This October, we have programmed a season of screenings and events linked with Oxford University’s city-wide project ‘Kafka’s Transformative Communities’ marking the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death. The season includes a rare outing for Hidden director Michael Haneke’s adaptation of The Castle (featuring an introduction by Guardian chief film critic Peter Bradshaw), and a screening of Steven Soderbergh’s recently re-cut version of his 1991 Kafka biopic entitled Mr. Kneff, screening in the UK for the very first time. Alongside these events is a season of classic films influenced by the works of Kafka.
Full Listings
Click on the film titles for more info and to book tickets
Brazil
Friday 4th October 8.30pm
Monday 7th October 6pm
After Hours + K
Saturday 12th October 6.15pm
Monday 14th October 9pm
The Castle + intro by Peter Bradshaw
Wednesday 16th October 6.15pm
Mr Kneff
Friday 18th October 8.30pm
Naked Lunch + Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor
Monday 21st October 6.15pm
Thursday 25th October 8.45pm
Kafka
Tuesday 22nd October 6.15pm
Eraserhead
Saturday 26th October 9pm
Monday 28th October 6.30pm
Thursday 31st October 8.45pm
“What does the term “Kafkaesque” mean? An experience marked out by a nightmarish, phantasmagorical quality, a fruitless grappling with arbitrary and immovable social forces … and waking up one morning to find that you’ve turned into a giant insect. Perhaps more than any other art forms, film has taken up and responded to Kafka’s visions – no doubt responding to the very concrete nature of Kafka’s visions, however outlandish their nature. If you believe the Internet Movie Database there have been over 160 screen adaptations of Kafka’s work since 1950, which if nothing else demonstrates that Kafka is catnip to film-makers and has become an inescapable influence on what we see.” Andrew Pulver, the Guardian
The season examines two different methods by which Kafkaesque filmmaking has manifested itself: adaptations of Kafka’s work, and films that show Kafka’s influence on their makers.
In the first category, we screened Orson Welles’ celebrated adaptation of The Trial back in May, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Kafka’s death in 1924. This October we will show the rarely screened 1997 adaptation of The Castle directed by multiple Palme d’Or winner Michael Haneke and Steven Soderbergh’s celebrated 1991 biopic Kafka, starring Jeremy Irons. We will also host the first ever UK screening of Soderbergh’s Mr Kneff, a re-edit and re-working of Kafka that Soderbergh presented at the Toronto film festival in 2021.
The influence of Kafka on auteur film-makers has always been evident. Contemporary reviews of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985) immediately picked up on this, even if the film is equally indebted to George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’; the spectacle of Jonathan Pryce’s Sam Lowry battling the arcane bureaucracy of this future society as as Kafkaesque as they come. Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (also 1985) is a purer form of the Kafka nightmare, with protagonist Griffin Dunne unable to get himself out of the increasingly bizarre situation he finds himself in. David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (1991) and its bug powder addiction gave us the amazing concept of the “Kafka high”, while David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977) is arguably the nakedest expression of Lynch’s admiration for the writer who he described as “the one artist that I feel could be my brother”. All these films will screen as part of a four-film season entitled Kafkaesque Klassics, which also includes two short film adaptations of Kafka’s works, including Lorenza Mazzetti’s short film K (1953) and Kōji Yamamura’s anime Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor (2007).
The season is a collaborative effort between Professor Carolin Duttlinger (Professor of German Literature and Culture at Wadham College, Oxford University, co-director of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre and principal investigator on Kafka’s Transformative Communities), Andrew Pulver (film journalist at The Guardian), and the Ultimate Picture Palace. The screening of The Castle has been sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum, London.
