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Lolita

United States, United Kingdom

1962

152 Min
Black and White
1.37:1
French, English
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
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DIR Stanley Kubrick

EXEC Eliot Hyman

PROD James B. Harris

SCR Vladimir Nabokov, Stanley Kubrick

DP Oswald Morris

CAST James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers

ED Anthony Harvey

MUSIC Nelson Riddle

Venice (In Competition), AFI FEST

Synopsis

Humbert Humbert walks into the disordered mansion of amoral television playwright Clare Quilty and shoots the drunken, mocking author. Humbert then recalls the events that began 4 years earlier: Newly arrived from England, Humbert, a staid middle-aged professor and translator of French poetry, plans to spend the summer in New Hampshire before moving on to a position as a lecturer at an Ohio college. Charlotte Haze, a sexually frustrated widow, is anxious to rent him a room in her house, but her overbearing manner nearly drives him away until he meets her precocious adolescent daughter, Lolita. The girl so arouses Humbert’s passion that to be near her he marries Charlotte, meanwhile recording his impressions of mother and daughter in a diary. Charlotte’s possessiveness soon awakens murderous desires in Humbert, but the problem of her presence is solved when she reads his diary and, hysterical, runs into the path of an automobile. Humbert retrieves Lolita from the summer camp where her mother had disposed of her and drives with her to Ohio, enrolling her in a private school. Lolita’s interest in boys gives him no peace, however, and their relationship becomes strained as she chafes at his interference. When he discovers that Lolita has used the cover of her performance in a school play for meetings with an unknown man, Humbert takes her from school. They embark on a cross-country trip, but Humbert suspects that they are being followed. Both fall ill, and Lolita, hospitalized, disappears one night from her hospital room. Some time later, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita in which she reveals that she is married and pregnant and asks for financial help. When he visits her, she tells him that she left him for Quilty, who, in various disguises, pursued and tormented Humbert wherever he went with Lolita. Quilty abandoned the girl when she balked at becoming part of his “weird” circle, and she married a younger man. Humbert, his pride gone, begs her to come back to him, but she refuses, preferring to remain with her husband. His world at an end, Humbert gives Lolita all of his money and then goes to find Quilty. [An epilog explains that Humbert dies of a heart attack in prison.] —Turner Classic Movies

Director

Original

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was born in New York, and was considered intelligent despite poor grades at school. Hoping that a change of scenery would produce better academic performance, Kubrick’s father Jack (a physician) sent him in 1940 to Pasadena, California, to stay with his uncle Martin Perveler. Returning to the Bronx in 1941 for his last year of grammar school, there seemed to be little change in his attitude or his results. Hoping to find something to interest his son, Jack introduced Stanley to chess, with the desired result. Kubrick took to the game passionately, and quickly became a skilled player. Chess would become an important device for Kubrick in later years, often as a tool for dealing with recalcitrant actors, but also as an artistic motif in his films.

Jack Kubrick’s decision to give his son a camera for his thirteenth birthday would be an even wiser move: Kubrick became an avid photographer, and would often make trips around New York taking photographs which he would… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 48 wall posts.
Picture of Sarah Grace

Sarah Grace

23May12

Humbert Humbert, the poor fool.

Picture of Harry Rossi

Harry Rossi

13May12

An absolutely perfect movie and seeing it again in a theater was magical. James Mason is insanely great and an absolute pleasure to watch. Like every Kubrick film, every aspect and detail about it is completely and 100% perfect. I swear to god I get chills just by seeing "Directed by Stanley Kubrick" in the opening credits of any of his movies.

Picture of Wesley Emblidge

Wesley Emblidge

9May12

I enjoyed most of it, but what really bugged me was never really buying Humbert being in love with Lolita. Didn't destroy the film for me or anything, but was annoying.

Picture of Ross Patterson

Ross Patterson

24Apr12

Great film. Some fantastic performances and further example of Kubrick honing his craft.

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Articles

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W184

The Auteurs Daily: Bright Lights

By David Hudson on August 3, 2009

A new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal slipped online over the weekend

read article

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Reviews

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Lo-lee-ta

By Fritz on November 25, 2010

Kubrick: one of the most versatile directors ever lived. You saw him dealt with an epic, a period film, a science fiction, a horror, and so on. Lolita.. This would be the fifth Kubrick film, I think…  read review

Des douleurs et des roses

By Theolin​i on June 18, 2010
Il est rare de commencer un récit par sa conclusion. Moins de nos jours, mais bien plus singulier pour une tragédie. C’est bien cette antique histoire des Hommes qui intéresse ici Vladimir Nabokov à l’écriture…

Untitled

The movie is just wrong! The book is focusing on Humberts deep feelings, moral strugle with his whishes and temptations… It’s a incredibly great study of good and evil/wrong and the human character…  read review

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Lolita

22 posts by 12 people about 2 years ago