[lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Lit-Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 10:53:08 -0700

From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

When I was in 2nd year college, I happened on a showing of Orson Welles 
adaptation of Kafka's _The Trial_.  I do believe that film more than any 
other awakened what little intellectual curiosity I have in me.  I found it 
fascinating like nothing else, especially at that point in my life.  I don't 
subscribe to the usual interpretation that it's warning about totalitarian 
bureaucracy, that seems much too easy, too moralistic for Kafka.  I found in 
it the hopeless struggle of trying to justify your life to yourself whatever 
system you find yourself in.  It's about guilt, about struggling against the 
meaning of you that your culture has handed you like a graduation present, 
about not measuring up to what your culture expects of you and about  the 
attempt to stand up for yourself in a world where there's no place to stand, 
it's about all those kinds of fun and games things that go into being a 
human being.  The film was released in 1963 and stars Anthony Perkins as 
Citizen K.  It's the only film besides Psycho that I liked Perkins in.

Most critics panned the film.  Obviously I think they're fools.  You might 
check it out and see if you don't agree that it jumpstarts intellectual 
curiosity about one's struggle for identity in a world whose preoccupations 
are not about you.

Mike Geary
Memphis 

------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

[lit-ideas] Re: Decisions, decisions

Other related posts: