{"id":3270,"date":"2011-07-22T15:48:26","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T19:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3270"},"modified":"2011-07-28T17:20:34","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T21:20:34","slug":"br-lolita-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3270","title":{"rendered":"BR: Lolita (1962)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>B<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\u00a0\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Standard<\/p>\n

Label: Warner Home Video\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: May 31, 2011<\/p>\n

Genre: Drama \/ Satire<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A visiting professor pursues a 14 year old girl for his own dirty pleasures.<\/p>\n

Special Features: Theatrical Trailer<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

After directing the dour anti-war film Paths of Glory <\/strong>(1957) and being a hired gun on the melodramatic Spartacus<\/strong> (1960), Stanley Kubrick probably wanted a more uplifting project, preferably one with comedic sensibilities as dark as his own, and the perfect source material was Vladimir Nabokov\u2019s scandalous best selling novel Lolita<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As the original trailer campaign blurted to audiences, \u2018They made a movie of Lolita?\u2019<\/p>\n

Indeed, they did! In 1962. With the author writing the script to preserve the novel’s integrity. Well, sort of. Lolita\u2019s age was bumped up to 14, and Kubrick rewrote Nabokov\u2019s script to the point where the author admitted little of his original adaptation was left in the film (which is ironic, considering Nabokov received an Oscar nomination that year).<\/p>\n

Lolita<\/strong> initially comes off as a rather chilly film, but its humour resides in the sheer absurdity of a poet \/ professor named Humbert Humbert (James Mason, seemingly enjoying every nuance of his character) who rents a room from a widower to get between the legs of her teenage daughter \u2013 a brat named Lolita (Sue Lyon, perfectly cast) – while the mother (Shelley Winters, who deserved an Oscar nomination) is falling in love with him, and is oblivious to his improper dreaming.<\/p>\n

Humbert is set to leave when his teaching term ends, but due to a series of fortuitously tragic events, he becomes in charge of Lolita as her only surviving family. He then takes her on a ridiculous road trip, and seduces & sleeps with her, unaware the rest of humanity seems to think he\u2019s not only odd, but potentially a filthy, wrong-minded professor.<\/p>\n

His undoing comes from playwright Clare Quilty (scene-stealing Peter Sellers), a little weasel who sees Humbert as the pederast he is, and makes him his special project \u2013 ruining his chances at libertine bedroom pleasures, and sending Lolita into oblivion. Humbert eventually gets his revenge – the film\u2019s ending is actually placed prior to the main credit sequence \u2013 but Kubrick breaks audience expectations by avoiding any graphic titillation and violence, and uses innuendo and cleverly framed shots to create a social satire that still manages to shock using less frankness than Adrian Lyne\u2019s 1997 remake.<\/p>\n

Kubrick seemed to have reveled in tormenting the character to the point were Nabokov\u2019s tale becomes neo-slapstick. The fact there are humorous sequences could be a turnoff for the novel\u2019s fans, but Kubrick\u2019s approach was unique in taking ugly behaviour and dramatizing its intricacies as utterly ridiculous. Humbert never manages to possess Lolita in spirit, heart, and physicality, and his anger creates a paranoid sociopath who trusts no one, and is too far gone to comprehend what\u2019s moral anymore.<\/p>\n

He smiles and delivers impeccably timed polite remarks to avoid a public fracas with Quilty or any other accuser, but he\u2019s not smart enough to make calculated moves. Like his road trip with Lolita, he\u2019s winging it, making things up at every turn: when he picks up Lolita from camp, he can\u2019t figure out how to tell her of her mother\u2019s death, so he focuses on bedding her, until he has no choice but to explain the sudden demise of mumsy.<\/p>\n

Humbert is also not bright enough to spot the moment when he\u2019s being put on, and each time Quilty enters his life \u2013 either as himself, or impersonating a police officer at a convention, a school psychiatrist named Dr. Senf (mustard, in German), or a crank caller \/ blackmailer \/ Lolita\u2019s \u2018uncle\u2019) \u2013 Humbert only senses Quilty\u2019s aggressiveness; he can\u2019t see through the performance nor the accent that he\u2019s being set up for an elaborate play.<\/p>\n

Warner Home Video\u2019s Blu-ray doesn\u2019t include any extras beyond a trailer \u2013 rather odd, considering\u00a0Lolita<\/strong> marked the beginning of Kubrick\u2019s most sophisticated filmmaking phase \u2013 so there\u2019s no background on the film\u2019s conception, writing, and how the actors handled Kubrick\u2019s perfectionism. Pity the disc’s producers weren’t able to secure access to some of the ephemera recently discovered by Jon Ronson, and excerpted in the Channel 4 doc\u00a0Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (2008), such as Sue Lyon’s original screen test, and newsreel footage from the premiere.<\/p>\n

The script sparkles with ridiculous dialogue that\u2019s often delivered in bravura monologues and long takes, and foreshadows the more robust metaphors and diatribes in Dr. Stragelove<\/strong> (1964). It also helps that Sellers appeared in both Lolita <\/strong>and Strangelove<\/strong>, which posits the question as to whether Kubrick\u2019s time with Sellers allowed the director to refine his sense of humour, since that sharp wit reappeared in his final films \u2013 the social & sexual violence in A Clockwork Orange<\/strong> (1971), the mannered behaviour within Barry Lyndon<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1975), marital discord in The Shining<\/strong> (1980), the surreality of war in Full Metal Jacket<\/strong> (1987), and sexual transgressions among a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut<\/strong> (1999).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the question of whether Kubrick\u2019s dark humour also affected Stangelove<\/strong>\u2019s co-writer, Terry Southern, inspiring him to transpose the persona of Lolita into the central role of Candy <\/a><\/strong>\u2013 a young woman who makes men behave like groveling, sex-starved juveniles.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a hint that Kubrick may have woven in a mini-satire of the lengthy desert highway pursuit in Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s Psycho<\/strong> (1960). Like Marian Crane, Humbert spends a lengthy time trying to outrun a pursuing dark sedan, and there\u2019s slight Hitchcockian suspense when the two cars stop, and neither driver gets out to further the drama for the audience\u2019s benefit. Instead, Humbert experiences a minor heart attack, which Lolita finds more childish than her own complaining, and the pursuer quietly drives off in the opposite direction \u2013 satisfied he\u2019s rattled Humbert\u2019s cage.<\/p>\n

Nelson Riddle\u2019s score, based around a treacly theme by Bob Harris, never worked well as an album, but within the film it accents the ridiculousness of an aging professor darting around the central U.S.A. with his teenage lover. Whether it\u2019s Harris\u2019s theme, Riddle\u2019s own teeny-bopper jingle, or brief moments of sincere underscore, the music adds just another layer of dry humour to a subject that\u2019s socially repulsive.<\/p>\n

WHV\u2019s transfer upgrades what was already an excellent transfer on DVD, and Oswald Morris\u2019 black & white cinematography is filled with many beautiful scenes featuring high contrast lighting and deep focus cinematography.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s strongest section remains its first third, where Humbert does his damndest to get into Lolita\u2019s pants, but Lolita<\/strong> is a perfect companion piece to Strangelove<\/strong>, and the first overt sign a director known for his perfectionism could present a forum where he and audiences could examine social taboos without delving into melodrama, dourness, or offensive visual\u2026 and laugh.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em><\/em><\/em>\/\u00a0B<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ B . Film: Very Good\u00a0\/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Standard Label: Warner Home Video\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: May 31, 2011 Genre: Drama \/ Satire Synopsis: A visiting professor pursues a 14 year old girl for his own dirty pleasures. Special Features: Theatrical Trailer . . Review: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[606,611,605,604,608,609,189,607,610],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-QK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3270"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3297,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3270\/revisions\/3297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}