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Browsing at Amazon, debating whether to purchase "Lolita: the Book of the Film", I came across some good critical comments, and I want to keep one of them.
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The strength of Nabokov's novel is the tension between Humbert Humbert's equilibristic depiction of his "relationship" with Lolita as an essentially unhappy love affair and of himself as a spurned lover, and Nabokov's subtle - and even more equilibristic - depiction of Humbert as an egocentric, manipulating monster. Nabokov himself called Humbert "a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear touching". Humbert manages this through his undoubted rhetoric skills. He simply writes enormously well, and his powers of persuasion have led many a naive reader to accept his version of the story at face value (such as Lyne and Schiff have done). Through his subtle undercutting, however, Nabokov lets the good reader see what a ridiculous monster Humbert really is. Nabokov lets Humbert praise himself a couple of times too many, he lets him speak a little bit too much French, etc., and through this brilliant, unobtrusive undermining of Humbert's own story, Nabokov demasks his own narrator. Lyne and Schiff completely miss this crucial aspect of the novel, and consequently their movie tells a deeply problematic story about an unhappy love affair between a 12-year-old girl and an adult man, rather than - as Nabokov did - telling a story about an evil, but eloquent, man who manipulates everyone around him, including the naive reader.
-- Tore Rye Andersen, Amazon reviewer
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The ideal movie probably would be much darker, but it was difficult enough to get this movie into our hands.
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The strength of Nabokov's novel is the tension between Humbert Humbert's equilibristic depiction of his "relationship" with Lolita as an essentially unhappy love affair and of himself as a spurned lover, and Nabokov's subtle - and even more equilibristic - depiction of Humbert as an egocentric, manipulating monster. Nabokov himself called Humbert "a vain and cruel wretch who manages to appear touching". Humbert manages this through his undoubted rhetoric skills. He simply writes enormously well, and his powers of persuasion have led many a naive reader to accept his version of the story at face value (such as Lyne and Schiff have done). Through his subtle undercutting, however, Nabokov lets the good reader see what a ridiculous monster Humbert really is. Nabokov lets Humbert praise himself a couple of times too many, he lets him speak a little bit too much French, etc., and through this brilliant, unobtrusive undermining of Humbert's own story, Nabokov demasks his own narrator. Lyne and Schiff completely miss this crucial aspect of the novel, and consequently their movie tells a deeply problematic story about an unhappy love affair between a 12-year-old girl and an adult man, rather than - as Nabokov did - telling a story about an evil, but eloquent, man who manipulates everyone around him, including the naive reader.
-- Tore Rye Andersen, Amazon reviewer
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The ideal movie probably would be much darker, but it was difficult enough to get this movie into our hands.
