K. Stays in the Picture: Filming the Novels of Franz Kafka
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K. Stays in the Picture: Filming the Novels of Franz Kafka A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of German Studies of the College of Arts and Sciences by Matthew R. Bauman B.A. The Ohio State University May 2012 Committee Chair: Harold Herzog, Ph.D. Abstract From the man who wakes up one morning transformed into a bug, to the man arrested in his bedroom by a shadowy, extra-legal police force despite, seemingly, having done nothing wrong, the author Franz Kafka has put his protagonists into some of the most identifiable and bizarre predicaments of twentieth century literature. It is no surprise then that many notable directors have undertaken the challenge of translating the tales of these protagonists onto film. Themselves possessed of inspired and unique minds themselves, it should also come as no surprise that these filmmakers each take a distinctly individual approach to the source material, often with an agenda markedly different from Kafka’s own, and, by extension, produce final products that differ greatly both from each other and from the source material. The goal of this thesis is to provide case studies of three such adaptations of Franz Kafka’s work: Orson Welles’s The Trial (1962), adapted from the novel Der Prozeß; Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub’s Klassenverhältnisse (1984), adapted from the incomplete novel Der Verschollene; and Michael Haneke’s Das Schloß (1997), adapted from the novel of the same name. These case studies will explore the problems inherent in adapting literature to film in general, and more specifically, present an analysis of those elements of the original texts which the filmmakers in question retain in their respective adaptations as well as those they eschew and the rationales behind these decisions. i © Matthew Bauman 2012 ii Acknowledgements I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who helped me in the completion of this project. Thanks, first of all, to my committee: Dr. Todd Herzog, who generously agreed to act as chair despite being on leave and Dr. Tanja Nusser, who took an interest in my work well in excess of what is required of a second reader. Their advice, insight and encouragement, as well as a turnaround time that exceeded all expectations, were instrumental in the timely and successful completion of this thesis. Thanks also to Sasha Parks and Vanessa Plumly for their invaluable help with proofreading and copyediting, as well as to the rest of my fellow graduate students in the German Studies Department for their proverbial tea and sympathy. Additional appreciation is due all of my family and friends for their encouragement and helpful reminders to eat, sleep and take breaks throughout this process. Thank you all very much. iii Table of Contents List of Images..................................................................................................................................v “Das Insekt kann nicht gezeichnet werden”: Committing Kafka’s Work to Film..........................1 Citizen K.? The Influence of Orson Welles and Franz Kafka on the Film The Trial......................8 “Ich rühre mich von hier nicht fort”: Haneke Adapts Film to Kafka............................................23 “Wir sind keine Künstler! Wir sind Filmemacher!”: Westlich von der Freiheitsstatue with Straub/Huillet.................................................................................................................................34 “Die Zeit des gewöhnlichen, glücklich ablaufenden Lebens reicht… bei weitem nicht hin”: Final Thoughts on Kafka’s Work in Film......................................................................................46 Works Cited...................................................................................................................................51 iv List of Images Image 1 — Joseph K. and Uncle Max discuss the computer.........................................................12 Image 2 — High angle shot in the courtroom................................................................................16 Image 3 — Alexeieff’s “pin screen” technique.............................................................................18 Image 4 — Searching through the Chief Councilor’s papers........................................................29 Image 5 — Frieda drives the patrons out of the bar......................................................................29 Image 6 — Illustration of the village with the Castle obscured....................................................32 Image 7 — Therese tells Karl about the death of her mother........................................................41 Image 8 — Opening shot of the Statue of Liberty.........................................................................42 Image 9 — Karl watches the campaign parade with Brunelda, Robinson and Delamarche.........44 v “Das Insekt kann nicht gezeichnet werden”: Committing Kafka to Film Franz Kafka went to the movies — a lot. This we know from Hanns Zischler’s thorough and aptly titled exploration of Kafka’s film going habits, Kafka geht ins Kino. In this 1994 volume, Zischler diligently scours Kafka’s writings for mentions of the films he saw, playing out Kafka’s private and literary biography against the backdrop of Prague cinema in the early twentieth century. In 2009, Peter-André Alt went a step further with Kafka und der Film: Über kinomatographisches Erzählen, wherein he deliniates the effects that cinema, the styles of storytelling that cinema employs and the “Kaiser-Panorama” stereoscope viewer — an early competitor with motion pictures, had on Kafka’s own writing. Though he is the first to explore these effects in great detail, Alt is not the first person to notice elements of the cinematic in Kafka’s writing style. As in most things Kafka, Max Brod was the first to point it out, but the thread was even picked up by Theodor Adorno, who wrote in a letter to Walter Benjamin: “Kafka’s novels are not prompt books for the experimental theater… Rather they are the last disappearing textual links to silent film” (Adorno, 95). But what does it mean to say that Kafka’s writing is “cinematographic”? According to Alt: Kafkas filmisches Schreiben manifestiert sich nicht primär auf der Ebene der Motive und Topoi, sondern vornehmlich im Bereich der narrativen Struktur selbst. Was Generationen von Kafka-Forschern bevorzugt als das Befremdende, Groteske oder alptraumhaft Surreale seiner Arbeiten beschreiben, entsteht häufig durch die programmatische Adaptation filmischer und stereoskopischer Bilder im Erzählvorgang. Die ‘maßlose Unterhaltung,’ die das Kino vermittelte, und das 1 ‘Vergnügen,’ das vom Kaiserpanorama ausging, erzeugten wesentliche Impulse für Kafkas poetische Imagination (193). This is to say, that to describe Kafka’s writing as “cinematographic” does not mean that Kafka was a scriptwriter; he was not engaged in a one-to-one transference of cinematic elements into writing. Rather, “die beruhigten Bilder des Panorama oder die dynamisierten Bilder des Kinos” were his source of inspiration (Alt 192), and he sought to recreate these elements in his writing. At the conclusion of Kafka und der Film, Alt summarizes the eight indications of this inspiration in Kafka’s writing. Among these: [Verknüpft] Kafka [verknüpft] Bilder in seinen Texten so, daß eine Sequenzstruktur simuliert wird, die filmähnlich wirkt... Kafka organisiert Wahrnehmungseindrücke aus seinem Alltagsleben wie Filmbilder, in dem er sie als dynamische Abfolgung in Texte einbindet... Der Film vermacht dem literarischen Texte neue Techniken der Spannungsteigerung, indem er die Möglichkeit der Konzentration auf affektive Zustände einer Figur bietet, die ohne ‘Gegenschnitt’ auf ihren Auslöser vorgeführt werden können. (191-192) So some of the techniques, which have been cited as making Kafka’s prose so alienating to readers — things like abrupt cuts and focusing on only one aspect of the action in a scene — are, in fact, directly inspired by cinema where they are an integral part of the “language of film.” Despite having incorporated so many filmic elements into his writing, Kafka was notoriously conflicted about cinema and illustration in general.1 This conflict engendered a strong antipathy in him about the illustration of his work. In his famously panicked letter to Kurt Wolff, his publisher, about the forthcoming publication of The Metamorphosis, he writes: “Es ist mir nämlich... eingefallen, er könnte etwa das Insekt selbst zeichnen wollen. Das nicht, bitte das 2 nicht! ... Das Insekt kann nicht gezeichnet werden. Es kann aber nicht einmal von der Ferne aus gezeigt werden” (Briefe, 136). In the foreword to the Schocken edition of Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories, John Updike agrees, admonishing that: Any theatrical or cinematic version of the story must founder on this point of external representation: a concrete image of the insect would be too distracting and shut off sympathy… Such scenes could not be done except with words. In this age that lives and dies by the visual, The Metamorphosis stands as a narrative absolutely literary, able to exist only where language and the mind’s hazy wealth of imagery intersect. (xvi) It is clear, however, that not everyone is so reserved about augmenting Kafka’s texts with images. While researching their 2002 article “Kafka Adapted to Film,” Martin Brady and Helen Hughes counted no less than 40 cinematic and stage