The Harvard Film Archive in Cambridge, MA presents "Kafka Goes to the Movies" from June 24-29. This film program explores the many attempts to adapt Czech writer Franz Kafka's writing for the screen and also chronicles the relationship, imaginary or genuine, between the acclaimed writer and the cinema.
Fri., June 24 @ 7 p.m.
Sun., June 26 @ 9:15 p.m.
"Franz Kafka"
Directed by Piotr Dumala
Poland 1992, 15 min.
Using Kafka's diaries, letters, and novels, Polish animator Piotr Dumala provides a unique interpretation of the life of the famed writer. Using photos shot by Kafka himself, Dumala documents the writer's creative birth as well as his descent into isolation.
"The Hunger Artist"
Directed by Tom Gibbons
U.S. 2002, 16 min.
Animator Tom Gibbons uses stop-motion a effect to give eerie life to one of Kafka's most famous short stories.
"Kafka Goes to the Movies"
Directed by Hanns Zischler
France/Germany 2002, 54 min.
While working on a television movie project about Franz Kafka, German actor Hanns Zischler discovered a series of passionate writings in Kafka's journals about his own moviegoing. Zischler, who also wrote a book of the same title, spent the next 25 years combing through archives and libraries to locate many of the now-extinct films cited by Kafka in his journals. The result is a witty conjecture on the Czech writer's fascination with film and Zischler's fascination with Kafka.
Fri., June 24 @ 9 p.m.
Sun., June 26 @ 7 p.m.
"The Trial"
Directed by Orson Welles
France/ Italy/ West Germany 1962, 118 min.
Welles' rendition of Franz Kafka's nightmarish story of a man arrested for a crime that is never explained to him features Anthony Perkins as Josef K., a twitchy individual pursued by a repressive bureaucracy, obsessed by an undefined guilt, and bewildered by the burden of living.
Sat., June 25 @ 7 p.m.
Mon., June 27 @ 7 p.m.
"The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa"
Directed by Caroline Leaf
Canada 1977, 10 min.
Caroline Leaf brings Kafka's world of alienation and guilt to life using an innovative sand-on-glass technique, sepia-toned imagery, and an imaginative soundtrack.
"Metamorphosis"
Directed by Valeri Fokin
Russia 2002, 90 min.
Yevgeni Mironov stars as Gregor Samsa, the mild-mannered clerk who awakens to find himself transformed into a giant insect.
Sat., June 25 @ 9 p.m.
Mon., June 27 @ 9 p.m.
"K"
Directed by Shoja Azari
US/Morocco 2002, 85 min.
Iranian-American multimedia artist Shoja Azari adapts three Kafka stories ("The Married Couple," "In the Penal Colony," and "A Fratricide") in his first feature film.
Tues., June 28 @ 7 p.m.
Wed., June 29 @ 9 p.m.
"Class Relations" (aka Amerika) (Klassenverhaltnisse)
Directed by Jean-Marie Straub, Daničle Huillet
France/ West Germany 1984,126 min.
Kafka's unfinished novel about corruption and moral bankruptcy in the U.S. provides the basis for one of Straub and Huillet's most critically acclaimed works. Karl Rossmann, a middle class German, accepts his uncle's offer to come to New York. Upon his arrival, he is immediately presumed guilty until proven innocent, yet proceeds on a journey throughout the country.
Tues., June 28 @ 9:15 p.m.
Wed., June 29 @ 7 p.m.
"Labyrinth"
Directed by Jaromil Jires
Czechoslovakia 1991, 90 min.
Labyrinth is an intellectually bracing investigation of the connection between the fictional world of Franz Kafka and the historical persecution of the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust. Framing his intense drama with recitations of the human rights denied to Jews under the Third Reich, veteran Czech director Jires creates his alter ego in Maximilian Schell, who plays a director taking up residence in Prague to prepare a film about Kafka.
