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Apr 26, 2017KvonStauffenberg rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Let me preface this by saying: Lolita is a film you absolutely should see if you've any interest at all in great American cinema of the early 1960s. I find the harsh rhetoric directed against Kubrick and Lolita entirely, and unjustly, misplaced, and quite frankly ignorant. Bear in mind that Nabokov published his controversial (and almost universally-acclaimed) novel about the obsession of a middle-aged professor (Humbert Humbert) with a 12-year-old girl (Dolores Haze, the eponymous Lolita) and their sexual relationship in 1955. It is a miracle, and a testimony to Nabokov's genius, that a novel which dealt with such explosive subject matter was ever published in the United States to begin with. Today's viewer should bear in mind that, again, it is a miracle that Kubrick's film—shot in 1961, and released in 1962—ever reached the big screen, particularly with such an A-list cast of some of the great cinematic actors of the period. Bear in mind that, upon the film's 1962 release, the MPAA rating system was still six years away and all movies released in the US (both foreign and domestic) were subject to the notorious Hays Code dating back to the '30s. Censorship tied Kubrick's hands substantially, and Kubrick later commented: "[B]ecause of all the pressure over the Production Code and the Catholic Legion of Decency at the time, I believe I didn't sufficiently dramatize the erotic aspect of Humbert's relationship with Lolita. If I could do the film over again, I would have stressed the erotic component of their relationship with the same weight Nabokov did." Despite these obstacles, the film is (rightfully) regarded as one of world cinema's great classics, appearing perennially on critics' and directors' '100 best' lists. Nelson Riddle's memorable score complements the film superbly, building up to and underscoring the piece's most dramatic scenes. Oswald Morris' cinematography is breathtaking—an altogether appropriate admixture of (at times) misty impressionism and (at other times) hard expressionism (see also Ingmar Bergman's 1966 masterpiece of Deconstructivist cinema, Persona). James Mason turns in yet another outstanding performance (in a career filled with them) as the nymphet-obsessed Professor Humbert Humbert, tormented by his desires past the brink of madness. Peter Sellers delivers a tour-de-force performance as Claire Quilty, a hack television and film writer unburdened with either conscience or a soul. Without a doubt the star of the film, the actress who absolutely steals the show (which is saying something, given her casting opposite James Mason, one of world cinema's all-time greats) is the late, great (and criminally underrated) Shelley Winters. Ms. Winters delivers one of the cinema's greatest-ever performances as the sexually-frustrated, grasping, annoyingly garrulous, intellectually and culturally aspirational-and-pretentious, not-terribly-bright upper-middle class widow, Charlotte Haze. Had her performance in 1951's A Place in the Sun not secured her place in the pantheon of world cinema's great actresses, Lolita most assuredly would have. Winters's Charlotte Haze is a revelation, a master class in the art and craft of cinematic acting—and not to be missed. But perhaps the film's biggest flaw is the casting of then-newcomer Sue Lyon as the film's eponymous character, Lolita. Ms. Lyon turns in what can charitably be called an uneven performance. To be sure, there are moments in the film (such as Humbert's initial sight of Lolita in Charlotte Haze's garden) where she manages to (sort of) hold her own in scenes with greats like Winters and Mason. Ms. Lyon's performance is so uneven that one finds oneself frequently pondering the question, "Besides the temptation of forbidden fruit, why on earth would the worldly, sophisticated, handsome Humbert Humbert be attracted to an ignorant, unsophisticated, spoiled teenage brat?"