NPR's Michel Martin speaks with lead actor Joel Basman and director David Schalko about his German-Austrian miniseries Kafka on early 20th century author Franz Kafka, released in the U.S. from June 6.
Max Brod , a recognized writer at the time, relentlessly promoted the writings of his friend, Franz Kafka, played here respectively by David Kross and Joel Basman in the Austrian-German seriesIf you've ever felt powerless when confronted with faceless bureaucracy, confounded by absurd accusations or simply hopeless, chances are the word"kafkaesque" might sum up your situation.
The other episodes focus on the his family, three of his lovers and his role as an insurance lawyer.In episode four, Kafka wins successive court cases and contracts for the company. He is held in high esteem by his superiors at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute. They also admire his writings and press him to review their own mediocre texts. It's an admiration that Kafka does not reciprocate.
Basman says he felt compelled in portraying Kafka to"get away from the cliché of him being a depressed person. First of all, he's a funny man. He's got humor. And of course, he's got his issues, and we all got them in our lives, but he was far away from depressed."The series' release coincides with the 100th anniversary of Kafka's death this month.
In a memorable scene in episode three, Kafka brings home for dinner a traditional Yiddish theater actor he befriended, Yitzhak Löwy. But Kafka's domineering father, Hermann, disapproves and says Löwy is dirty and compares him to an insect., the story of a man who turns into a bug. Kafka had also written a 100-page letter criticizing his father — the closest he came to writing an autobiography — though he neither sent nor published it.
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