Lolita

Rating:
Summary: Not Stanley Kubricks Best but a Good Film in it's own right.
Review: "Lolita" is a disturbing film that had it been made today (especially by Stanley Kubrick) would probably be much more graphic and much more controversial.The story is essentially a love story although it's also a story about child exploitation and obsession.Now I don't know anyone who's even seen a Stanley Kubrick film so I don't really know how people feel about this film but I think it was good.James Mason plays Humbert Humbert who's going to teach another semester at a college but needs a temporary place to live.He shacks up with an obnoxious woman for the sole purpose of being close to her 12 year old daughter Lolita (Sue Lyons). After Lolita is sent to camp, Humbert marries the woman so he can be even closer to Lolita. But the mother is hit by a car after finding Humberts journal revealing some of his thoughts about her and Lolita. Humbert is left to raise Lolita and enrolls her in a new school and begins teaching at a college.All the while he's also (unknowingly) trying to keep playwright Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) away from Lolita. Quilty is a bit more obsessed about Lolita than Humbert is and will stop at pretty much nothing to have her for himself. The movie is quite sad and heartbreaking. I felt sorry for a lot of the characters even Humbert as it turns out. Kubrick is good at making things that aren't creepy be creepy like the part where Sellers sits in Humberts house. That scene is weirdly creepy for some reason although there is nothing even remotely creepy about it. That's another thing that makes Stanley Kubrick an overly talented director.This is not even close to being his best film but it's a good film.B+.

Rating:
Summary: A Funnier Stanley Kubrick film.
Review: Stanley Kubrick is my all-time favorite director. Even with his less well regarded later works I have always found something to redeem them. "Lolita" is another story. I could care less if I never see this film again. It's nothing inherent in the production of this film. The movies tag-line asks the question,"Who would want to make a film of "Lolita?" That begs the question, "Why would anyone want to make a film of "Lolita?" I found the film's source material, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, to be perverse. Even with the restrictions laid down by the production code in 1962 this film still seems tawdry. I feel like I need a shower after watching it. That is not to dismiss the technical attributes of the film. Kubrick is still a master storyteller. Nor, the work of the main actors,James Mason, Peter Sellers, Shelley Winters, and Sue Lyon. It's just that so much enterprise was put into a project with so much talent and it just wasn't worth the effort.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies ever
Review: I will never get bored of this movie. I can watch it over and over and still love every minute of it. Of course it's not all like the book...but really, like someone else said: why should it be? It shouldnt!
James Mason does a marvelous job. I love his voice (also narrating the Tale Tell Heart, cartoon verison). Sue Lyon does great, as does Winters.
The music in the film is so catchy! I love Lolita Ya Ya. It will be stuck in my head forever!

Rating:
Summary: A cult movie!
Review: This is a sublime adaptation of Nabokov ' s novel . This a controversial story of a man in the critical age who suddenly is infauted with a "nymphet" . Satiric script around the consequences derivated from an unhappy decision .
In the cinema story we must to remind The blue angel (Joseph von Sternberg) that is very close in that spirit and Tristana (Luis Buñuel) about another novel of Benito Perez Galdos and more recently the famous Sam Mendes film American beauty .
In this case the perpetual and present of the nymphet in the emotional , afective and disturbing world of a man in the middle age causes a fatal atraction that slowly will be growing in intensity and high caliber drama . The reflections about the double moral about the thin line between the rol of father and passionate man are difuse. James Mason made one of his best works in the screen and Peter Sellers is amazing too . And considering Kubrick as director , How can you lose this game?
Superb!

Rating:
Summary: Nice movie, but it's not Nabokov's "Lolita"
Review: If ever the statement that the movie is not as good as the book is true, it applies to Kubrick's "Lolita". I really like the movie on its own, but it bears little resemblance to the novel (my favorite) other than young girl/old man, the names, and the broadest structure of the story.

Problem areas:

1. Age - by Humbert's definition, a nymphet is between 9 and 14 years old. Sue Lyons was too old, and looked even older. Mason was about 10 years too old as well, and not really the "glamor man" Lo would be attracted to (as in the book).
2. Disregard for the content of the novel - by ignoring the screenplay written by the original author and making up other scenes that were not part of the book, it makes one wonder what story was being told.
3. Location - in the novel, Humbert and Lolita travel 27,000 miles in the course of a couple years, and geography plays a substantial part in the book. Filming in England provides little geography and motel-hopping lifestyle that was so prevalent in the novel.
4. The same three things in both versions of the movie bother me, as I feel it robs Humbert of some nuance to his character:
A. No mention of his pre-Lolita first wife, Valeria. He was not always just into nymphets.
B. No mention of his post-Lolita second wife, Rita, (and taping a goodbye note to her navel so she would find it as he goes off to track down Lo).
C. The last page-and-a-half from the book was left out. This is possibly the most moving passage of the novel - when Humbert offers his apology for all his nastiness, and his admonition to Lolita, and the revelation that neither Lolita nor Humbert are alive as we read the book, and his pathetic summation..."I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita." It ties everything together and completes the circle.

Strengths:

1. Acting - this was good by the 4 prime characters - Lolita (Sue Lyons), Humbert (James Mason), Charlotte (Shelley Winters) and Quilty (Peter Sellers).
2. Cinematography - nicely filmed, in black-and-white.

This is a good movie - but it certainly is not Nabokov's "Lolita".

Rating:
Summary: The Remake is a Better Film
Review: I was surprised, after seeing both versions of Lolita back to back, that again and again people were calling the original a classic, even a masterpiece, while never having seen the 1997 version.

The original is drab, lacking in sensuality, atmosphere and character depth. Yes, the first hour is devoted to the household of Lo with her mother and more time is devoted to Quilty, who is distractingly entertaining in a number of unnecessary scenes.

Yes, Kubrick is regarded as one of the best filmmakers of all time. But this film is proof that even artists have their limitations when it comes to theme and mood. Kubrick has never been sexy or warm, not even perverse, as Humbert must be explored in all of these contexts as an adult in love with a child.

The story is about the exchange of power and affection between two individuals who should not be indulging in such an unhealthy intimacy. It is not about Charlotte getting drunk at a party, or how many accents Sellers can provide, it is about a human connection and the audiences' judgement of that connection.

It is interesting that Nabakov wrote the screenplay- when he had created such a lusty, colorful novel as Lolita. All color, literally, is lost in the 2 act film adaptation. Lyne made a film with vision, beauty and disturbing performances that do the novel justice. It gives a lot for an artist to think about when the best choices for a film is other than one of the world's most renowned directors and the novel's own author . . .