Lolita [VHS]
by Stanley Kubrick
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Product details
Actor: Gary Cockrell, James Mason, Jerry Stovin, Shelley Winters, Sue LyonDirector: Stanley Kubrick
Cinematographer: Oswald Morris
Writer: Stanley Kubrick
Editor: Anthony Harvey
Producer: Eliot Hyman
Producer: James B. Harris
Writer: Vladimir Nabokov
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
Running Time: 152 minutes
Release Date: 2001-06-12
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Studio: Warner Home Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Lolita [VHS]
Movie Review: Awful adaptation, but a work of brilliance as a standalone piece of art.
Summary: 4 Stars
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)
[note: I swear I originally reviewed Lolita back in 1989, and did so again early in the last decade. However, I cannot find a trace of either review anywhere. And thus I review it for a third time. Apologies if all this sounds familiar. That's because it probably is.
I was never a Kubrick fan in my younger days. Granted, when you're a teenager, your critical skills are somewhat impaired, but I always thought Full Metal Jacket, after its wonderful first forty-five minutes, wandered off into utter pointlessness, Dr. Strangelove was weirdly absent of humor for such a revered movie, and 2001 was... well, then. In any case, all that lasted until the first time I saw Lolita back in the late eighties (on a double bill with FMJ). There's a scene about halfway through the film where Humbert (James Mason) and Quilty (Peter Sellers) meet for the first time in a bar. Looking back on it from a post-1995 standpoint, I'm surprised it didn't generate all the excitement of Pacino and DeNiro meeting for the first time in Heat. As for the actual execution, Kubrick's scene blows Mann's right out of the water; Mason, who otherwise overacts through most of the film, is the picture of a guilty conscience, while Sellers is an incredible combination of slapstick and menace. Lolita quickly became my favorite Kubrick film, and remained such for almost twenty years (it was recently surpassed by Paths of Glory). That said, as an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, it must be considered an utter failure; part of the mass of idiosyncrasy that was Stanley Kubrick is that his ability to faithfully adapt pretty much anything was subsumed in his consciousness by his desire to make the source material fit into his views both of what filmmaking should be and what social statement he was attempting to make with the movie. (And as a result, according to IMDB, while Nabokov liked the finished film, he wondered why he'd spent the time adapting his novel, since so little of his screenplay was actually used.) There are movies, however, that demand to be looked at as separate works than those that inspired them. Consider the case of Tobe Hooper's adaptations of Robert Bloch's Psycho (which became The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. As adaptations, they just plain suck, but as free-standing films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has become one of the most respected horror movies of all time, and 'Salem's Lot is a monstrously entertaining exercise in cheese. Such it is with Lolita, a bad adaptation but an excellent film.
For those who don't know the plot (how could you not? but I digress), European professor Humbert Humbert, recently divorced, heads off to America to take a teaching position at a small liberal arts college in Ohio. Beforehand, he spends the summer in a resort town in New Hampshire. While looking for lodgings, he meets the irrepressible Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) and her stepdaughter Lolita (Sue Lyon). Humbert instantly falls for the nymphet and takes a room at the Haze's place; soon, he will go as far as marrying the mother in order to stay close to the daughter. The film really begins, however, when Charlotte finds out about Humbert's obsession with Lolita and confronts him, never realizing that the other guy she pursued after her husband's death, Claire Quilty (Sellers), is also obsessed with her darling daughter...
While elements of black humor had pervaded Kubrick's films before (The Killing is a masterpiece of subtle black comedy, as many of the best noir films are), Lolita was his first attempt at making an out-and-out comedy, and in that regard, it works very well. That's another of the big differences between novel and movie; Nabokov was much more subtle in his humor than Kubrick, who widened and whitened it a great deal here (viz. the cot scene, which could have come out of a Laurel and Hardy flick, or Sellers' penchant for silly accents). Humbert Humbert comes off far less a slave to his obsessions than he does a guy who's feeling put upon by society's silly rules, but once again, if you don't look at it as an adaptation, that's not necessarily a bad thing (and those who would jump to castigate Kubrick for considering the rules Humbert's chafing at "silly" might do well to remember Kubrick addressed the same basic theme in Paths of Glory, with much the same outcome; it brings Kubrick's satire of Humbert's outlook into much sharper focus). Mason does tend to overact his part; no one with eyes and ears could fail to notice Humbert's guilty conscience, though pretty much everyone else in the movie, save one nosy neighbor (and Quilty, in the spirit of like-knows-like), does exactly that. Sellers, too, is guilty of a great deal of overacting here as well, but (a) everyone expected that anyway, and (b) in his case, it was all for comic relief.
The real surprise here is Sue Lyon, at the beginning of a very brief film career (in which she often played this sort of temptress, viz. Night of the Iguana or Autopsy, romancing Richard Burton and Fernando Rey respectively). During the first half of the film, Lolita herself is an almost unseen character save that first glimpse Humbert gets of her; it's only in the second half of the film that Lolita becomes a character in her own right, and that was exactly the right choice of Kubrick to make in this situation. Humbert seems almost as shocked as the audience that Lolita isn't a cardboard cutout (or, maybe more to the point, a blow-up doll), and it's that transformation that gives much of the second half of the movie the power it has. I grant you, once she does become a three-dimensional character, Lolita heads straight into typical-teenager territory (at least, typical teenager territory for the early sixties), but still.
There will be people who just can't get past the subject matter, despite the fact that Kubrick really soft-pedals it (Lolita's age is raised three years and only the barest hints are dropped about intimate activity); if you are one of those people, then you should avoid this. For everyone else it's a must-see. ****
Movie Review: Curse You Production Code
Summary: 5 Stars
An earlier Kubrick work. Certainly not his best. Very similar to Eyes Wide Shut, but much better, thematically and visually. A must have for any fan of Kubrick.Movie Review: STAY AWAY
Summary: 1 Stars
Let me start by saying that I am not a professional movie crictic or writer, this may not be as "piquantly" written as some reviews on here, but I am an avid reader of literature, and relatively bright.
I've read Nabakov's book Lolita, as well as seen the 1997 version of Lolita and the 1962 version. I think I've gotten the full view and scope of things, so to speak. I must, with heavy heart, tell you honestly, that this movie was a huge let down. The charaters were very one dimensional and almost cookie cutter. There was a complete lack of any of the emotional turmoil Humbert suffered, as in the book. This movie felt like it was made JUST to be made. Not heartfelt. Lacked insight into any of the characters. Poor chemistry. Certain scenes from the book were either changed completely, or the most annoying, was they were followed thru up to a point, THEN changed. Very frustrating. There was NO sexual relations between Humbert and Lo. Ok, I understand that it was taboo back then and some stuff had to be sensored. But nothing sexual happened. At ALL! Thats what the book was aBOUT. A pre-teen girl having sex with a much older man. It was only even HINTED at very few times. Why did he bother making this kind of movie if the entire thing had to be sensored? All subtle nuances of love, of first touchings, of Humbert's past were absent. Even an explanation of WHY Humbert was like this in the first place was missing!
Lo, in the novel was a plain girl. A girl attractive enough, but definately able to be overlooked. Its important to remember this, for nymphets arent necessarily pretty, but possess a certain aire and charm about them. Sue Lyon was beautiful and much older looking than 12 but possessed nothing nymphet or innocent at all. Much OLDER acting than 12. The whole atmosphere was thrown off by this. High heels? Um, not for Lo! But they were worn here.
"Lolita". Another thing... Lolita was a pet name given to Lo by Humbert. Only by him, but no, in this version, EVERYONE was calling her "Lolita". Even her MOTHER! (I wonder what lurid info mamma had).
The mad Quilty was at most a silly nusance here. Not the menacing, forboding quiet giant of the novel. Just laughable. Why she even would be attracted to him in the first place from this version, I'm utterly perplexed.
I must say, watch the 1997 version staring Jeremy Irons. It was lush and warm,beautiful and atmospheric, full of subtlties and true character insight. Dominique Swain captured the true essence of a nymphet. Charming, bratty, innocent, but not at all innocent, in sneakers sucking a jawbreaker.I almost cried at the end of that movie there was so much emotion. You actually feel BAD for him that he cant be with his step-daughter. Sick, yes, but it follows the novel expertly. I'm sorry I was so hard on this movie, but Kubrik was hard on the book. I give it a D+.
Movie Review: Muy buena!
Summary: 4 Stars
Hab?a escuchado hablar mucho de esta pel?cula, pero no hab?a podido verla. Pues bien, por fin la vi y no me decepcion?. Muy buena en todos los sentidos. Grandes actuaciones. La recomiendo.Movie Review: Not the Novel, but a Good Film
Summary: 4 Stars
Maybe I'm more favorably disposed toward this film because I have no loyalty at all toward the novel. I had to put down the book, never to return, after the hotel scene in which Humbert screws his 12-year-old stepdaughter. That may be a vulgar way of putting it, but one of things I disliked about the novel was how the ugly facts of pedophila and child molestation got embellished in long passages of thick purple prose, the suffocating inner workings of Humbert's sick mind, which may ultimately have been the writer's objective but I found the whole premise too repulsive to continue.
As noted in another review here, Kubrick takes us out of Humbert's mind and observes Humbert objectively in context with others. And his Lolita is older than Nabokov's, looking more like 16, and acting like a wily and precocious femme fatale who makes fools of men of all ages. And since the men act like fools, it's natural that this would become a comedy, albeit a dark one. I can appreciate reviewers who object to the inclusion of Peter Sellers' shtick because it tends to trivialize the tone of the film; the bit with Sellers as the cliched Austrian psychoanalyst was maybe too TV, though the juxtaposition of this Goon Show-like character and Mason's carefully mannered, uptight Humbert was truly funny, especially the expression on Mason's face--almost as though he was thinking, "Kubrick, what the hell is going on here??". I think that Kubrick used Sellers to much better effect later in "Dr. Strangelove", which may have been the result of his experimenting with Sellers in "Lolita".
Anyway, on the whole the performances are good and there are great comedic moments. There is a tragic feel toward the end of the film as we see Humbert's pathetic attempts to maintain and protect his idealized life with Lolita as it rapidly falls apart, and Mason delivers a standout performance of this.
So, see the film on its own terms, don't expect the novel, and enjoy.
Summary of Lolita [VHS]
When director Stanley Kubrick released his film adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel about a hopelessly pathetic middle-aged professor's sexual obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, the ads read, "How did they ever make a film of Lolita?" The answer is "they" didn't. As he did with his "adaptations" of Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, and, especially, The Shining, Kubrick used the source material and, simply put, made another Stanley Kubrick movie--even though Nabokov himself wrote the screenplay. The chilly director nullifies Humbert Humbert's (James Mason's) overwhelming passion and desire, and instead transforms the story, like many of his films, into that of a man trapped and ruined by social codes and by his own obsessions. Kubrick doesn't play this as tragedy, however, but rather as both a black-as-coffee screwball comedy and a meandering, episodic road movie. The early scenes between Humbert, Lolita (a too-old but suitably teasing Lyons) and her loud, garish mother (Shelley Winters in one of her funniest performances) play like a wonderful farce. When Humbert finally fulfills his desires and captures Lolita, the pair hit the road and Kubrick drags in Peter Sellers. As the pedophilic writer Clare Quilty--Humbert's playful doppelg?nger and biggest threat--Sellers dons a series of disguises with plans of stealing Lolita away from her captor. It's here more than anywhere that Kubrick comes closest to the novel. He extends Nabokov's idea of the games and puzzles played between reader and writer, Quilty and Humbert, Lolita and Humbert, etc., to those between filmmaker and audience: the road eventually goes nowhere and Humbert's reality is exposed as mad delusion. Perhaps not a Kubrick masterpiece, or the provocative film many wanted, Lolita still remains playfully fascinating and one of Kubrick's strongest, funniest character studies. --Dave McCoyComedy Video
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