Lolita

Did anyone like the Adrian lyne’s remake?

More faithful to the book, but less interesting than Kubrick’s.

I would argue that Kubrick’s film is MORE faithful to the book in that Sellers’ beyond brilliant performance evokes the baroque majesty of Nabokov’s prose. And that’s a far more important aspect that quibbles over Sue Lyon’s age or sexual “explicitness.” James Mason and Shelley Winters are likewise perfect and Nabokov himself praised Sue Lyon to the skies — especially for the scene where she brings Humber’ts breakfast tray, eating all the bacon as she does.

And also making him swallow that cold runny egg.

I only saw Lyne’s version once, and was put off by the stridency and latter-day license he was allowed. (Not to mention an overall ponderousness that weighed a ton.) The more-stringent limitations navigated by Kubrick forced him to be more creative, resulting in a far better film in spite of its times. The earlier version is much more humorous – per the delicious wordplay of Nabokov – and the shooting of Quilty is beautifully and understatedly staged (unlike the unnecessarily graphic slo-mo bloodletting in the do-over). There are some things to like about Lyne’s version, but Kubrick (and Sellers, particularly) obviously had fun with theirs. More winking than wanking, if you will. And I’ll take my sexual proclivities with humor any day, thank you much.

I thought Jeremy Irons’ captured the melancholy of Humbert Humbert much more effectively. The character’s motivations for loving her seemed more clear in Lyne’s version, and, as in the novel, much more desperate than creepy.

I’d cite Irons’ underrated work alongside Heath Ledger’s re-imagining of The Joker. Jack Nicholson had defined the cinematic translation of the character (just as Sellers’ brilliant take had in Lolita’s case), but Ledger brought a gravity to the role that transcended my expectations.

Lyne must have known from the start that he was undertaking quite a task. Not only adapting such a challenging and controversial piece, but doing it in Kubrick’s gargantuan shadow. I think he had a lot of love for the source material, and I think that really came across onscreen.

I like them equally. The “original” possesses much merit simply due to Kubrick himself. It’s b/w which is a plus. It has Sellers and he’s inimitable. I haven’t read the novel so I can’t comment on which version is more faithful. Shelley Winters was superb.

Lyne’s version has assets that outstrip Kubrick’s, I believe. I prefer the young actress here over Sue Lyons. I absolutely love the score. I had much more sympathy for Irons’ character than I did for Mason’s portrayal.

The biggest contrast for me was how much better, much, much better Shelley Winters was as Lolita’s mother.

It’ one of Shelley’s very greatest roles. Who can forget her “Let’s have our coffee out on the piazza” ?

I like the original for many of the reasons cited, but I also wish it could have been a bit less stiff because of censorship fears (Stanley said that had he realized how much resistance there was going to be, he likely wouldn’t have attempted it.)
Shelly, James and Peter were great; Sue Lyon was ok, but just a bit too mannered for my taste. Dominique Swain, on the other hand, was too bratty at times to sustain the kind of timeless allure she’s supposed to embody. Jeremy Irons I thought did a good job in a role that has been owned for so many years by Mason.

I think we need a third version. How about a French director? or Japanese? Maybe Almodovar should tackle this one. The mind boggles…

Claus, I have not seen the newer adaptation, but the Lolita of the novel is bratty, making Humbert’s obsession with her all the more pathetic. Though it may not have worked in the film, I think the actress was probably trying to play it as the character in the book was written.

Shelley,

Point taken; I have not read Nabokov in a long time, so maybe I just need to brush up. A case of where my expectation (wishful thinking?) perhaps colored my view.

Claus,

I only pointed that out from a sense of duty as a Lolita-lover. However, though I haven’t seen the new film, I can understand the character being played too bratty, in a film as serious as this one apparently is, seeming wrong. It was great in the first movie because it was supposed to be a comedy. It worked in the book because of Nabokov’s brilliant writing. However, stripped of that sparkling prose and played as a tragedy, I imagine it would just seem silly that a seemingly-sophisticated grown man would be going crazy over such a crass child. So, I imagine you were right in your assessment that it just didn’t work.

I’ve been resisting this, but feel compelled to weigh-in, even though Mr. Wilson, I thought, pretty much closed the book on the two films earlier.

But it’s that damn book itself that has always been the problem. Vladimir Nabokov’s book, I mean. It was always unfilmable, and not only because of its subject matter and the code. The novel was all words, pure language. Kubrick somehow got a screenplay out of the old Russian. It was no doubt money and vanity that got Vladimir to go along. But then wisely, brilliantly, Kubricdk tossed it aside and went his own way, and made a brilliant movie. And the world shuddered.

I went back a few minutes ago and pulled up the New York Times review from June 14, 1962, written by that old pedant, Bosley Crowther, which begins: “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita? The answer to that question, posed in the advertisements of the picture, which arrived at the Loew’s State and the Murray Hill last night, is as simple as this. They didn’t.”

Well, thank god “they”/he didn’t. What we got instead was a great American comedy (and yes, yes, yes … shot in England), a classic, and one of the best films I know. Kubrick wisely began with the end — what shall we call this scene: ‘the little lovely game of Roman ping-pong’ sequence — immediately announcing his intentions: black comedy today, tragedy some other time. This remains one of the most dazzling openings in the history of film.

And the players! Winters was always a wonderful character actress but this was her star turn and she was perfect. Sellers was Sellers being Sellers and he did no harm to the film. But James Mason: he has never been given his due for what he made of Humbert Humbert. Sue Lyon? She was okay. But any sexy, long-legged teenager would have sufficed. Despite the title, this wasn’t Lo’s story anyway, it was Humbert’s. And Mason took Humbert way, way out there.

If Lyne’s objective was to correct the record and make a film more true to the book, it was a fool’s errand, and one he didn’t pull off.

If twenty years from now there is still an “auteurs” site, which I doubt, and if they are chatting on the subject of LOLITA, I know which one we/they will be talking about.

I liked Lynes version better and i am a huge Kubrick fan!

Both Lolitas in both versions are slightly too old. Lolita isn’t a high school girl already dating boys. She’s a pre-pubescent. That’s what makes the novel so outrageous. Humbert Humbert is more than a dirty old man, he has a real problem (because of the Anabel Lee fixation). The fact that Clare Quilty has the same problem is Nabokov’s great sardonic joke, of course — that even a thirteen or fourteen year old girl will sleep around on you. Or that the world is never short on “perverts.”

MMoore says it all re the difference between the novel Lolita and the film by Kubrick – very well put. I have no intention of seeing this remake, even though I am normally a fan of Irons – you cannot improve on Kubrick’s handling. I generally hate remakes of great films – why would I want to spoil a good memory? It’s like trying to find an exact substitute for your first love – can’t be done, as it would be a travesty to the first. I have seen enough of the more recent version to know it cannot ‘replace’ the first. I have not seen the remake of Brideshead Revisited, for similar reasons.

As MMoore points out, the book is too brilliant and literary to ever get an ‘exact’ film rendering. Nabakov is one of my favourite ‘light’ novelist, and this was as close to a masterpiece as he ever got (at least, in his English novels). Kubrick did the best anyone can – and that cast! I know we can all give Sue Lyon a rough time, but I was close enough to her age when I saw it to remember her fondly and those posters of her. But she could not possibly have had the acting range at her age and inexperience to hold her own with the likes of Winters, Mason, and Sellers. I think she was completely acceptable. She was also older than the real Lolita – but Kubrick knew it could never be made if he cast a 12 year old in the part. Lyon had the perfect ‘look’ for Kubrick’s version.

Light novelist? That’s the last description I’d ever use for him. I think he’s America’s literary heavyweight champion of the last half of the 20th Century. There aren’t many American novels of the same period that can touch “Lolita” or “Pale Fire” and few memoirs that I know of that can touch “Speak, Memory.”

The best thing that came out of the whole Lyne business was that Jeremy Irons made an absolutely brilliant unabridged reading of the novel, which I believe is still available.

I normally hate listening to books on tape, but I would love to hear Jeremy Irons do anything, even recount his destructive sexual obsession with a pre-adolescent girl.

I hate to bring back a topic that seems to have run its course, but I was just watching one of the extras on my Criterion DVD of ‘Pierrot le Fou’ and, as the tennis footage from the opening of the film was shown, I felt the need to go back and the description of Lo playing tennis. It has been a while since I last read the book, but the beauty of those few pages alone left me breathless. So, I don’t have much to add to the topic, I just felt the need to express my total awe towards one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century.

i love this book and i love kubrick’s far-removed variation. lyne’s however, while seemingly ‘more faithful’ to the book (which is a magnificent novel [iron’s reading of the audiobook is also one of those rare ones; a wonderful audiobook]) is a sham (though irons performance is inspired and may be worth watching if only for his performance). like all of lyne’s films which i have seen (flashdance, 9 1/2 weeks, fatal attraction, indecent proposal, lolita) it comes across as ultimately misogynistic. lyne is one director i’ve never been able to stomach, he’s an astute filmmaker with a shallow abusive mind at least when it comes to women.

The Kubrick version is masterful.

Yeah, there’s certain things I like about both versions. Kubrick’s film admittedly took more liberties with some narrative things, but he really captured the “feel” and mood of Nabakov’s novel, and that’s really an important aspect of the novel that you don’t really notice until it’s taken away as in Lyne’s version. So, I like Kubrick’s version a lot, but it’s not a perfect film either, though it is the best film adaptation of the novel out there.

Lyne’s version may have been more faithful in a purely “transcriptive” (new word?) sense, but it took a much more darker and realistic slant. I really liked Jeremy Irons in the film, but I usually do simply because he’s an emotive and fearless actor (who happens to misstep quite a bit … but that’s for another thread). When I first saw Lyne’s version I really liked it BECAUSE it was so dark and treated the material so realistically, but after I re-read the novel and watched the film again, you could really tell that a lot was lost in not retaining Nabokov’s mood in the novel.

I’m not a major fan of Lyne’s work, but I really liked Jacob’s Ladder (a film that doesn’t receive much love in this forum), I’m not gonna lie. It’s an awkward, inconsistent film, but for me, it worked. Other than that and parts of Lolita though, I think Lyne’s a terrible director who has a “tin ear” for adapting, heh.

“Nabakov is one of my favourite ‘light’ novelist…”

I also disagree with describing Nabakov as a “light” novelist. Perhaps in the sense that his tone is often whimsical, but certainly not “light” in the sense of importance or talent.