Tell me a story

Viewed on February 23, 2013 via Stanley Kubrick: The Essential Collection DVD Box Set

Stanley Kubrick and I haven’t had the greatest relationship. I didn’t understand 2001: A Space Odyssey. I didn’t like the characters or the setting of A Clockwork Orange, and I found the language of that world to be a major hurdle. As for Eyes Wide Shut I remember struggling to keep myself awake through it. But I did enjoy The Shining. I saw all of these, save for The Shining, during my college years, so sometime before 2004. Since then my film taste has grown, and I no longer need explosions or a high laugh-per-minute ratio to enjoy a film. My film knowledge has also grown, which means I’ve discovered what a renown and admired director Stanley Kubrick is, despite my previous experiences with him. So when I saw his box set of DVDs go on sale, I decided to revisit his work and see if my 29 year old self could appreciate him more than my 19 year old self. I started with Lolita, and from the first scene, I was sucked in.

Lolita opens with a man entering a mansion that is in full shambles. He’s looking for another man, and you can tell from his demeanor it’s not a friendly visit he’s paying. When he finds the man—passed out in a chair—he wakes him and pulls a gun on him, but the man barely reacts to it. Either he’s too drunk to notice he’s in real danger or he thinks he can diffuse the situation by not reacting, but as the scene continues, with Kubrick’s steady hand letting it play out at its own pace, the tension ramps up until the scene is as taut as a fully stretched rubber band. And then, of course, there’s the inevitable plink! and release as that rubber band snaps. I won’t say how the scene ends, but the results are quite interesting. It’s easily the most memorable scene in the film to me. I had no idea who the two characters were or what the stakes and consequences of their actions were, but I was gripped.

Between the book by Nabokov and the two movie versions, you probably know the premise of the story, but in short it’s about a college professor who begins renting a room in a house where a widowed woman and her young daughter (twelve years old in the book, fourteen in the movie) live. Professor Humbert Humbert (yeah, that’s his name; he’s played by James Mason) becomes immediately obsessed with “nymphet” Lolita, to the point where he marries her mother just to stay in her life.

I expected to be more disturbed by the relationship between Humbert and Lolita. Part of the reason I wasn’t is that the physical aspect of their relationship is only hinted at. The focus was more on his desire to control her and isolate her. Also the actor who played Lolita, Sue Lyons, looked older than fourteen even though she was actually playing her real age. Plus her character was mature. Lolita didn’t play with dolls, she didn’t spend all day gossiping with friends. She went to elegant dress up parties and danced with boys. She never come across as a victim, even though she clearly was. She almost always seemed to be in control of her situations. All this did a lot to take away from the ick factor of it all.

Sue Lyon as Lolita

It was a wholly entertaining and interesting film. Indeed the only issue I had was that near the end it started to drag and I began wondering how long until it was over, but the plot picked up very shortly after that, so it wasn’t really a big deal in the scheme of things.

So now I can say I’ve enjoyed two Stanley Kubrick films. I didn’t like Lolita as much as The Shining, but I did appreciate and notice his directing style more this time around, in specific how tight and purposeful the film felt. I may not always like his movies, but it’s clear that he has vision, and I can respect that. Sure, I’m not the first to say that about the guy, but there you go anyway.

My Rating

Lolita
Director: Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket)
Writer: Vladimir Nabokov