Lolita (1962)

Lolita (1962)
Director: Stanley Kubrick

When people tell me that this film doesn’t follow the novel I like to point out that Nabokov wrote much of the screenplay for this film and he completely approved of the final product, so you can’t tell me this film doesn’t follow his intentions.

This film is very different from the 1997 version. It is really a dark comedy whereas Adrian Lyne’s version was a drama. It doesn’t have a lot of emotion until near the very end, but it does really touch on the moral and ethical issues that the book raises.

Kubrick approaches the subject matter delicately, partially I think because of what was allowed on the screen at that time, but it is exactly what the film needed. The physical relationship between Humbert and Lolita is not really the important part of the story; its really about motives and subtext.

Humbert in this film is very sneaky, conniving and manipulative. There is scene where he is reading Charlottes love letter and laughing uncontrollably, and yet he ends up marrying her anyway to get closer to Lolita. This is really who Humbert is at his core. And yet by the end of the film we see that what was initially obsession with Lolita has turned to genuine love. He is a character that shocks us a bit, and yet at the same time we sympathize with his predicament.

Sue Lyon gave a much more nuanced performance than Dominique Swain (who just came across as a spoiled brat). Her dual role as an immature yet crafty young girl is spot on.

Although James Mason and Sue Lyon give great performances, it is the two supporting characters that really deserve the most praise. Shelly Winters as Charlotte plays the lonely but annoying and overbearing mother to perfection. Peter Sellers is hilarious as Quilty; I think he always did best when he was playing multiple characters with disguises and foreign accents.

Overall this film was well done and closer I think to the spirit of the book even if it didn’t follow the plot exactly. I like it as much as the Adrian Lyne version, but for entirely different reasons. If only someone could combine the best parts of these two films into one.

My Rating: 4 out of 5