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Lolita is a 1997 film directed by Adrian Lyne and was the second screen adaptation of the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The screenplay was written by Stephen Schiff, and the film has a score by Ennio Morricone. Schiff was commissioned to write the screenplay after scripts by James Dearden, David Mamet and Harold Pinter had been rejected by the producers.

The film stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert and Dominique Swain (then fifteen) as Dolores "Lolita" Haze. Jeremy Irons said in an interview, of his relationship with Dominique Swain "I just tried to become obsessed by her ... All right, I did become obsessed by her." Supporting roles are Melanie Griffith, playing Charlotte Haze, and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty.

Reception

The $62 million film had a great deal of trouble finding a distributor in the US, reportedly due to the moral panic about pedophilia at the time. It eventually premiered on the Showtime television network and had a subsequent limited theatrical release, where it took in approximately $1 millon, making it a major box office bomb.

Reviews were mixed, with some critics considering the film more faithful to the letter of the novel than the spirit. Critics such as James Berardinelli, however, praised the film, particularly for the perfomances of the two leads .

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Differences from the novel

The film was publicized as an attempt to be faithful to the original novel, and the events of the film do match the events of the novel quite closely. Some critics and fans of the novel complained, however, that in taking such a reverent approach, many of the more subtle aspects of the novel, such as the unreliability of Humbert's narration, were lost. Many also felt that much of the humourous and tragic irony of the novel -- which comes largely from the differences between Humbert's self-image and his action -- was lost, since the movie essentially offers up Humbert's narration as fact. Critic Charles Taylor, for example, said of the film, "For all of their vaunted (and, it turns out, false) fidelity to Nabokov, Lyne and Schiff have made a pretty, gauzy Lolita that replaces the book's cruelty and comedy with manufactured lyricism and mopey romanticism." , and Keith Phipps wrote that "Lyne doesn't seem to get the novel, failing to incorporate any of Nabokov's black comedy — which is to say, Lolita's heart and soul" .

Another major deviation is the depiction of Lolita as highly physically attractive. Several characters in the novel comment on Lolita's lack of conventional attractiveness, including Humbert and her own mother, and it is hinted that this is why greater suspicion does not fall on Humbert.

In both this and the 1962 version, Lolita's age when Humbert meets her is fourteen, rather than twelve, as in the novel.

Differences from the 1962 film

The first adaptation of Lolita was the 1962 version directed by Stanley Kubrick. Stephen Schiff, screenwriter of the 1997 version, has commented that, “Right from the beginning, it was clear to all of us that this movie was not a 'remake' of Kubrick's film. Rather, we were out to make a new adaptation of a very great novel”. He added that, “Some of the filmmakers involved actually looked upon the Kubrick version as a kind of 'what not to do'.”

The 1997 film has the 1940s setting of the novel, rather than the contemporary setting of the 1962 film.

One of the most notable changes is that Clare Quilty has a much smaller role than the 1962 version (where he was played in a major supporting role by Peter Sellers), which is more in line with the novel. Schiff has quipped that Kubrick had made a film that might better have been titled Quilty.

The 1997 version maintains Humbert Humbert’s narration throughout the whole film, whereas the 1962 version used it sparingly and stopped it once the odyssey across the United States began. Nabokov’s term “nymphet” is also freely used in the new film, whereas it was used only once in the original film and then without its meaning being defined.

The scenes from the novel are used in which Humbert relates the story of his first and perhaps only love, a fourteen-year-old “nymphet” named Annabel, who he met when he was also fourteen, and who died from typhus four months later.

Reference

• Interview with Stephen Schiff by Suellen Stringer-Hye. For comments about other scripts and “Quilty”

• 1997 films
• Controversial films
• Films based on novels