people's...

I see the monstrous bureaucracy,
which is the villain of the

piece, as not only Kafka's

clairvoyant view of the future,

but his racial and cultural

background of being occupied by

the Austro-Hungarian empire.

And I see a curious
combination of the book,

of an unthinkably sterile future
combined with an unthinkably

dusty accumulation of those

traditions which bureaucrats set

up in order to perpetuate
their monstrous lives.

If I sound like our president
I profoundly apologize.

So I have made a parentheses
here about that style to explain

how it was that
we came to do it.

We came to do it because I
picked it out of a list,

and we shot most of it in Paris

because I wanted a 19th century

look to a great
deal of what would be,

in fact, expressionistic.

And on the first night in Paris,
I was in a hotel near the Seine,

and I am very, very... I hate
to use the word superstitious

because I take
it more seriously...

I'm awfully
serious about the moon.

I think that Robert Graves was
right when he said that the most

blasphemous thing that has
happened since Alexander cut the

Gordian knot was when

we landed on the moon.

And having let loose with a
piece of eccentricity of that

kind you'll see who
you're dealing with.

A point there is that the only
name on the moon is Nixon and

that they played golf.

Anyway, we are in Paris, and

I am looking out of the window

at three in the morning
wondering how we can shoot,

and I see two moons.

Two full moons.

And I go out on the
balcony of my hotel room,

and I see that they are the
two clocks on the Gare d'Orsay.

I went downstairs, got in a
cab, went to the Gare d'Orsay,

which was empty...
it only had two trains that came

in a day... and I wandered
around and I saw that that was

where the picture could be made.

So that is how it happened to be
picked and why it happened to be

made that way.

I'll try to give you a
fast answer to the next one.

Yes, ma'am?

-This might give you a
chance for a short answer.

In this film, Josef K. runs
down that hallway with those

runs down that hallway
with those alternating arched

mirrors, and in 'Citizen Kane, '
that famous sequence down...

-There are no mirrors.

-In that archway where
she appears in between...

-Oh, yes.

-And we get the
mirrors in 'Lady from Shanghai'

and in 'Citizen Kane.'

I wonder if you would comment
maybe on the frequency of

multiple mirrors that you
use in a number of your films,

and which a man
usually a man,

but a character in
distress... sees himself over,

and over, and over
in these mirrors...

-I can give you an impressive
answer which will embarrass me,

and I can also remind you that

I'm a magician and that
people say that everything a

magician does is done
with mirrors, you know?

Which is a frivolous answer.

And then I can try to give a
serious answer which is that the

camera is a peculiar
kind of mirror and that

turning the mirror on it seems
to me a kind of a magical thing

to do.

I can't tell you why.

Way in the back.

-I was wondering whether
you thought there was enough

sympathy for the main
character in this film.

-I didn't hear that.

Enough difference between...?

-Do you think that there was
enough sympathy for the main

character in this film?

Were you satisfied?

-Now, that's an interesting question,

and I'm glad you asked me that.

A strange thing
happened with that movie.

It got wonderful
press all over the world,

even in America... even
in Time, and Newsweek,

and everything...
wonderful press;

and Perkins got very bad
press all over the world,

and the entire blame for that is
mine because he is a superlative

actor, and he played the
character that I saw as K.

And paid the price because
nobody else sees it my way.

I find in the book
repeated indications that K.

Is a pusher on his
way up the bureaucracy;

not Mister Zero in
the adding machine,

not Little Mister
Nobody, not the poor,

little, faceless accountant, but
a young man very anxious to get

ahead in this awful world
and doing his best to do that,

and therefore in a state of
real neuroses because he is both

terrified of and anxious
to conquer the same thing.

I recognize that I did Tony...

who is one of the
best actors we have...

a great disservice
because he deserved to have made

a tremendous success, and if
he didn't with the critics,

the blame is 100
percent with me.

Yes, sir?

-In the filming of 'Othello, '
you said you believed in the

existence of evil, and in this
film the evil seems to come from

within man... from his
people, from his buildings,

from his laws.

They seem to control this man
of society's life and destiny.

Are you saying then that evil
comes from within man and not

from outside from nature?

-Wow!

Wow.

I do, indeed, believe in
the existence of evil,

and to that extent I'm at
odds with most of the people

especially of my generation.

I think evil is a force so great

that it is beyond me to decide

whether it is
generated entirely within man,

or whether it is a condition
a contagion... as well as

something that we
generate within ourselves.

The power of it is so
great that it tumbles me.

The metaphysics are
beyond me on that.

I'd like to sit at a
coffee table and argue it,

but I wouldn't like to be on a
distinguished dais of this kind

in a great university...

saying something for quotation
on such a majestic theme.

-You made a new order of
chapters than the way they were

originally published.

Did you do this for
any particular reason?

-You have to repeat...

-Did I make a new order with the story?

-Yes, from the way it was
originally published...

-Can you pick this
kid up and bring him around the

corner, please?

-I'm so sorry.

You know, I'm a little deaf,
and I have a mic and you don't.

-My English is very bad.

-Your English is very good.

It's nothing to do with that.

It's... I really
am a little deaf.

-Did you reorder the
chapters in the story for any

particular reason?

-Reorder the what of the story?

-The chapters.

-The packet.

-The chapters!

-Everybody knows what's happening.

Did I reorder the chapters?

In other words did I
change the plotline,

the narrative line?

Of course!

Of course.

Every film is an original work.

A film should never be
an llustration of a book

or of a play.

It should be itself, and it
cannot be itself unless its

creator... a word for which I
apologize because I hear the

word creator and creativity
much to much nowadays... but the

maker, the picture-maker, is

after all engaged in an artform

which is entirely different
from literature and the theater,

and he has not only
the perfect right,

but the obligation...

to turn the work into something
a little different than the

author intended, not to
perfectly realize it.

If he perfectly realizes it, we
might just as well have lantern

slides and somebody with a
lovely voice reading the book.

-One of the things that I find
most interesting about the film

is, again, your use of
architecture and how all the

buildings seem to
be connected except,

I guess, for K.'s apartment.

He seems to go through hallways
and get to the different rooms

even though the
architecture's quite different,

and I wonder if you
could comment more on this.

-It's part of the...

I say in the picture
that it's a dream,

that I made a
picture like a dream.

I attempted to make a picture
which is like some of the dreams

I have had.

I think it's pompous and silly
to say what a dream is like

because we're all dreamers,
and we all dream different ways.

And I move from one kind of
architecture to another in my

dreams without any
difficulty whatsoever.

And it's a little harder to
do with a camera and make you

believe you're in
the same movie,

but that comes from
years of hanky panky

and sidearm snookery.

-Do you think Kafka
intended it as a dream?

-No.

No, I don't.

But I had to say
something to a mass audience.

I had to find a way to
make this accessible to an

audience of many millions of
people, and the way to do that

was to say it's a dream.

So I've slightly
evaded both questions.

-One of the changes you
made in the story was at the

very end when Josef K. is
killed, he's killed in a very

alarmingly different way than
in the book, and I was really

curious as to why you
changed both the way he was

killed and the way he
was acting when he died.

-Because the book was
written before the Holocaust...

and I couldn't
bear the defeat of K. in

the book after the Holocaust.

I'm not Jewish, but we are
all Jewish since the Holocaust.

And I couldn't bear for him to
submit to death as he does in

Kafka,
masochistically submit to death.

It stank of the
old Prague ghetto,

to me, and I had
to let him shout out

defiance until he was blown up.

There's also an embarrassing
thing in the picture which is

the mushroom-shaped cloud.

Well, it turns out that any big
explosion you can make ends up

in the shape of a mushroom.

So we spent an afternoon trying
to get a cloud that wouldn't end

up looking like a mushroom
because I hate symbolism,

but there it was.

So I said, "All right, there's
gonna be symbolism whether we

like it or not," you know?

Yes, sir?

-In this film, the computer
is portrayed as sort of a dumb

adding machine.

The people manipulating
it are the ones evil.

Is that your belief
about the computer,

that it's merely a big
adding machine and that it's not

intrinsically evil itself?

-Well, the question is
interesting because there's an

enormous scene in the picture

which was cut out by me two

hours before the
opening night in Paris,

which was a scene about the
computer which would've more

fully explained my attitude
at that time about computers.

My attitude has
changed slightly,

but only slightly since
then, and I believe that the...

What that scene
did, which had...

played at almost nine minutes
and as I said I cut it out in

the afternoon of the opening...

what that scene did was to show

man's slavish relationship to
something which is really only

his tool.

That was a splendid thing to say
but it turned out to be rather a

drag in the
picture, so I took it out.

-Why is the
condemned man attractive?

After 19 years, do you
have anything to add to that?

-Why is the...?

-Condemned man attractive, or...

-Attractive?

-You comment in the
film about, you know,

the women find him attractive,
and then your character says

that people seem drawn to
him and he's fascinating.

-Yeah, well, you know my character,

you don't believe a
word I say, do you,

in the movie;
you're not supposed to.

That's the real...

masochistic... that's the...

Kafka the
masochist at his most...

narcissistic, you know?

Look at my
beautiful blood, you know,

as it streams down.

But of course nothing
the Advocate says is meant

to be true.

-What is the reason that you
like to dub the voices of minor

characters in your films,
and which characters did you

dub in 'The Trial'?

-I don't like to dub
the minor characters, but...

by the time we get to dubbing,
there usually isn't any more

money, particularly if you're
working with the Salkinds at

that period.

And as in the case of 'Othello, '
where I did play practically my

supporting cast...

It was economic...

because you don't get a good

actor for free to
go into a dark room and

spend all day trying to...

lip sync, you know?

It's a thankless job.

There.

-Why did you choose for yourself
the role of the Advocate and not

one of the accused?

-Well, I thought that... I didn't
want to play the Advocate.

I didn't want to be in it.

And you would be astonished at
the different people I offered

it to, including Gleeson.

I did.

I played the Advocate because
there was no other actor of my

caliber that I could afford.

But I enjoyed doing it.

Once I saw Romy in that
white nurse's uniform,

I enjoyed every minute of it.

Yes?

-How did you cast the
actors in 'The Trial'?

-How did you cast
the actors in 'The Trial'?

-How did I cast the
actors in 'The Trial'?

The same as I cast
any movie, by...

I don't want my answer
to sound condescending.

By picking the people that

seemed to be
best adapted for it.

In the case of
'The Trial, ' of course,

I had a co-production, and a
co-production means that you

have different nations involved.

So I had to have some
Germans, and some French,

and some English.

And therefore there are some
German actors who might not have

been German otherwise, but I
think all the Germans are very

good in it.

I had to get Tamiroff
in who was an American,

so we had to have
plenty of French actors.

So I had a very good
actor, Maurice Teynac,

who played the manager.

I was very happy to have him.

I was limited by
the nationalities,

but that's not such a
terrible limitation.

The world is full
of wonderful actors who

luckily speak our language.

Although, they are getting fewer
and fewer because after the war,

every young actor quickly
learned English thinking that

was the only way to get ahead.

And nowadays,
actors of your age do not

speak English in all the
countries in the world.

Very few bother to.

And you're left with those same
old faces because pictures have

ceased to be international.

Think how few international
pictures play here,

or in London, or in Berlin.

I'm not speaking of
festivals; I mean in theaters.

So when everybody thought,
"They're gonna make English

speaking pictures forever,"
everybody learned English.

So it was much
easier 20 years ago to cast

across the European continent

as well as you could and not be

disappointed with the result.

I miscast, of course.

Every director does that.

Every director makes terrible
mistakes and there's nothing you

can do about it.

But I don't remember that...

except for the...

my controversial reading of K.

That there's anything that could
possibly be called bad casting

in it.

But I don't know.

Would somebody say if they think
somebody else was badly cast?

It'd be interesting to hear.

It won't hurt my feelings a bit.

-I think K. was very well-cast.

- You do?

-Hooray for you!

-How much obligation do
you feel to a mass audience?

-How much

-How much must you modify your
vision so that people will...

-There's a missing word here
between what I feel and to a

mass audience.

- Obligation.

I would love to
have a mass audience.

You're looking at a man
who's been searching for

a mass audience...

And if I had one,
I'd be obliged.

That's all I can say.

Here comes a man who looks
like he's about to shoot me.

-Talking about money, do you
think if you'd had a great deal

of it it would've
made your films better,

or did your poverty help
your creativity in any way?

-Did my poverty
help my creativity?

Uh, no.

No.

I think, however, that
it is possible to spoil a

young director...

by giving him too much money

so that he does not learn

one of the main arts of
directing which is the ability

to walk away from something

when it is not perfect.

No fine movie was ever
made by a director who wants

everything to be perfect.

Because every bad
painting has every leaf in the

tree, and every great
painting makes you see a tree.

And there are great lessons to
be learned by not using money,

by not using the studio
largesse unquestioningly;

but there is no advantage in
having to reach in your pocket

and pay Madeleine Robinson her
salary at the end of every week

otherwise she'd
leave the picture...

which is what
happened in 'The Trial.'

-A number of your
films, obviously this one,

but a number of other ones
generate a sort of a palpable

feel of oppression.

Are you as pessimistic
as that seems to indicate,

or is that just
what you like to do...

-Am I as what?

-As pessimistic as would seem to
be indicated by the feeling of

oppression in 'The Trial' and
the sort of visual oppression

that comes over in a
number of your other pictures.

-Yes, I am a
profound pessimist...

with a sentimental inclination

to hope that Pangloss was right

and that I am wrong.

I have a sentimental
inclination toward hope.

I believe in bravery, and...

worship it.

To me, it's one of the
greatest virtues there are.

And the fact that I am a
pessimist is part of what gives

bravery such an
importance to me.

Don't call me a macho.

That's not what
I'm talking about.

Yes?

-Everytime I see this film, I'm
so struck by the brilliant use

of space in so many
of the environments,

and yet in the Kafka story, all
the spaces seem very cramped.

I wondered if you would talk
about what led you to change the

conception of space.

Was it the different
medium, or your own vision,

or anything else, I mean, in
terms of moving it away from the

kind of space that was in the
novel and the kind of space that

you have in the film?

-That's a better question
than I have an answer for.

Honestly, it is.

I don't know.

I would want to think about it.

I think my answer
would be frivolous,

and I'd like to think about it.

It's a worrisome question.

I don't know.

I thought that I was being
faithful to my reading of the

book, and I know that
nobody agrees with me,

including those people who like
the picture as well as those who

dislike it.

But I did not consciously...

change what I thought
was its essential meaning.

But that's as far as I can
go, as big a boast as I dare

to make.

Yes?

-What do you see as the role
of seduction in bureaucracy?

There seem to be
lots of sexual symbols,

or sexuality is
almost the antagonist...

along with the
bureaucratic oppression.

-That's Kafka.

That really is Kafka.

It's part of the
fascination of the book...

is that insistent and

almost onanistic eroticism.

I find that in the book.

It's not an obsession
or a specialty of mine.

I'm not...

I would be happy to
make a movie in which...

I would be happy to have 40
years of movie making ahead of

me in which it would never be
necessary for me to ask the

leading man to
take his pants off, you know?

But the eroticism in
Kafka is inevitable.

It's there, and it's
very strong I think.

Yes?

-You have been quoted in an
interview that was taken before

'The Trial' was filmed that you
did not think that you would be

the man to film 'The Trial.'

Tonight you have said that you
took 'The Trial' on practically

because it was the least
intolerable prospect offered

to you...

- Not least tolerable.

-Not least
intolerable, no.

I didn't find...
No, if I said that,

I was making a bad joke,
and I've expressed myself badly.

-It was the best of the
80, or the most likely,

you said, of the 80
that you were offered...

-It was the title I liked.

-Anyways, I would say that the
main character is somewhat less

passive than the
characters I've read in Kafka.

Taking all that together, do you
think that your world vision is

close to Kafka's?

And do you think
that's something to take

into consideration for you to
make a movie out of his work?

-You know, I didn't

-I'm sorry, the...

-What?

-It's...

-Your world vision, is
it close to Kafka's?

-My world vision close to Kafka?

Of course not.

Not at all.

He was a creature born entirely
of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,

of his own
people, his own religion,

between the two world wars,
and there's every possible

difference between us.

We could not possibly have the
same vision even if our genes

were the same.

There's no way we could see the
world the same at this different

moment in the
turning of the globe.

And therefore you'll say I
shouldn't have made the picture,

and there's no
answer to that either.

Yes, sir?

-Could you tell us about your
work with the cinematographer in

planning the look
of the this film?

-My work as a cinematographer?

-Your work with the
cinematographer in planning the

look of this film.

-I never sit down and

-No storyboards...?

-No, no, no.

I had storyboards in 'Kane'
only because I was made to.

-Did you go to the set each day
not knowing what you were going

to... where you were gonna plop

the camera down
or in rehearsal...?

-I believe I'm
the only director that I know of

who does this particular thing

which is probably the
worst way to go about it.

I didn't begin this way, but
I have developed this way.

I light a set before
I decide where anybody will

go with the cameramen.

And then when the
set looks right to me,

I put the actors where I
think they ought to be.

I don't put the actors
and then light the set.

It's the exact opposite...

because the set is all we have
besides the actors and it ought

to have a chance.

And the only way to give it
a chance is to begin with it.

That's my theory anyway.

-How much did 'The
Trial' cost to make?

-How much did 'The Trial... '

Well, that will never be known.

It cost me about $80,000.

I never made any money.

It cost me about $80,000.

In fact, it's cost me a lot more
money to be a film director than

I've ever made.

That's literally true.

So let that be an
encouragement to you all.

-In the program notes, it
mentions that the film was not

as great a critical success in
Britain and in America as it was

on the continent in Europe.

-That's wrong!

We got wonderful reviews
except for the character of K.

-Then my question's tossed out.

-No...

-But what I was going to comment
on was that while I was watching

the film, I had a
feeling of a very, what

I would consider something
that comes from American

traditions of law and
British traditions of law,

of this can't happen...

-It's European.

-Exactly, this can't happen, and
I thought that maybe that was a

very American thing and
a very British thing...

- Lay a count.

-Yes, well it is a very European film.

It was made by me...

really as a European director.

It was made with an
essentially European cast.

There was no attempt to stick
into it things which would make

it seem as though it's also
American because I don't think

there's anything in Kafka
which will support that.

To me, he is middle
Europe, middle Europe,

middle Europe, and
no escape from it.

It's part of his prison;
it's part of his enchantment.

-You will use the
same actor today,

or what actor you will choose
today to make 'The Trial?'

- To make K.?

-If I were going to do it again?

You mean given
the difference of age?

I think...

Pacino...

but then I think Pacino in
almost anything I can think up.

Such a fan of his.

But I think he'd
be marvelous, yes,

but that's accounting
for the difference of age,

of course, Tony's too old now.

We're not running him down.

We've got somebody... there.

The easiest one to
reach, isn't it unfair?

All right...

-With all the escapist movies
that have come out in the last

few years, is there some topic
that you would like to make into

a movie to retaliate
against all of this BS?

-To retaliate against escapist movies?

I love escapist movies.

I love them.

I see no obligation
on the part of a...

a filmmaker to be serious...

or even to be adult.

I think it's very nice to make
movies for children and to make

movies for the child which
is in every grown person.

My difficulty with
science fiction movies...

I used to write it for my living
when there was a thing called

the pulps, which only the
most elderly of you will even

recognize as a word,
but I was a pulp writer, and I

used to write 'Lobster
Men from Mars' and all that.

And I have a certain notoriety
in the science fiction field,

but it's never been
anything I like very much

'cause I don't
believe in the future.

That doesn't mean I think
everything's going to end at

this moment, but I think the
future is a total hypothesis.

I believe in the present insofar
as we can grab it and the past,

and anything about the
future I don't believe.

All I've got to do is put on
one of those bike helmets,

you know, and silver things
and start off into the world of

optical printing, and
I'm up the aisle, you see?

And not because
they're bad movies,

but because I don't respond.

I didn't like westerns until I
was about 50 years old and I

began to see them
rerun on television.

I never went to them as a
child, and now I adore them.

And I might learn
to like, you know,

zing zing and up in outer space,
but for the moment it doesn't

say anything to me.

But I'm in favor of them.

I think it's fine.

As long
as they are not violent for the

sake of violence or in any
way fascistic in their tone,

as long as they partake of a
myth or of the mythic quality

which a film can...

can call upon, I think
it's a marvelous exercise in

virtuosity, and I immensely
admire the people who make them.

-Are there any childlike
aspects to 'The Trial, '

and if you made it
again would you insert any?

-Do you think so?

-I have a great
difficulty finding them.

-Yes, I don't think there are,
but there must be because nobody

is completely grown up,

and no work of art...

God, what a
terrible thing have I said.

No movie...

No movie is made by
a complete adult, you know?

First of all,
I don't know any complete

adults in civilian life,
so how could they have

infiltrated movies, you know?

It's unthinkable, seems to me.

Yes, sir?

-In regard to that
gentleman's last comment,

I did find a lot of
childlike aspects in it,

especially in relation to
certain kinds of fairy stories...

-In 'The Trial?'

Especially 'Alice in Wonderland'
and 'The Wizard of Oz' in your

big scene when you're
booming to Akim Tamiroff.

I was wondering if you
were thinking of that to

some degree...

-Yes, they are...
perhaps they're childlike.

Perhaps that's the
right word for them.

I thought of them as...

simple-minded and...

I thought of them as
being related to the...

to Grimm, you know?

And that, of course,
takes us to childhood.

But, you know, the
great fairy tales, which

were invented by people
living in forests before the

electric light, still live on.

And our reactions to certain

kinds of horror, and
delight, and even to cruelty,

which is in this
picture you've seen,

is, I suppose, childlike, yes.

But I hadn't thought of it.

You're teaching me
things I didn't know.

Yes?

-Having seen 'Citizen
Kane' and 'The Trial, '

it seems that both films seem to
adopt a sort of Brechtian view

of man and society
or man versus man,

and I was very curious, have you
ever thought of doing a Brecht

piece, or did that ever
come into your work...

-Well...

Dick Wilson here... who was my
partner for a long time who's

sitting in the front here...
and I were going to do the first

production of 'Galileo, '

and I worked with
Brecht and Laughton

on it, and that's as far as I'm
prepared to go on the subject of

what is Brechtian and not
because I admired him enormously

and thought that
he was two people.

One, a Jesuit trained...

literateur, a man who wanted
all of his works published in...

the best leather
and kept forever,

and a dogmatist.

And all of that was
very superficial.

He was essentially a
very astute theater man,

and his theory was
mostly self-defense.

Sex, sex, sex.

All right.

-I was wondering
what you did to affect

really the dizziness of K.

In that movie because I felt
very closed in when he was

getting dizzy
inside that courtroom,

when he was trying to escape.

-You felt very
closed in when I was...

-When K. was dizzy and trying to get out of

the courtroom.

-Yes, that was the idea...

-I'm just wondering how you did that...

-I would've been
awfully sorry if you hadn't.

-No, what did you do?

-Oh, how I did it?

The mastery of the cinema.

I'll tell you how we did it.

We put entirely too
many people in the room

that there was, you see?

We made
claustrophobia by overcrowding.

-Could you tell us a little
bit more about the ending,

how you arrived at it?

You told us a little bit why,
but how did you come upon the

ending as you did?

-Well, I don't know how I came upon it.

I wanted K. to
make a final gesture

even if it was fruitless...

If we want to be...
If we want to pin a label on it,

it's existentialist.

I couldn't bear for him to
have his throat slit like a pig,

and he throws the
grenade back...

which is a way of saying no.

And it seemed to me
that putting a man in a hole

with a bomb and letting him try
to throw the bomb out expressed

that as well as I could think.

It was as simple a way of
stating it as I could think of,

and I haven't since then
tried to think of a better one.

Maybe I would've and
having done it I...

Yes?

-I have a question about
your coverage of scenes.

You've been noted for many
rather exceptional long takes

such as the boarding house
sequence in 'Kane' or the first

sequence in the
room in this film.

Do you customarily cover
everything in a master shot...

-I cover nothing.

- Okay.

Never cover.

-So you mean when we see
on the screen a long take,

does that mean that
that's all you've shot...

-That's all there is.

I was taught that by Jack Ford.

Because when Ford
finished a movie,

he never cut it, you know?

He had nothing to
do with the editing,

he never went into the moviola,

he never saw a rough cut.

He usually went on a big drunk.

And the way he had of protecting
himself was to give them nothing

to go to.

So if he wanted
the girl to say...

"Yes, Duke," that
was all she got to say.

She didn't get to listen to all
the rest of the scene or say the

dialogue that he
expected her not to say...

that's all he shot.

And he told me to do it, and
I followed his instructions.

-With respect to the
opening long take,

how did you determine
exactly when you chose to cut

away from it?

-When to cut away?

-It's midway through the scene
where you begin to break it up

into individual shots.

What determined the change
in the handling of the scene?

-I can't remember.

I just... all I have
is a dumb answer.

I really can't remember.

-Because I believe it
occurs right in the middle

of a section.

There's no special reason why
the long take necessarily ends

at that point...

-Maybe there's a mistake
there of some kind.

You know, I don't know.

It seemed to me that we cut only
when we went into the other room

with a...

with a woman.

That was the intention...

No, I don't know.
I really don't know when we cut.

-Short ends of film, maybe.

-May have been that, short end of the film.

Yes?

-As long as we're still
talking about the long takes,

I was wondering if that tendency
in the films is more out of your

roots in the theater and
presenting something in real

time, or was it more for
an expressionist reason?

-No, a long take, for me,
depends on two things...

a very good technical crew,

and there are less of
them everyday in the world,

all over the world,
because of television,

and very good actors.

I did the first reel length
takes that were ever made,

and they ended
up not that because they cut

into them,
but they were reel length,

and in 'Macbeth'
they are reel length,

full reel in length.

I believe that it is an
enormous help to a cast,

if they are good enough, to play
the rhythm of an entire sequence

rather than leaving
it to the director entirely

'cause the director has, I
always suspect, a little bit too

much power in moviemaking.

In film studies,
the actor is underrated.

The story and the
director gets a little more

credit than is deserved...

'cause actors keep showing
us things we never suspected.

Any good director is constantly
astonished by something that his

cast is giving him, you know?

Yes?

-Maybe I'm an
incurable optimist,

but I got a lot of
hope out of the picture,

partly out of the
character's integrity, and

that he was kind of a hero
in his integrity and things,

and that he
wouldn't stand for things.

Did you mean for a lot of
hope to come out of that...

-I am a kind of optimist
that believes in integrity and

in all these virtues which

illuminate Western Civilization,

and which are only, I hope,
temporarily out of fashion.

I don't believe that the...

physical outlook of mankind

changes virtue.

It only obliges us
to behave better.

Oh, that's awfully solemn...

-Could we do this first
here and then go back?

-Look at her, she's way down there.

Maybe we could pass the mic...

How about trying to
shout it and I'll repeat it.

-As I was noticing the
continuity between 'The Trial'

and a lot of your films
dating back to 'Citizen Kane, '

as your view seems to be opposed
to some of the best interests of

the corporate elite, of
which you speak directly about

in 'The Trial, ' and I was
wondering if you thought your

personal financial position
as a film director is directly

related to the fact that a lot
of your views in your films

throughout these ages
have not exactly expressed

their interests.

-Would anybody like to
answer that question?

-Well, my personal opinion...

-Good, stand up!
Let's hear it.

-My personal opinion
is that it's true, and

that from what I've
read from your career,

although I wasn't alive at
the time you first were making

films, that...

That you've had a tremendous
problem with the oppression of

corporate bureaucracy dating
back since the earliest portions

of your career, and that
this is continuing today,

and that's one of the reasons
why you've been unable to finish

some of your more
recent projects.

-Wow, the only...

which are unfinished.

One is 'The Other
Side of the Wind, '

and when I tell you that my
partner in that project is the

brother-in-law of the late Shah
of Iran you will understand why

we were having a
little legal difficulty.

The other unfinished film
is 'Don Quixote' which was a

private exercise of mine, and
it will be finished as an author

will finish it: in
my own good time,

when I feel like it.

It is not unfinished
because of financial reasons,

and when it is released
its title is going to be

'When Are You Going
to Finish "Don Quixote.'

-I appreciate so very much your
use of depth of field especially

in this film.

My question is why do you
think that it's being dropped in

filmmaking today?

-You never get the same depth
of field in color as you do in

black and white, and...

secondly, a lot of the depth
of field in 'Kane' was fake.

It was split-screen.

We made up... we said
we'd invented a new lens,

and that was just publicity.

Not truth in it at all.
What was it called, Dick?

We had some great word for it.

I've forgotten.
And it was a fake.

Whenever the shot
became impossible we did

the old split-screen.

-Are you using that process...

-That's it, that's it.
That's the one.

-Are you using that process in the films

that you're working on now?

-I expect to use it in...
I'm about to make two movies.

And one will have no
depth of field whatever...

'cause it's a very romantic
story, and depth of field is the

enemy of romance.

It is.

And the other is a
modern story about an

American political candidate,
and it will have as much depth

of field as we can get.

Somebody that hasn't...

Who's nearest the mic, or...

Doesn't seem a fair
way to go about it, but...

Anybody looks for
justice in this world...

Yes, got somebody?
Yes?

-Your statement, that this film
is a dream as you express it

seems to say that the conflict
within the film is within the

main character's mind.

Would you care to define
the conflict within his mind?

-You know, you're all above my head.

Do you mean...

-Well, if this film's a dream,

obviously it'd be the main
character's dream if you say...

-No, it's my dream.

-Okay, well,
if it's your dream then the

conflict is within your mind.

What is the mental
conflict in the film?

It's not just this one
man against society...?

-Yes, I dreamt about him.

-Okay.

-I dreamt about him.

And it's not a
conflict with society;

it's a failure to flourish...

and...

flower in society.

He's not really in
conflict with society.

The man is
basically a conformist.

He's not in
conflict with society,

but you see that society is
killing him even though he's

not fighting it.

He doesn't put
up much of a fight.

Yes, in the back,
way in the back.

Blue shirt.

Wait for the mic.

He fights as
each issue comes along,

but you don't see
a man in a real...

aggressive position
against society...

-On that response,

I'm wondering
then if you say that he's not

really in conflict with his
society whether that makes him...

If you say that he's not in
conflict with his society...

-Society's in conflict with him.

-Okay, would that make him
an autobiographical character

for you?

-No, I never got societies
in conflict with me...

-At least in terms of
your filmmaking career?

-No, no.

-I mean, you...

-Anybody who goes into films
has to be a little crazy,

and has to be ready
for every kind of...

disappointment and defeat, and
must be grateful for any kind of

evening such as this
that he can get out of it.

It's mathematically almost an
impossible medium to succeed in

on any sort of important level.

And to have achieved...

enough interest for you to
have come into this room is...

the answer to
conflict with society.

I'm in no
conflicts with society.

I'm in conflict with the
Reagan administration.

And that sure as
hell isn't society.

Yes, ma'am?

Or sir, or what?

Who's got a microphone near him?

Who's near a microphone?

There.

Yeah.

-I was wondering why in
the prologue to the film...

-Repeat, please.

-I was wondering why in the
prologue to the film you chose

to use the pinscreen technique
when there really wasn't that

much actual animation...

instead of just using charcoal
paintings or something.

-Oh, this is the attempt...

this is the
attempt to destroy him,

to destroy his faith, to
destroy his character.

That fairy story is part
of the plot against him.

We are all told fairy stories.

Some of those fairy
stories are in TV commercials,

some of them are in
presidential addresses,

some of them are in editorials,
some of them are in sky writing,

and that prologue...
which, by the way,

was made by a couple of
wonderful mad Russians living in

Paris, and they make their
pictures by putting pins into

blocks of wood...

little needles, and the needles
are at different degrees of

depth so that when a
light falls on it you get the

light and shadow from
the pins, or the needles.

That's what those extraordinary
pictures come from,

and I thought they gave a...

In other words, that was the
marriage to the Brothers Grimm.

And we repeat the story when I
attempt again to corrupt him.

I'm his chief
corruptor, I'm the Devil.

-If the fable is a lie, and
what Hastler says are also lies,

why do you tell the story at
the beginning of the movie in

character as yourself?

-Because...

the film is contaained...

The life of this man is
contained within a lie.

We do not have the kind of
novel in which a character

leaves a real or benign world

and enters a world of nightmare.

He was born into it,
conceived in the womb of horror.

That's why I begin with it.

In other words he can't
escape because that's where

he was born anymore than
a baby in Bangladesh can escape

dying of starvation.

-I don't know if this
is a meaningful point,

but when you are speaking at
the beginning of the picture,

you are not in
character as Hastler.

You are playing the voice of
Orson Welles as you are playing

at the end of the pic...

-Now, that's the magician.

I'm tricking the audience into
believing that that's a point of

view so that in a certain
atmosphere... because that kind

of trickery is legitimate, I
think... I want the audience to

feel the doom

into which K. is born

and to believe that it is there.

It's the voice of the Devil...

but it's not my voice.

It's not my dream.

Yes?

-You've made continuous
references to Spain when you

talked about bravery, when
you talked about 'Don Quixote, '

when you talked about your
project as talking of Spain.

I think I once read that you
wanted to become a bull fighter.

-I didn't want to, I was one.

Hard to believe.

I did it by buying the bulls.

-What I want to know is what
does Spain culturally represent

for you?

-A great deal.

Anybody of my generation,
Spain means enormous things

you cannot possibly
appreciate because...

the Spanish Civil
War was the central...

tragedy of anybody's
life who is my age.

And it's hard to explain
to anybody who's younger,

but there it is.

And it's part of the subject
of the political movie I'm...

contemporary political movie...
I want to make which is called

'The Big Brass Ring.'

Sir?

-Are you just as politically
engaged and politically minded

now as you were in
the '30s and '40s?

'Cause at the time you
wrote a lot about politics.

-Yes.

I'm not as politically
engaged for two reasons.

I'm as politically-minded.

I'm more interested in politics
than in anything in the world...

much more interested in
politics than I am in movies,

or art, or anything.

The truth is that every work of
art is a political statement.

When you
deliberately make it, you...

This audience
is gonna get dizzy.

When you deliberately
make it you usually fall into

the trap of rhetoric, and...

the trap of speaking to a
convinced audience rather than

convincing an audience.

I don't believe... I
think some movies,

and some books and,
God, some paintings...

have changed
the face of the world.

But I don't think it is the duty
of every artist to change the

face of the world.

He is doing it by
being an artist.

That just
automatically goes with it.

And he may be doing harm
when he doesn't mean to.

But oh, God, deliver us from the
people who tell us what is right

and what is wrong, what is
moral and what is immoral from a

political point of view.

It's just as inexcusable as
from a sexual point of view,

seems to me.

Of course we hate the
real vices of the world.

Of course we hate racism,
and we hate oppression,

all of that kind of...
that goes without saying.

If...

you didn't agree with
that you wouldn't be here,

you wouldn't have
sat through 'The Trial, '

we wouldn't be getting
along well together.

I'm talking about that
majority of people who

can read a book and
talk about something, who are

in general agreement about...

what you have to
call the basics...

rather than dogmas.

Yeah?

-I was wondering what scene
in 'The Trial' that you felt...

- Repeat, please.

-Repeat.

-That's so cruel.

It's just like a
scene in 'The Trial.'

-"Repeat!" you know?

-Again?

In reviewing your
prints now years later,

I wondered if you could give us
some hint as to what you thought

you would change in 'The Trial.'

What scene do you
feel the worst about,

that makes you cringe the most,
and how you would change that to

make it a better scene?

-I would be able to
answer that question

if I had ever seen
'The Trial' since I made it.

But I never see my
movies after I make them.

-You don't have any regrets about

'The Trial' at all, as if...?

-That's why I
don't go to see it.

Be one long regret, you know?

There it is in a can forever.

I can't see where
our microphone is,

so I don't know who has
the best fighting chance.

- Over here!

-Climb out the chair.

-I remember your eulogy to Jean
Renoir a couple years ago in the

Los Angeles Times, and I was
wondering if you'd share with us

your feelings on the passing of
Abel Gance a couple days ago.

-I'm so sorry, I can't...

-Your eulogy of Jean Renoir,

and would you comment on
the passing of Abel Gance.

- Of Abel Gance?

-It's a very painful, very
painful question for me because

I have enormous respect for
his inventiveness and his

originality, but he is not

in my top list of directors,

and the fact that he
died does not change that.

Sorry.

I made his last
picture with him,

and my opinion is
not from that picture,

it's based on 'Napoleon.'

He was a man obsessed, he
had a magnificent obsession,

he had an enormous visual sense,

he contributed incredibly to our

vocabulary in the cinema.

But I am much
more interested in...

movies about people.

And I don't think he made one.

Napoleon is a big subject, and
it can be dealt with with a cast

of 20 people.

Sir?

-'Scuse me.

Where is this person?

-Cast appalled in waiting, I know.

-Thought there was someone up here.

-An actor friend of mine once
told me that he thought one of

the great moments of film
was in 'The Third Man' when the

light falls on you and
you're revealed looking at...

-Oh, it is one of the great moments!

But remember,
I didn't direct it.

Carol Reed directed it.

And do you know that we went...
do you know that every... we had

that set built on another stage.

And every afternoon for
five days, at the end of the

day's shooting we went and shot

it again until Carol had it
exactly the way he wanted it

because he knew it was
the key moment of the movie.

-My question to you is,
when you are casting,

what do you look for in actors?

What do you all sort of expect
actors to bring to you on set?

-I think that, you see...

What do I look for in actors?

And I think acting...

is like sculpture.

Not modeling; the kind where
you carve it out of marble.

I think that a performance,

when it deserves to be
considered great or important

is always entirely made
up of the actor himself

and entirely achieved by

what he has left
in the dressing room

before he came out
in front of the camera.

In other words it's what
you take away from yourself

to reveal the truth
of what you're doing

that makes a performance.

And if an actor doesn't
have an ability to do that,

I use him only if he has a
good face for a few lines.

I think I can tell
those actors from others.

I've made disastrous mistakes,

but I think, essentially...

there is no such
thing as becoming another

character by putting
on a lot of makeup.

You may need to put the makeup,
but what you're really doing is

undressing yourself, and
even tearing yourself apart,

and presenting to the
public that part of you which

corresponds to
what you are playing.

And there is a
villain in each of us,

a murderer in each of us,
a fascist in each of us,

a saint in each of us.

And the actor is the
man or woman who can

eliminate from himself those
things which will interfere with

that truth.

So I look for
those kind of people,

and I look for the
right face because,

after all, the camera...

makes pictures,
and it likes people and dislikes

people, and you have
to try to guess which ones

it will like and which it won't.

Yes, sir?

-Did you have any particular
reason for updating 'The Trial'

into the 1960s?

When you made the movie,
you made it as a present...

-Yes, I tried to do a

rather tricky thing.

I tried to make a picture which
really existed in its own time

but which didn't abuse
the eye of the audience and...

not abuse, alienate the audience
by becoming a costume picture.

But I made it as though it
were happening in its time, and

the people were accidentally
dressed in our own time.

That was the intention.

Whether it was successful
or not is for you to tell me.

Sir?

-When working on a project like
'The Trial' and some of your

other films where you
have written and directed,

does Orson Welles the
director ever get in the way of

Orson Welles the writer,
or how closely does one follow

the other?

-I think of it as
a happy marriage.

No, seriously, no,
I don't think so.

I rewrite when I have
an original script, and

in Shakespeare
somebody didn't write it.

I am rewriting all
the time on the set,

and the director never
gives me any trouble at all.

I think because I feel a sense
of obligation to the script...

which is rather more
acute because it's my own.

-Do you find one more difficult than the

other to do?
Writing or directing?

-Well, everybody finds writing
the hardest thing in the world

to do, you know?

Hemingway used to describe to
me how marvelous it was to have

spent a morning
when it was all true,

and it was all coming right,
and it was all like the greatest

lovemaking in the world.

It was like a true moment in
the arena, and all of this.

And about a week later, we were
forced by our wives to go to the

ballet, and I
shared with Ernest...

and I was his friend so long ago

that I called him Ernest.

He wasn't even
Papa when I first knew him.

I shared with him an
intense dislike of the ballet.

I only like great ballet
dancers at great moments.

The rest of the
time, nod, you see?

And we were sitting there,

and I felt him moving
around like this, you know?

And he suddenly said to me,
"Christ, I'd rather be writing."

That's it.

Goodnight, and thank
you very much everybody.