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[NABOKOV-L] "Lolita & Mathilda" and Kieslowsky's "Decalogue IV"
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[ Nab-L Archives from 30 Apr 2005 James Twiggs Subject: Filming Humbert's pedophilia]
excerpts:
The biggest obstacle to portraying Humbert's pedophilia on screen...is the character of Lolita. If a girl of the right age were chosen for the role--a girl of eleven or twelve--very few of us could bear to watch the movie. Imagine, for example, the Natalie Portman of LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL, the Brooke Shields of PRETTY BABY, or the Tatum O'Neal of PAPER MOON going through those famous--and, in the written version, hilarious--contortions on Humbert's lap or selling him sex for quarters...Humbert's monstrousness impossible to disguise or mitigate (one shocking picture easily blowing away a thousand lovely words). But with older girls in the role--Sue Lyon or Dominique Swain--the question of pedophilia is easily got around... Justine Brown ...said of Sue lyon's Lolita: "Of course, that fully formed, lush blond teeny-bopper -- a girl any red-blooded man would admire -- had nothing in common with the radiant, coltish, brown-haired child who caught Humbert's eye." (Brown, "Lusting after 'Lolita,'" Salon, July 31,1998.) ...In LEON, a
twelve-year-old Madonna-cloned waif becomes dependent upon and then actively pursues the man who has become her protector--a man who also
happens to be a professional killer. If Leon (a very decent man indeed, at least in his step-fatherly capacity) had let Mathilda seduce him, and even if they had gone off to live happily ever after, the movie would no doubt have been banned. But it's all right, apparently, if he takes her on jobs and teaches her to kill. (A good part of Mathilda's time is spent cleaning, and otherwise handling, Leon's guns. As either Freud or Nabokov might have said, a gun is sometimes only a cigar.). For a fascinating and terribly depressing account of real-life pedophilia in action, have a look at the attached story from the Los Angeles Times. The relevance of this to LOLITA is that although Humbert is not a denizen of the world described in the Times article*--he is capable, for all his faults, of real tenderness and perhaps of morally significant remorse--this is precisely the world in which Quilty is most at home. Part of the genius of the novel is to distinguish between these two men, and the worlds they inhabit, even while suggesting how close they are to being two of a kind. It is a further part of the genius of the book that, of the two men, Lolita herself...vastly prefers the worst of them. It is he who breaks her heart, and not merely her life. Such complexity--and the complexity of PRETTY BABY and of LEON--is perhaps part of what Kellie Dawson is getting at in ... For those who haven't read Brown's piece, here's the URL: http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/07/31feature.html
JM: While keeping in mind Carolyn's comments [Are you arguing that Nabokov knew this film, or the story ("Lili")? Or are you arguing that Gallico was thinking of Lolita? What is the point? Lots of young girls are abused in lots of ways in lots of literature - - what on earth has it got to do with Nabokov?] I would like to add one more movie about the matter of father-daughter incest (Oedipus and Jocasta are touchingly referred in Bertolucci's "La Luna"), namely, Kieslowski's 1988 "Dekalog"** In the episode related to the Biblical "Honor thy father and thy mother," a girl fantasises that her father, who raised her alone after her mother died in child-birth, is not her genitor. She tries to entrap her long life companion into confessing his sexual attraction for her (which is in fact shown when he gasps at the countours of her womanly body seen through a transparent wet nightgown), considering only the biological determinants in incest, instead of the symbolic link that unites father-figures and their charges. In this movie Kieslowsli succeeds in portraying a girl's incestuous wishes, set side by side with a father's love and respect for his daughter (independently of the genetic barrier). In "Lolita" we get two different characters and both are perverts: if Humbert Humbert is Lolita's "father-surrogate" and we witness a kind of incest by their love-making, the Oedipal issue involved is secondary for, as I see it, neither Quilty nor Humbert can be "fathers". They are sexually immature adults who cannot perceive social distinctions, nor realize the distinction between different generations ( what is designated by father/grand-father/son/uncle/mother/aunt aso). The main subject, in "Lolita" is, indeed, perversion and not incest, and the pervert's pedophilia. There's not much space, in Nabokov's novel, for the normal erotic dreams in a young child or Lolita's subjectivity, nor any real father's conflicts or failings.
One of the important issues Twiggs raises, in his commentary, is the pervert's double portrayal through Humbert and Quilty ("the different worlds they inhabit...how close they are to being two of a kind"). Apparently a nymphet's (Lolita) ghostly presence in novel and culture occupies the center of the stage (Nabokov, at a certain point, said that it is Lolita, no he who is famous), instead of the dynamics of corrupt stagnated adults. This is why I would not link LEON, LILI, DEKALOG to Nabokov's novel (the adult characters are not perverts).
I cannot remember "Paper Moon" and very little of "Pretty Baby" (but the latter, as I recollect, deals with worldwide child prostitution, as we have in the murkiest sickest chapters of "ADA" and what motivates and upholds its "Villa Venus")
* - I couldn't recover the attach with the Times article and Kellie Dawson's arguments.
** - Kieslowski stated in an interview on his "deep-rooted conviction": "if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all...Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division."
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excerpts:
The biggest obstacle to portraying Humbert's pedophilia on screen...is the character of Lolita. If a girl of the right age were chosen for the role--a girl of eleven or twelve--very few of us could bear to watch the movie. Imagine, for example, the Natalie Portman of LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL, the Brooke Shields of PRETTY BABY, or the Tatum O'Neal of PAPER MOON going through those famous--and, in the written version, hilarious--contortions on Humbert's lap or selling him sex for quarters...Humbert's monstrousness impossible to disguise or mitigate (one shocking picture easily blowing away a thousand lovely words). But with older girls in the role--Sue Lyon or Dominique Swain--the question of pedophilia is easily got around... Justine Brown ...said of Sue lyon's Lolita: "Of course, that fully formed, lush blond teeny-bopper -- a girl any red-blooded man would admire -- had nothing in common with the radiant, coltish, brown-haired child who caught Humbert's eye." (Brown, "Lusting after 'Lolita,'" Salon, July 31,1998.) ...In LEON, a
twelve-year-old Madonna-cloned waif becomes dependent upon and then actively pursues the man who has become her protector--a man who also
happens to be a professional killer. If Leon (a very decent man indeed, at least in his step-fatherly capacity) had let Mathilda seduce him, and even if they had gone off to live happily ever after, the movie would no doubt have been banned. But it's all right, apparently, if he takes her on jobs and teaches her to kill. (A good part of Mathilda's time is spent cleaning, and otherwise handling, Leon's guns. As either Freud or Nabokov might have said, a gun is sometimes only a cigar.). For a fascinating and terribly depressing account of real-life pedophilia in action, have a look at the attached story from the Los Angeles Times. The relevance of this to LOLITA is that although Humbert is not a denizen of the world described in the Times article*--he is capable, for all his faults, of real tenderness and perhaps of morally significant remorse--this is precisely the world in which Quilty is most at home. Part of the genius of the novel is to distinguish between these two men, and the worlds they inhabit, even while suggesting how close they are to being two of a kind. It is a further part of the genius of the book that, of the two men, Lolita herself...vastly prefers the worst of them. It is he who breaks her heart, and not merely her life. Such complexity--and the complexity of PRETTY BABY and of LEON--is perhaps part of what Kellie Dawson is getting at in ... For those who haven't read Brown's piece, here's the URL: http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/07/31feature.html
JM: While keeping in mind Carolyn's comments [Are you arguing that Nabokov knew this film, or the story ("Lili")? Or are you arguing that Gallico was thinking of Lolita? What is the point? Lots of young girls are abused in lots of ways in lots of literature - - what on earth has it got to do with Nabokov?] I would like to add one more movie about the matter of father-daughter incest (Oedipus and Jocasta are touchingly referred in Bertolucci's "La Luna"), namely, Kieslowski's 1988 "Dekalog"** In the episode related to the Biblical "Honor thy father and thy mother," a girl fantasises that her father, who raised her alone after her mother died in child-birth, is not her genitor. She tries to entrap her long life companion into confessing his sexual attraction for her (which is in fact shown when he gasps at the countours of her womanly body seen through a transparent wet nightgown), considering only the biological determinants in incest, instead of the symbolic link that unites father-figures and their charges. In this movie Kieslowsli succeeds in portraying a girl's incestuous wishes, set side by side with a father's love and respect for his daughter (independently of the genetic barrier). In "Lolita" we get two different characters and both are perverts: if Humbert Humbert is Lolita's "father-surrogate" and we witness a kind of incest by their love-making, the Oedipal issue involved is secondary for, as I see it, neither Quilty nor Humbert can be "fathers". They are sexually immature adults who cannot perceive social distinctions, nor realize the distinction between different generations ( what is designated by father/grand-father/son/uncle/mother/aunt aso). The main subject, in "Lolita" is, indeed, perversion and not incest, and the pervert's pedophilia. There's not much space, in Nabokov's novel, for the normal erotic dreams in a young child or Lolita's subjectivity, nor any real father's conflicts or failings.
One of the important issues Twiggs raises, in his commentary, is the pervert's double portrayal through Humbert and Quilty ("the different worlds they inhabit...how close they are to being two of a kind"). Apparently a nymphet's (Lolita) ghostly presence in novel and culture occupies the center of the stage (Nabokov, at a certain point, said that it is Lolita, no he who is famous), instead of the dynamics of corrupt stagnated adults. This is why I would not link LEON, LILI, DEKALOG to Nabokov's novel (the adult characters are not perverts).
I cannot remember "Paper Moon" and very little of "Pretty Baby" (but the latter, as I recollect, deals with worldwide child prostitution, as we have in the murkiest sickest chapters of "ADA" and what motivates and upholds its "Villa Venus")
* - I couldn't recover the attach with the Times article and Kellie Dawson's arguments.
** - Kieslowski stated in an interview on his "deep-rooted conviction": "if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all...Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division."
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/