AUGUST 1 - 3, Friday- Sunday at 7, 9:15pm, (plus Sat & Sun at 4:30pm)

THE TRIAL

(Orson Welles, France/Italy/Germany/Yugoslavia, 1962, 35mm, 118 min)

In 1962, when the noir style was in decline, Welles agreed to direct a black-and-white adaptation of Franz Kafka's THE TRIAL. It wasn’t Welles’s first choice for a Kafka adaptation—he preferred THE CASTLE—but he called the end result “the finest film I have ever made.” The film was so successful in combining the elements of noir and Kafka that it came to define the term "Kafkaesque." Josef K (Anthony Perkins) is arrested for an undisclosed crime by police straight out of a "B" movie. The search for justice, or at least an explanation, leads him past desolate Zagreb apartment blocks to the abandoned Gare d’Orsay, a shifting maze of offices and vast halls inhabited by bureaucrats and the condemned waiting for fate to call their number. Balancing the baroque expressionism of Welles’ visual style are a script and performances—including the squirming Perkins and Welles as the Advocate—that emphasize the affinity between nightmare and comedy.

“Given the impact of screen size on what he’s doing, you can’t claim to have seen this if you’ve watched it only on video.” -Jonathan Rosenbaum

AUGUST 8 - 10, Friday - Sunday at 7pm (*please note updated screening times)

Opening Night Introduction from Seattle Shakespeare Expert Bill Matchett
Discussion after Friday 7pm screning with playwright Dickey Nesenger

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

Sponsored by Scarecrow Video
(Orson Welles, 35mm, France/Spain/Switzerland, 1966, 113 min)

This is one of the great Shakespearean adaptations and a true "lost classic." It's also the last masterpiece that Orson Welles directed, and, with CITIZEN KANE, MAGNIFICIENT AMBERSONS and TOUCH OF EVIL comprise the quartet of his major cinematic achievements. The film is an inventive re-editing and condensation of Shakespeare's historical works. Welles assembled scenes from RICHARD II, HENRY IV PARTS I AND 2, HENRY V, and THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, along with a commentary taken from the chronicles of the Elizabethan historian Holinshed, to create a wholly new work that might alternatively be titled "The Tragedy of Sir John Falstaff." The film focuses on the character of Jack Falstaff, played by Welles in a virtuoso performance. Falstaff's relationship with young Prince Hal (later Henry V) is explored and parallels Welles' own experience with the young talents of Hollywood.

"If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I'd offer up." - Orson Welles on CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT