Subject
LOLITA, the Movie (fwd)
Date
Body
To: Nabokov <Nabokv-L@UCSBVM.ucsb.edu>
Subject: LOLITA, the Movie
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
There is a review of the movie in the most recent NEWSWEEK by Jack
Kroll who says he was "the first critic in the United States to see the
movie... in a screening room in New York." The review is quite
enthusiastic. Here are some of the highlights:
"Thirty five years after Stanley Kubrick's original film... 'Lolita' is
more controversial than ever... Even for Lyne, who's had big box-office
success with movies like 'Flashdance' and 'Fatal Attraction.' Lyne's most
fatal attraction may have been to the Nabokov book..."
"Seeing 'Lolita' at last reveals that Lyne has translated Nabokov's
classic with sensitivity, intelligence and style. Stephen Schiff's
screenplay... is closer to the book than Nabokov's own script for
Kubrick. As Humbert Humbert, the world's most famous pedophile, Jeremy Irons
is more morally conflicted by his desire for girl-children than James
Mason, who played Humbert as a suave hedonist.... Lyne's Lolita..
Dominique Swain, is much closer to Nabokov's archetypal idea of the
'nymphet' than Sue Lyon, who projected an older, more slutty
seductiveness."
"Lyne makes you feel both the depravity and the humanity of Humbert's
obsession. The power of Iron's performance is in this complexity....
Nabokov, a verbal magician surpassed only by James Joyce, did all this
with his kaleidoscopic words, not one of them dirty. Lyne's images... are
beautiful, but for some, they will be translated into "dirt" by cultural
processing... But 'Lolita' is not a dirty story; it's a tragedy, as
Nabokov himself said, and the film reflects that."
Galya Diment
Subject: LOLITA, the Movie
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
There is a review of the movie in the most recent NEWSWEEK by Jack
Kroll who says he was "the first critic in the United States to see the
movie... in a screening room in New York." The review is quite
enthusiastic. Here are some of the highlights:
"Thirty five years after Stanley Kubrick's original film... 'Lolita' is
more controversial than ever... Even for Lyne, who's had big box-office
success with movies like 'Flashdance' and 'Fatal Attraction.' Lyne's most
fatal attraction may have been to the Nabokov book..."
"Seeing 'Lolita' at last reveals that Lyne has translated Nabokov's
classic with sensitivity, intelligence and style. Stephen Schiff's
screenplay... is closer to the book than Nabokov's own script for
Kubrick. As Humbert Humbert, the world's most famous pedophile, Jeremy Irons
is more morally conflicted by his desire for girl-children than James
Mason, who played Humbert as a suave hedonist.... Lyne's Lolita..
Dominique Swain, is much closer to Nabokov's archetypal idea of the
'nymphet' than Sue Lyon, who projected an older, more slutty
seductiveness."
"Lyne makes you feel both the depravity and the humanity of Humbert's
obsession. The power of Iron's performance is in this complexity....
Nabokov, a verbal magician surpassed only by James Joyce, did all this
with his kaleidoscopic words, not one of them dirty. Lyne's images... are
beautiful, but for some, they will be translated into "dirt" by cultural
processing... But 'Lolita' is not a dirty story; it's a tragedy, as
Nabokov himself said, and the film reflects that."
Galya Diment