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Besson's Leon
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Yes, I have seen Besson's Leon and the similarities with Lolita are indeed
very striking (they go from hotel to hotel, too, for instance). There is a
director's cut, with app. 20 min. extra footage (available on DVD and
Blu-Ray), which the director had to cut for the theatrical release and which
contains scenes of the girl falling in love with Leon, the hitman. Nathalie
Portman at the time was twelve (!) and her parents were more concerned about
the scenes in which she smokes (four) than with the sexual implications
('Actually, he's not my dad; he's my lover.'). Note the scene in which she
wakes up next to Leon and pulls her knickers up (in the director's cut this
scene is prequeled by one in which she gets drunk on champagne).
Kubrick's version is lame and he himself admitted it. I have never
understood his adoration of Peter Sellers.
Adrian Lynne's version is somewhat better in some scenes (the fights between
Lo and Hum; Quilty's (played by Langela, who is known for his romantic role
as Dracula and who shows his swinging penis in this movie) killing; the
famous dialogue on the veranda ('Where the hell did you get her?'). The
sequence with Annabel Leigh is horrible! Jeremy Irons is very convincing and
the ideal HH, because he has the neurotic qualities of HH and tics which Lo
mocks in the novel. It was a good choice of the scenarist/director *not* to
start the movie with the first lines of the book.
The thing is: Nabokov's literary fireworks and unconventionalism should be
translated in cinematographic equivalents. In the novel we are inside HH
world and mind; in the movie we necessarily see him in the third person. The
ideal director should be a HH himself. Someone with the virtuosity, skills,
deep knowledge of movies and disrespect for cinematic conventions as
Scorsese - just as HH is in regard to literature and language.
Best,
Hafid Bouazza
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very striking (they go from hotel to hotel, too, for instance). There is a
director's cut, with app. 20 min. extra footage (available on DVD and
Blu-Ray), which the director had to cut for the theatrical release and which
contains scenes of the girl falling in love with Leon, the hitman. Nathalie
Portman at the time was twelve (!) and her parents were more concerned about
the scenes in which she smokes (four) than with the sexual implications
('Actually, he's not my dad; he's my lover.'). Note the scene in which she
wakes up next to Leon and pulls her knickers up (in the director's cut this
scene is prequeled by one in which she gets drunk on champagne).
Kubrick's version is lame and he himself admitted it. I have never
understood his adoration of Peter Sellers.
Adrian Lynne's version is somewhat better in some scenes (the fights between
Lo and Hum; Quilty's (played by Langela, who is known for his romantic role
as Dracula and who shows his swinging penis in this movie) killing; the
famous dialogue on the veranda ('Where the hell did you get her?'). The
sequence with Annabel Leigh is horrible! Jeremy Irons is very convincing and
the ideal HH, because he has the neurotic qualities of HH and tics which Lo
mocks in the novel. It was a good choice of the scenarist/director *not* to
start the movie with the first lines of the book.
The thing is: Nabokov's literary fireworks and unconventionalism should be
translated in cinematographic equivalents. In the novel we are inside HH
world and mind; in the movie we necessarily see him in the third person. The
ideal director should be a HH himself. Someone with the virtuosity, skills,
deep knowledge of movies and disrespect for cinematic conventions as
Scorsese - just as HH is in regard to literature and language.
Best,
Hafid Bouazza
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/