The Trial: Two Masterpieces

It is always an honor to present great works by legendary writers and compare them to another piece that adapts the original via a different artistic format. Franz Kafka’s posthumous novel, The Trial, was written in 1914 and published in 1925. It came to personify an individual’s fear and terror created by accusations of unknown and unknowable acts or behavior. Another genius, Orson Welles, directed his own film script version released in 1962 starring Anthony Perkins, taking carefully considered liberties of rearrangement and modernization. Initially criticized, the film has since received much praise and is seen today as a masterpiece of filmmaking, acutely capturing the Kafkaesque essence of the novel.

Suggested Reading: Franz Kafka, The Trial, a new translation based on the restored text, translated by Breon Mitchell, Schocken Books, NY, 1998 .