MovieChat Forums > Le procès (1962) Discussion > Are there REALLY NO symbols in this film...

Are there REALLY NO symbols in this film?

posted 17 years ago by deshovel
20 replies | jump to latest

Wells said that there were NO symbols in the whole movie, and because it was so stylistically baffling and abstract, I can't really argue that claim. But on second thought I submit that when K goes into the room where they're interrogating that one dude, close to the beginning, there IS a symbol: The swinging lamp.
That was the central image of Picasso's "Guernica", which was a sort of warning of fascism the same way "The Trial" was in its day. Is it a coincidence? Do you think it's a nod? or am I just being fascist?

Or was it in the book and I'm just being forgetful?

[–] dep1353 17 years ago

....Fascist? No....Fasicous? Maybe

....I actually thought of the swinging lamp in the fruit cellar at the old Bates place.

[–] deshovel 17 years ago

to be really pomo about it, I suppose since it's a movie, the whole thing is in itself a "symbol", so the point is really moot.

[–] lastrebel2000 17 years ago

Was thing I noticed that was rather thought provoking was that every one in the court room was wearing the same button on the same lapel. As if it symbolized conspiracy, maybe even conformity.

[–] johan-apekatt 11 years ago

It's like a uniform for law officials or members of the court.

[–] RainmanCT 16 years ago

Good post. Interesting quote from Welles. I suspect that either he is pulling our leg or is referring to his own direction.

If we define "symbol" using the simplest terms as something that "stands for something else" then we can take his word that he did not intentionally make use of any symbols but to say that there are none in the film would mean that he deciphered the work by Kafka with 100% accuracy and found it (presumably) lacking symbols.

Human beings think and interact symbolically; if one looks hard enough, one can find symbols in almost any story - it is in our nature.

Leni shows Josef her webbed fingers before she hops on him in the middle of her room. Only the most superficial viewer would see this and think "oh that's nice" and not look for meaning.

[–] NoHeadedHershel 16 years ago

Leni shows Josef her webbed fingers before she hops on him in the middle of her room. Only the most superficial viewer would see this and think "oh that's nice" and not look for meaning.

Is that why I didn't understand this movie? Because there was nothing to understand? An attempt to make a movie that meant absolutely nothing?

Seinfeld did a show about nothing and I enjoyed it a lot more.

----
"... when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

[–] RainmanCT 16 years ago

I doubt that Welles would go so far as to say that there was nothing to understand and that it meant absolutely nothing even if there were no symbols.

I too enjoyed that Seinfeld episode. I'm glad that you understood the humor.

[–] rooprect 11 years ago

Is there an actual quote from Welles saying "there are no symbols" in The Trial? If so, he was yankin our cranks (as he's been known to do at every opportunity). I watched his interview about filming The Trial, and at one point he says that he hated the accidental mushroom cloud at the end and shot it 4 or 5 times before giving up & conceding that it would be interpreted as a symbol. But I think he was talking more about avoiding the childishly obvious symbols, rather than avoiding the use of symbols at all.

Like you said, humans perceive the world through symbols. We cannot avoid it, and certainly artists (who communicate through the medium of symbols) can't avoid it. Otherwise the world would be full of nothing but tour guides pointing at various points of interest.

I saw tons of symbolic things in the movie. The computer, which Welles added to the story, is an enormous, thoughtless & unforgiving machine whose many intricate parts are constantly spinning & churning to what end nobody really knows. Situated right above the enormous sweatshop where bank employees are clicking away on their typewriters doing god knows what, and relating to the whole story about a lone schlep being ground up by the apathetic machine of human justice, I think it's fair to say the computer is pretty fricken symbolic.

Another great one, which again Welles changed from the book, is the the lawyer's apartment. In the book it's cramped, tiny & claustrophobic, but Welles made it enormous, labyrinthine, with dusty files & books spilling endlessly, and full of mirrors. Is it a stretch to imagine that this is symbolic of the infinite convoluted workings of the legal system & those who live by its dictates?

Someone else in this thread mentioned the exaggerated doors. Definitely I agree there's a powerful symbol.

Tons more, practically every scene has a resounding symbol in it. If he said there were no symbols, Orson, that crazy prankster, was definitely having a laugh at the audience's expense!

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] SherlockVonEinstein 15 years ago

i think welles was pulling our collective leg...

there are so many glaring symbols (the office were k. works, for example)... the story itself is an allegory.

[–] lokko53 15 years ago

In terms of concrete symbols in the movie, I felt that the "door" was the most prevalent symbol. The inaccessible gate doors from the parable at the beginning seem to be symbolic as well as how doors in the movie led to different locations. Although doors are needed for practical reasons, I still felt that doors as gateways into wherever they led at the particular scene were truly symbolic. I can see how Welles might not consider it a symbol; but I don't see any other way of interpreting such use of doors. thoughts?

[–] franzkabuki 15 years ago

Tarkovsky had allegedly claimed the same thing about his work - no symbols, no metaphors, no nothing. If we´d trust (some) film-makers with what they have to say about their own work, we´d have to believe movies almost make themselves with little interference or intent by the author.

But I also believe for some directors this symbolic stuff is not something they´re fully conscious of; it´s about natural instincts and understanding that is not easily put into words.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] johngalt-1 13 years ago

I got the feeling, and still have it after repeated viewings, that the movie acts on the premise that Eastern Europe under Communism was in many respects Kafka's world realized. That may not be exactly a "symbol" as such, but Kafka is an "eye of the beholder" writer, and the movie is the result of one eye beholding. Perhaps more commentary than symbol, but I suppose only Welles knew for sure.

I honestly cannot think of any other real world location that would capture the grim, gray, gritty world through which almost all of Kafka's characters wander.

The last resort of one who cannot think is to argue that another cannot feel.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Huskie_Jon 12 years ago

There are no symbols in The Trial.

On June 8, 1989, nothing happened in Tianamen Square.

Move along, people. There is nothing to see here.

Please shut off all cameras and recording equipment, or they will be confiscated.

_______________
A dope trailer is no place for a kitty.

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] TheManInOil 10 years ago

If he said that, he was obviously joking.

"I'll book you. I'll book you on something. I'll find something in the book to book you on."

[–] roger-scudder 10 years ago

Maybe in a limited definition of the word, there are no concrete symbols. I'm not certain of that. However, using the generally accepted definition of the word 'symbol', I would say that the film is exploding with symbols.

[–] 10 years ago

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