Lolita
Newly arrived in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, European Émigré Humbert Humbert is smitten. He plans to marry Charlotte Haze. That way he'll always be close to his dear one - Charlotte's precocious daughter!
Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick explores the theme of sexual obsession (a subject he would revisit 37 years later in Eyes Wide Shut) with his darkly comic and deeply moving version of Vladimir Nobokov's novel.
James Mason plays devious, deluded Humbert: wedded to needy Charlotte (Shelley Winters); rivaled by the ubiquitous Clare Quilty (chameleonlike Peter Sellers); and enraptured to his gelatinous core by the blithe teen (Sue Lyon) with that "lovely, lyrical, lilting name" - Lolita.
Member Reviews
Taboo! - telefon4
I thought Kubrick did a fantastic job of bring the controversial novel to the big screen. He fought censors to get what he wanted, and he did a fine job. Top performances from James Mason and the rest of the cast(Peter Sellers too), in this dark, dark comedy. This reminds me of Dr. Strangelove in tone-recommended.Dolores, Lo, Lolita - SAllende
Although Kubrick had to tone down the sexual aspects of the book for censorship reasons, it is not so subtle that the story loses its "zing".
The film is suprisingly comedic in the first half of the film, and all the actors/actresses are great. Sue Lyons plays the flirty young girl very well.
Great entertaining film.A painful film, brilliantly done - Moir
I was glad when I could stop watching this (meaning it was over) but I also later ended up pulling in others (who I knew had been 'there' and possibly shared my feelings) to 'look at this sequence of scenes, doesn't this catch ....... so brilliantly'.
The acting, certainly James Mason's, was incredible I thought .. he expressed such nuances so very very well as the person of some sensibility not only in the midst of but even psychologically enslaved to vapid absurdity - and Peter Sellers as Quilty in a performance (I should say performances) that was/were both, I felt, over the top, and also extraordinary apt in catching a certain genius for invasiveness of others and a kind of utterly toxic 'normality' [a kind of normality in the fashion of how anemones pose as ordinary vegetation as a way to catch their prey which they as carnivorous plants(?) require]... that I think of as characterising too much of my impression of tendencies in that poor afflicted pathology I sorrowfully feel is so manifested in my unpleasant memories of experiences of fairly modern American suburbia (and some though not all of its products).
I give it three not four stars despite its genius simply because it was so very painful to watch and I am not sure if it may not be a trifle toxic also ... although if you have been toxified by certain aspects of the feely, touchy hands on your soul manipulation from the 'I mean no harm but ...' invasiveness of American culture, then you might really find not only a kick in this movie but something of an antidote also ... Lolita in her tastelessness feels a kind of distillation of the vapid side of modern America and Humbert's obsession with her an image of the fate of all those cast 'upon its shores' and 'addicted' to it, perhaps, by some necessity. We can in this film lament their hell, as expressed in Humbert's situation by a brilliant writer, Nabokov, and a director of talent, Kubrick.
Member Reviews
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Taboo! - telefon4
I thought Kubrick did a fantastic job of bring the controversial novel to the big screen. He fought censors to get what he wanted, and he did a fine job. Top performances from James Mason and the rest of the cast(Peter Sellers too), in this dark, dark comedy. ...Dolores, Lo, Lolita - SAllende
Although Kubrick had to tone down the sexual aspects of the book for censorship reasons, it is not so subtle that the story loses its "zing".
The film is suprisingly comedic in the first half of the film, and all the actors/actresses are great. Sue ...A painful film, brilliantly done - Moir
I was glad when I could stop watching this (meaning it was over) but I also later ended up pulling in others (who I knew had been 'there' and possibly shared my feelings) to 'look at this sequence of scenes, doesn't this catch ....... so brilliantly'.
The ...