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Revision as of 02:42, 4 February 2006 by Yossarian (talk | contribs) (→Reception)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Lolita is a 1997 film directed by Adrian Lyne and was the second screen adaptation of the novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The film stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert and Dominique Swain (then fifteen) as Dolores "Lolita" Haze. Supporting roles are Melanie Griffith, playing Charlotte Haze, and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty.
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 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'”, and quipped that Kubrick's film should have been called "Quilty" due to the prominent role of that character. Despite Schiff's confidence, the 1997 film was not well received and became a major box office bomb.
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, though this has been disputed. It eventually premiered on the Showtime television network, where it drew an unusually wide audience - a near-record for Showtime - and then had a subsequent limited theatrical release, where it took in approximately $1 millon.
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 performances of the two leads , and New York Times critic Caryn James championed the film, though noted that it was "dully repetitious in the last 40 minutes" . Writer and director James Toback has listed it in his picks for the ten finest films ever made .
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 readers 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 thought that much of the humorous 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. The 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, physically, highly attractive. Several characters in the novel, including her own mother and Humbert himself, comment on Lolita's lack of conventional attractiveness, and it is hinted that this is why greater suspicion does not fall on Humbert.
Lolita's age when Humbert meets her is fourteen, rather than twelve, as in the novel.
Reference
- Interview with Stephen Schiff by Suellen Stringer-Hye. For comments about other scripts and “Quilty”