Last Night I Watched: Lolita (1962)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: James Mason, Peter Sellers, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters
Length: 152 minutes
Country: USA
Stanley Kubrick is most well-known for the epic, visually and aurally spectacular 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the visceral A Clockwork Orange (1971) and the cerebral The Shining (1980). While Kubrick is considered one of the best directors of the 21st Century, his earlier films are often overshadowed by his later more successful films and therefore overlooked. While his die-hard fans, and viewers from an older generation, praised the likes of Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and Paths of Glory (1957), Lolita (1962) and other Harris-Kubrick produced films have been somewhat overlooked and disregarded as examples of a director who is just finding his footing – they are often compared to his later films, a disservice that sees them only in comparison to his ‘proper’ works. Lolita (1962) is a darkly funny, satirical drama with some spectacular acting and beautiful cinematography. Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty shines in this adaptation, playing similar duplicitous roles as seen in Dr. Strangelove.
Adapted from the provocative novel by Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) provoked outrage from critics and readers for its explicit content and portrayal of a paedophile and his relationship with a young girl. After being banned in the UK for two years and delayed publishing, the novel was hailed a classic and it is considered one of the greatest works of the 20th century. Kubrick faced roadblocks from censors at the time and was unable to represent Lolita (Sue Lyon) and Humbert’s erotic relationship sufficiently, and commented in an interview with Joseph Gelmis, “If I could do the film over again, I would have stressed the erotic component of their relationship with the same weight Nabokov did.”
the dark and witty dialogue … makes the film stand out from the generic ‘forbidden romance’ genre
The opening credits quite nicely encompass the themes prevalent throughout the film, and display some early Kubrickian talent at work. A man’s hand gently holds a small dainty foot while delicately placing cotton wool between the toes. The man carefully paints each nail, and the camera lingers while soft, romantic music plays. At once, the forbidden nature of the love of a man for a young girl and his delicate submission to her are addressed, while the eroticism of their relationship is suggested at, but not explicitly shown.
The film starts at the end of the story, at a derelict castle strewn with old paintings, ornate statues and empty wine bottles. The confused state of the castle reflects its wacky, brilliant and mad resident Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers). He assumes multiple personas and they seem to be both used for his own amusement and used in order to remain anonymous and undetected by Humbert. We are introduced to one of the wonderful qualities of the film in this sequence; the dark and witty dialogue which makes the film stand out from the generic ‘forbidden romance’ genre. While the film is often criticised for its emphasis on dark humour and witty dialogue, resulting in a lack of engagement with character development, I feel the witty dialogue keeps the film from becoming an over-indulgent study of the psychology of a likeable paedophile.
Quilty is the eccentric antidote to Humbert’s old European poetics in the film – openly mocking him and his generic over-zealous letter (perfectly encapsulating Humbert’s old fashioned nature, he hands Quilty a letter of his wrongdoings rather than openly telling him). There are a few self-reflexive moments in this scene, as Quilty asks ‘No… I’m Spartacus, you come to free the slaves or something?’ and comments that he knows tragedy and comedy as a playwright. This Spartacus line is probably a comment on Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960), in which he struggled for total artistic freedom and ended up distancing himself and ultimately criticising the over-indulgent script. The opening sequence of Lolita is packed full of witty lines and ironic dialogue, as Quilty sings and plays piano, ‘She’s mine…Yours! She’s yours…’ Much of the humour is of course provided by Sellers throughout the film, but the moments of innuendo shine through in other places also. Lolita’s summer camp is aptly named ‘Camp Climax’ and her mother Charlotte (Shelley Winters), who Humbert marries, notes at a party to Quilty ‘She’s going to have a cavity filled by your uncle Ivor’ – he giggles in delight and we are persuaded to laugh with him. Moments like this are rife in the film, along with a few scatterings of visual irony, a standout for me being an early exchange between Charlotte and Humbert ‘What was the decisive factor? My garden?’ and Humbert’s reply ‘I think it was your cherry pies’ – cue a close up shot of a longing-looking Lolita staring at Humbert. Winters’ performance as the desperate housewife also adds another note of absurdity and tragedy to the film, which contrasts Mason’s uptight and standoffish performance creating tension between the characters.
Of course, what cannot be forgotten about Lolita are the instances of beautiful cinematography. The famous reveal of Lolita, somehow glowing with a halo effect reminiscent of old glamour soft focus photography, lingers in the mind long after the end of the film. It seems that Humbert’s imagination and the film’s reality intermingles here and produces something quite extraordinary and memorable. Similar scenes which frame her body in a quite provocative but beautiful way are seen later in the film, which capture the erotic way in which she is portrayed in the novel.
There are so many stand-out moments in this film which make it truly enjoyable. The film is both tragic, absurd, funny and stunning, and should be regarded as a re-thinking or re-imagining of the classic novel. It is very easy to get bogged down with comparing the two, which tends to do both the novel and the film an injustice. They are both different pieces and should really be considered as such. Of course, Lolita has its faults and failings in places which are perhaps magnified as Kubrick is considered such a great director who doesn’t make such mistakes, and this is perhaps an explanation of why it has fallen through the gaps of the film canon. Adrian Lyne’s Lolita (1997) is quite different but doesn’t have the same witty dialogue or the brilliant Peter Sellers. Lolita is definitely worth watching and a must see for Kubrick enthusiasts.
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