Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles)

Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles)

Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles) “Someone must have been slandering Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.” -Franz Kafka, The Trial

Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles)

“Someone must have been slandering Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.”

-Franz Kafka, The Trial

Romy Schneider, Orson Welles, and Anthony Perkins on the set of The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles)

Photos by Nicolas Tikhomiroff.

(via)

Anthony Perkins in publicity still for The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles) “My great problem is that I’ve always felt -and especially since I’ve become a so-called personality, a celebrity, & so forth -that it was all a very exposable myth that I was somebody. I’ve felt that this was an absurd dishonesty and that if I were close to people, it would be instantly evident & they would say, ‘Well, gee, he’s nothing at all. What do we want to see him for?’ If I can talk to someone for just five minutes, five vital minutes, I feel I can carry on the myth of being a full person, but any longer and I would be shown up as an empty, worthless nothing… all colorless and shrinking, invisible. Ironically, I spent a couple of years playing parts in which I was supposed to be a decisive person, but all the while I was in a torment over this feeling of being a total cipher. It just about paralyzed me.” -Anthony Perkins, quoted in 1960 Sat. Evening Post interview (via)

Anthony Perkins in publicity still for The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles)

“My great problem is that I’ve always felt -and especially since I’ve become a so-called personality, a celebrity, & so forth -that it was all a very exposable myth that I was somebody. I’ve felt that this was an absurd dishonesty and that if I were close to people, it would be instantly evident & they would say, ‘Well, gee, he’s nothing at all. What do we want to see him for?’ If I can talk to someone for just five minutes, five vital minutes, I feel I can carry on the myth of being a full person, but any longer and I would be shown up as an empty, worthless nothing… all colorless and shrinking, invisible.

Ironically, I spent a couple of years playing parts in which I was supposed to be a decisive person, but all the while I was in a torment over this feeling of being a total cipher. It just about paralyzed me.”

-Anthony Perkins, quoted in 1960 Sat. Evening Post interview (via)

Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles) (via)

Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles) (via) Photographer: Roger Corbeau

Anthony Perkins in The Trial (1962, dir. Orson Welles) (via)

Photographer: Roger Corbeau

Orson Welles directs Anthony Perkins on the set of The Trial (1962) Photo by Nicolas Tikhomiroff (via) Q. A critic who admires your work very much said that, in The Trial, you were repeating yourself… Welles: Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor’s voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter…There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one’s personality, of one’s style. If these things didn’t come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it. It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but The Trial is the best film I ever made…I have never been so happy as when I made this film.” -excerpted from Orson Welles: Interviews

Orson Welles directs Anthony Perkins on the set of The Trial (1962) Photo by Nicolas Tikhomiroff (via)

Q. A critic who admires your work very much said that, in The Trial, you were repeating yourself…

Welles: Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor’s voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter…There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one’s personality, of one’s style. If these things didn’t come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it.

It is not my intention to repeat myself, but in my work there should certainly be references to what I have done in the past. Say what you will, but The Trial is the best film I ever made…I have never been so happy as when I made this film.”

-excerpted from Orson Welles: Interviews