Amazon.com video review:
For budget-minded cineastes, this two-disc set of Orson Welles films is
a welcome addition to any DVD library, even if it falls short of its
claims. While the accompanying documentary demonstrates that
The Stranger, The Trial, and Welles's 1934 silent short
Hearts of Age have been restored, source materials are not specified,
inviting speculation that the films were digitally "cleaned" from video
sources in the public domain. The films do sound better than ever with a subtle
5.1-channel remastering, and the visual quality is good but hardly pristine; Milestone Video's DVD of The
Trial presents a crisper, sharper image.
Those quibbles aside, the set's strengths do make for an acceptable and
affordable means to appreciate Welles's visual ingenuity, stylized by
cinematographer Russell Metty in Welles's conventional Nazi-manhunt thriller
The Stranger, and by Edmond Richard in the brilliant, budget-constrained
production of Kafka's The Trial. The films are excellent, and apart from
critic Jeffrey Lyons's flaccid commentary tracks, this package treats them with
all due respect. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com Essentials:
Orson Welles's 1962 take on Franz Kafka's nightmare comedy stars Anthony
Perkins as a twitchy K, a man accused of a crime that is never specified.
The
story has been filmed several times over the years, but not quite with the
air of noir fable Welles brings to it. Beginning with an unexpected
prologue
in which Welles, in voiceover, tells a haunting parable while we look at
artwork by pioneer pinscreen animators Claire Parker and Alexandre
Alexeieff,
The Trial is one surprising and visually startling chapter after
another. The sense of an unrelieved, labyrinthine passage through an
incoherent world--in which a very real but determinedly unclear guilt
dogs poor K--is merciless but compelling to see, and resonates profoundly
with Welles's obsession with the power and nature of illusion. A cast heavy
on
female icons from the '60s includes Jeanne Moreau, Elsa Martinelli, and Romy
Schneider. Welles favorite Akim Tamiroff is also on hand, and Welles
himself
plays the Advocate. --Tom Keogh
