“Nowadays you can hardly say anything against Orson Welles without invoking scorn and ridicule,” Kristl mused.
“You were going to?”
“Not on purpose, but I feel a bit apprehensive about it. I mean you have a certain amount of leeway towards almost any other director,
except for Welles.. You have to say he was a great guy..”
“Pff..” Henry said.
“Yeah.”
“You do not have to, with me,” Henry said.
“Thanks.”
“So, I think it is an old boring slow moving that is a bit confusing, to say the least,” Henry said.
“You think so?”
“I mean, black and white in 1962,” Henry said.
“Uh, well..is that such a big thing?”
“Yeah.. and no action.”
“Okay..I feel compelled to come to the defense of this movie.”
Henry smiled, but he hid his smile behind his hand and pretended to
take sip from his tea, “Hot,” he remarked.
“Regardless of anything it’s at least a decent film, although it seems to be all over the place,” Kristl said.
“It looks like someone pasted a lot of ‘scenes’ together without much sense and pawned it off as a coherent movie,” Henry said.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“It seems to be quite true to the book.. which means that any coherence in the movie, or any incoherence for that matter, must stem from the
book,” Kristl said.
“Then the books must be a bit of a confusing mess,” Henry said.
“Maybe, but I liked the movie, you know. It was surreal, strange and unsettling. Which seems appropriate to me..”
“Right.”
“For the Kafka story, that is.”
“Oh, did you read it?”
“No,” Kristl shook her head.
“Me neither.”
“I think that goes for most of the audience,” Kristl said.
“Yeah. So how you know?”
“Well, other people say so..except for the ending. Which was thought off by Orson Welles. He felt it to be more appropriate.”
“Yeah. Too old a movie for me really,” Henry said.
“I think it’s a good movie, but not astounding. Perkins is such a dubious choice. At times he is really excellent, but at other times he
seems to be a poor choice. He constantly hovers between assertive and dejected. It’s just odd how he swings from one attitude to the opposite
demeanor.”
“Heh.”
“And there seems to be no development in his character. He just seems to swing between one mood or the other depending on what is fitting
towards the scene. So there seems to be no human reason that drives him.”
“Ah.”
“It is just a bit to fabricated. A very nice fabrication, but a fabrication nevertheless.”
“Ok.. the movie looks like it contains a fabricated story,” Henry said.
“Did you know someone made a sequel to the trial?”
“Yes. Ik know.. Will Eisner made a sequel called the Appeal. In it justice is done.”
“So.. .”
“I think it was Eisner responding to Kafka. While Kafka painted a surreal world in which a man was the victim of an surreal and merciless
bureaucracy, Eisner seems to say that in a democratic society ‘they’ would not get away with it.”
“Maybe someone should make a movie about that?” Henry said.
“Maybe someone will.”
Merit Coba 
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