Attempting in example sentence
Roman Bohnen, astonishingly aged only 45 at the time (and he died aged only 54! - a great loss!), plays a pathetic old man desperately attempting to grasp a last thread of a possible dream, having had the only love of his life, an old dog, torn from him and shot, so that he is deprived of anything and everything, stripped bare, a naked, lost soul, as so many in this story are lost souls.