Lolita

When the 1997 version of Lolita was widely censored in the US, many asked why the reaction was so strong to this film. After all, the novel was published in the US in 1958, Kubrick's film version appeared in 1962, and we hear more shocking tales of sexual depravity every day on the daytime talk shows. But after seeing Lyne's brilliant version of Lolita, I can see how he manages to breathe fresh controversy into this familiar story. Lyne's lascivious lens eroticizes Lolita's every movement and pose. The viewer is forced to see her through the eyes of Humbert and to feel his obsession and desire. We are co-conspirators in his crime, and at the end we share his shame. Rather than shocking us (and having us pull away in revulsion), Lyne draws us in and makes us face the Humbert in ourselves. This is an incredibly powerful film.

Having read the book and watched the 1962 version some years back, now watching the 1997 version completes my own Lolita experience. This one also pretty well follows the novel but of course some things just are inappropriate to include. Lolita is a brat, sassy, pretty, flirty, manipulative, but Humbert is obsessed. Near the end, before his final encounter with Quilty he goes on about loving Lolita, but what he had was not love, it was carnal obsession. It wrecked him I suppose in the same way that many men have been wrecked over the history of the world.

Many key scenes were filmed in and near New Orleans. Near the middle of the movie is a scene at Pirate's Alley, the narrow pedestrian alley between the Cabildo and the St Louis Cathedral. That is where one of our fun runs in the 1980s finished up.

I found it on Amazon streaming movies. A very good movie of a difficult subject.

I fell in love with Nabokov's masterpiece. Upon hearing that there was a movie adapted from the novel (I am of a younger generation) I found it hard to believe that anyone could put into visual images and dialogue what had appeared in my mind as flawless. After seeing this remade version, I came away satisfied. Hearing what countless critics had to say has never changed my view. Of course, it can never come even close to the novel, but watching Lyne's version unfold in quiet and somber light brought to mind the exact same feelings I was experiencing reading the book. Certain things did bother me. Lolita's mother in particular. Hearing Melanie Griffith deliver lines as if she were reading to a group of school children set my teeth on edge, although she went down in fine style. And having the sole reason for Humbert's obsession with nymphets wrapped up in one neat reason(Annabel) was also hard to swallow. But Dominique Swain was nearly the perfect picture of the Lolita in my mind. Wistful, vulnerable, and a fierce manipulator all at once, it's hard to believe she'd never had acting experience beforehand. Perhaps a bit too old in certain lights, she still managed to carry off a difficult role and steal every scene she was in, much like Natalie Portman in "Beautiful Girls". Certain expressions were incredibly poignant. (Think of Lo's face when Humbert denied permission to be in the play. Think of her lipstick smeared smile after being caught going out when Humbert went to the market). The essence of this movie is what formed my opinion that this was a good film. The pacing, the comparison to Kubrick didn't matter when the mood of the entire film was left. Maybe the critics are right, and I'm missing something. But when the final scene appeared, that dreamy image of Lolita's face, I was completely satisfied that Lyne did the best job anyone could have.

The Author would be dismayed, and precisely because the story is so faithful to the book. But the story in the book was incidental, just something on which Nabokov could hang his layered challenges to concepts of narrative. The narrator is crazy, overly colors and outright lies. The story never fully exists in the book at all, and such as it does one can never be sure what is true and what imagined. Humbert is a made up name (as are all names) and clearly the narrator makes up most of the elements of his own character as well (European, Professor, Author... obviously a joke by the narrator on Nabokov).

In this film, everything makes sense, exactly the opposite of the reason the book exists. This is a beautiful film, with lovely detailed cinematography, good acting and great score, and all to solidify something that Nabokov created such that it could not be so. I believe that Peter Greenaway could make a good film of Lolita, and that he would have the courage to make it confusing and unerotic and unresolved. Why does Dolores' fate have to change in the film's epilogue? Because it ties up every last loose end. On Christmas Day no less!

(The real scandal is not that audiences/censors are shocked by prurient subjects, but that they take one of the greatest literary achievements ever and make it "explainable." Is this the only thing we can accept?)

But take the film on its own presumption that the book's story is what matters. This Lolita is too old, too pretty and sexy, too controlling. Irons is clearly narrowly channeled here and he is smart enough to know it: his frustration with the unimaginative stance of the film translates to a frustrated Humbert. I think Melanie is just right (just because HH calls her a cow means nothing). HH's violence with his previous wife should have been mentioned; her running away with the Russian cabbie is as much a setup for the Lolita fixation as the childhood dalliance, and better justifies the angst of loss. There should have been a few butterflies, and some explanation about the play: that it was written to allude to that first night at the hotel.

I highly recommend the audio tape version of Lolita. It is read by (guess...) Jeremy Irons! What he brings to the audio tape is the voice and phrasing of a man in a cell continually going over things in his own mind, embellishing and exaggerating and confusing and speculating and sometimes not at all sure about any of it. He brings this same voice to the voiceovers in the film, but it conflicts with the images which purport to represent a narrative stance of "real truth".

Adrian Lyne captures Nabokov's descriptive prose with the film camera. It certainly was not an easy task but Lyne uses some amazing camera angles and well planned shots to reveal subtle motives in the storyline. This movie is worth seeing on the large screen because of its amazing cinematography. The New England landscape is grandiose and very colourful, the images look like they're out of a story book. Jeremy Irons plays Humbert, the hero of this fairytale. Along with Lyne, he creates an introspective and moody character who fills the atmosphere of the movie. I liked this adaptation much more Kubrick's earlier comedy which took a light hearted approach to the novel. I found Lyne paid justice to Nabokov's story and storytelling in this movie.