Ralph Spoilsport
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- Jun 4, 2011
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I'll put L'invenzione di Morel in my calendar. It's posted on Dailymotion and looks to be reasonable quality.
Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread III
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I'll put L'invenzione di Morel in my calendar. It's posted on Dailymotion and looks to be reasonable quality.
Ralph Spoilsport
Registered User
- Jun 4, 2011
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I'm a fan of this thread, the writing in it, and Woody Allen. I had a college roommate who couldn't understand why Annie Hall won Best Picture over Star Wars.
I'm disturbed by the small number and variety of films shown at multi-plexes. I'm excited by Amazon's new $3 rentals and the $7 Disney streaming service starting in November. I watch at least one movie every single day.
A movie every day? Wow, that's great!
If you can squeeze in Akira Kurosawa's Dreams in the next week or so we could have another new member!
The Assassin (2015) Directed by Hou Hsiao Hsien
The tale of Yinniang, a deadly female assassin running loose in the court of the Emperor, is on a very short list of the most beautiful movies that I have ever seen (it is also one of my favourite movies ever). As she goes about her business both threatening the power structure, carrying out an order she has been given by her mentor, and generally opening old wounds all over the place, the movie around her rather than raising the tension exponentially presents information as though doling it out with an eye dropper. Much is revealed, but how it fits into the fabric of the narrative often remains obscure, certainly on first viewing. But there is a lot going on here. When I saw the film the first time, I focused on the court intrigue and the martial combat elements which are sparely done but beautifully executed. On second and now third viewing, I have been able to fill in a lot of the blanks. Like most great works of art--and The Assassin is a great work of art--much of the most important stuff is revealed slowly, the viewer has to work for it, has to engage the movie on its own terms.
Though the themes are serious and plentiful--including betrayal, revenge, independence, custom, ritual, growth, and ultimately transcendence--I find that to me the movie is now mostly a character study, the story of a woman grievously wronged by the people who should have loved her and protected her, now returned with a mission of vengeance that runs smack dab right into her independence and her own sense of personal ethics and honour. Rather than be confused by this juxtaposition, she remains calm and potentially deadly, even though she is not yet certain what she will do. She doesn't procrastinate in the manner of Hamlet, she just takes her sweet time before deciding. Respecting both her own skill and her intelligence, she knows that she won't betray herself. While there is the wronged young girl and the highly skilled assassin both within her, she remains in the end willfully able to accept that she is "hostage to human sentiment." In the end, she has transcended both her past and her training, and she disappears literally into another life.
All of this is presented with a delicacy of touch and surety of execution that is breathtaking to behold. Throughout the early stages of the movie Yinniang seems more zephyr than substantive being. She is everywhere observing her potential targets--behind filmy veils, in the shadows of rooms, even in the corner of the ceiling like some vampire waiting for her prey to make a move. All of this is presented with stunning cinematography, but there is more to the movie than pretty pictures. Hou takes a very indirect approach--The Assassin is a work of great delicacy and elegance in which the brush strokes count; are as important as the brush strokes in a Van Gogh painting. This is a movie where everything fits together, just not right away. But even as I become more familiar with the story with each viewing, there is something there that I have not been able to capture. Something that makes the movie haunting in the manner of The Double Life of Veronique and Last Year in Marienbad. Please read the accompany review as part of my review--the ideas are brilliant and the writer gets at why the emptiness or nothingness that some see in the movie is of a very special kind:
The Something of Nothing: Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s “The Assassin” - Los Angeles Review of Books
Obviously I have to see The Assassin again. Soon.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
I've got the day off tommorow. I'm sp psyched to watch it.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
The Assassin (2015) - Gorgeous, gorgeous piece of cinema. Accentuated by a modest yet intimate plot, the movie follows a trained and particularly skilled assassin who is unsure of the path that has been chosen for her. After a particularly telling failure during a mandated killing, her will is tested with a more brutal task. Killing a powerful cousin to whom she was betrothed in their youth.
I notice reviewers refer to The Assassin as a slow film, but I didn't find it that slow (as an example, I found something like The Favorite a lot slower). A slow burn? Sure. But I wouldn't call that a slow movie. The viewer is offered the time to indulge the carefully chosen images. Such indulgence baffled me a couple times, since I found myself so mesmerized by its aesthetical beauty that I sometimes lost track of the plot, since the writers do not feed the words into the viewer's mouth (in fact, the film is heavy on mood and low on dialogue. Body language is particularly important.) Still, I thought the order of the scenes was done quite well. They felt like a flow of separate short stories, which by the end of the film, converge to create a novel.
The cinematography is a sight to behold, and the director chooses his moments perfectly as to when to let the sounds of nature - which are recorded in such a way that I don't think I've ever seen another movie nail the sound as closely as in everyday life - or tribal music accompany the mood of its distinct scenes, which in turn allows him to keep the film's elegance intact. With that said, there were a couple of fight scenes where I found the choreography a little too wooden and as if the strings are pulled by a puppetmaster (the first battle between The Assassin Yinniang and her cousin Tian Ji'an for example) but most of them were silky smooth and well-crafted. And what to say of one of the final scenes, where Yinniang renounces her life as an assassin. The sheer scenery, coupled with the heavy yet delicate sentiment portrayed, made me gasp.
Still, I think it would be lazy of me to come out and say this is an all-time favorite. If I'm being honest with myself, despite my appreciation for its images, a classical aesthetic isn't what will lift me to the biggest heights, and I didn't find the story particularly compelling. I think the story's biggest payoffs owed a lot to the scenery, as opposed to the actual words/stakes/narrative/emotional weight. The movie worked for me, a lot actually, but I can't say that it's something that will linger within my heart for long. I'm too addicted to words and sentiment, even if I can appreciate images all day.
I notice reviewers refer to The Assassin as a slow film, but I didn't find it that slow (as an example, I found something like The Favorite a lot slower). A slow burn? Sure. But I wouldn't call that a slow movie. The viewer is offered the time to indulge the carefully chosen images. Such indulgence baffled me a couple times, since I found myself so mesmerized by its aesthetical beauty that I sometimes lost track of the plot, since the writers do not feed the words into the viewer's mouth (in fact, the film is heavy on mood and low on dialogue. Body language is particularly important.) Still, I thought the order of the scenes was done quite well. They felt like a flow of separate short stories, which by the end of the film, converge to create a novel.
The cinematography is a sight to behold, and the director chooses his moments perfectly as to when to let the sounds of nature - which are recorded in such a way that I don't think I've ever seen another movie nail the sound as closely as in everyday life - or tribal music accompany the mood of its distinct scenes, which in turn allows him to keep the film's elegance intact. With that said, there were a couple of fight scenes where I found the choreography a little too wooden and as if the strings are pulled by a puppetmaster (the first battle between The Assassin Yinniang and her cousin Tian Ji'an for example) but most of them were silky smooth and well-crafted. And what to say of one of the final scenes, where Yinniang renounces her life as an assassin. The sheer scenery, coupled with the heavy yet delicate sentiment portrayed, made me gasp.
Still, I think it would be lazy of me to come out and say this is an all-time favorite. If I'm being honest with myself, despite my appreciation for its images, a classical aesthetic isn't what will lift me to the biggest heights, and I didn't find the story particularly compelling. I think the story's biggest payoffs owed a lot to the scenery, as opposed to the actual words/stakes/narrative/emotional weight. The movie worked for me, a lot actually, but I can't say that it's something that will linger within my heart for long. I'm too addicted to words and sentiment, even if I can appreciate images all day.
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Jevo
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- Oct 3, 2010
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- 401
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990) dir. Akira Kurosawa
A collection of eight dreams from Akira Kurosawa each turned into a short film. Spanning from his childhood dreams into those he had as an adult. Thematically many of the dreams revolve around man's relationship with nature, and our collective hubris in how we think we can control nature. Traditional japanese culture and folklore is also a big theme in many of the dreams. The two childhood dreams both feature these two themes prominently. It's hard to call the childhood dreams innocent, but compared to later dreams dealing with nuclear disaster, and a post-nuclear apocalyptic world with disfigured humans living in eternal pain, they are more innocent. At least in the way that they are from a simpler time before nuclear power, and the child is living in a world detached from widespread industrialisation. Instead his life is much closer to nature and the spirits that inhabits nature. But in Japan the spirit world can be a dangerous place. It's not all Totoros, there are many spirits which will harm you and kill you, but only if you wrong them. Like when the child against orders from his mum goes into the woods and observes a foxes wedding, which makes them demand his life. Or like when the mountain climbers don't respect the mountain and the blizzard, a spirit comes and sucks away their life. Of course there's also good spirits, like the spirits of the destroyed peach orchard, who show their respect to the child after they see how saddened he is by the loss of the orchard. Most of the dreams are quite tragic, perhaps all except for the last one, about a village who have decided to live without modern technology, and they all live in happiness, without all the stress that we otherwise see in our everyday lives, and in harmony with nature.
There's a couple of dreams who otherwise stand out as different from the others. One is a military officer returning from war, who has to confront the ghosts of a platoon he inadvertently sent to their deaths. Something he deeply regrets, and has been trying to suppress. The other is a dream about a painter who goes to a museum and looks at Van Gogh paintings. He then steps into one of the paintings. Here he meets Van Gogh and talks to him. Before walking through other of Van Gogh's paintings. Martin Scorcese's performance as Van Gogh isn't anything to write home about, nor is the dyeing of his hair. But the vignette is a visual feats. Not just the great sets created so that the painter can walk through the paintings. But also the fantastically colourful scenes. For a man who was more or less blind by the time this movie was made, Kurosawa uses colour fantastically well in the whole movie. Perhaps an exaggerated use of colour meant he could easier discern things with what vision he had left. But whatever the reason was I really like the result, there's some really gorgeous stuff in this movie. The Van Gogh dream, but also the one about the Peach Orchard and the final dream are very beautiful.
I think all eight dreams are good stories and well made in their own right. And even though there's some thematic similarities between them, I think the weakness of the movie, like it often it is with this type of anthology films, there's no real nice over arching connection that ties the stories together. I don't think Kurosawa was trying to do anything like that. But it means it remains a film of eight films, instead of a unified film. Which means it can never become more than the sum of its parts. Dreams however remains a special thing in Kurosawa's filmography. I have seen some fifteen films of his, and this is quite unlikely anything else I've seen from him. But stylistically and thematically, and also the types of stories he presents here is not something I've seen him tackle before. While this is perhaps not more than a minor work of Kurosawa's, it shows the breadth that he had as an artist, and as such it's an important part of his output.
A collection of eight dreams from Akira Kurosawa each turned into a short film. Spanning from his childhood dreams into those he had as an adult. Thematically many of the dreams revolve around man's relationship with nature, and our collective hubris in how we think we can control nature. Traditional japanese culture and folklore is also a big theme in many of the dreams. The two childhood dreams both feature these two themes prominently. It's hard to call the childhood dreams innocent, but compared to later dreams dealing with nuclear disaster, and a post-nuclear apocalyptic world with disfigured humans living in eternal pain, they are more innocent. At least in the way that they are from a simpler time before nuclear power, and the child is living in a world detached from widespread industrialisation. Instead his life is much closer to nature and the spirits that inhabits nature. But in Japan the spirit world can be a dangerous place. It's not all Totoros, there are many spirits which will harm you and kill you, but only if you wrong them. Like when the child against orders from his mum goes into the woods and observes a foxes wedding, which makes them demand his life. Or like when the mountain climbers don't respect the mountain and the blizzard, a spirit comes and sucks away their life. Of course there's also good spirits, like the spirits of the destroyed peach orchard, who show their respect to the child after they see how saddened he is by the loss of the orchard. Most of the dreams are quite tragic, perhaps all except for the last one, about a village who have decided to live without modern technology, and they all live in happiness, without all the stress that we otherwise see in our everyday lives, and in harmony with nature.
There's a couple of dreams who otherwise stand out as different from the others. One is a military officer returning from war, who has to confront the ghosts of a platoon he inadvertently sent to their deaths. Something he deeply regrets, and has been trying to suppress. The other is a dream about a painter who goes to a museum and looks at Van Gogh paintings. He then steps into one of the paintings. Here he meets Van Gogh and talks to him. Before walking through other of Van Gogh's paintings. Martin Scorcese's performance as Van Gogh isn't anything to write home about, nor is the dyeing of his hair. But the vignette is a visual feats. Not just the great sets created so that the painter can walk through the paintings. But also the fantastically colourful scenes. For a man who was more or less blind by the time this movie was made, Kurosawa uses colour fantastically well in the whole movie. Perhaps an exaggerated use of colour meant he could easier discern things with what vision he had left. But whatever the reason was I really like the result, there's some really gorgeous stuff in this movie. The Van Gogh dream, but also the one about the Peach Orchard and the final dream are very beautiful.
I think all eight dreams are good stories and well made in their own right. And even though there's some thematic similarities between them, I think the weakness of the movie, like it often it is with this type of anthology films, there's no real nice over arching connection that ties the stories together. I don't think Kurosawa was trying to do anything like that. But it means it remains a film of eight films, instead of a unified film. Which means it can never become more than the sum of its parts. Dreams however remains a special thing in Kurosawa's filmography. I have seen some fifteen films of his, and this is quite unlikely anything else I've seen from him. But stylistically and thematically, and also the types of stories he presents here is not something I've seen him tackle before. While this is perhaps not more than a minor work of Kurosawa's, it shows the breadth that he had as an artist, and as such it's an important part of his output.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
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Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
Kurosawa (1990)
“Once I had a dream ...”
A boy whose family hacked down a peach orcard. Hikers stranded in a blinding blizzard. A soldier literally haunted by his past. A nuclear disaster. A fantastical hellscape. And Vincent Van Gogh? Normally I’m not a fan of the director name (or author name as with so many Stephen King titles) appearing as part of a movie title. Bit of an arrogant move. Yes, I’m still thinking of you Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute! But I can’t quibble with it here. As the back story goes these are Akira Kurosawa’s dreams, various visions that came to him in waking and sleeping hours. Some joyful. Some verging more on nightmare. But all him.
There’s so much art and beauty in Kurosawa. And yet, I’m not sure I ever fully think of him in that sense. Spielberg is the clear modern/American equivalent. Two men among the great film entertainers in the history of the medium. Artists undoubtedly, but again, not what I first think of. Apologies for some basic binary thinking here. A crackling bit of entertainment can be art and art can be entertaining. The Seven Samurai is the former. Ran is the latter.
Here we have Dreams, which is a more standard bit of abstract film artsiness. But it’s an engaging one. More than anything, it’s the colors that got me. Right from the start, the boy’s vision with the spirits of the trees clad in striking orange, green, purple. Man, that stuff just POPPED off my TV. The ghastly blue faces of the ghost platoon. The paintings of Van Gogh visualized on film (with a quirky cameo from Martin Scorsese). Blood red pits of a post-nuclear terrain (really reminded me out of the vision of hell presented in Jigoku). Visually, this made quite the sumptuous back-to-back with The Assassin.
I suppose in the ultimate nod to Kurosawa’s spirit, Dreams also proves to be, dare I say it, fun? It’s got some weighty themes at times and its more abstract turns don’t fully land on me, but I didn’t find that to be a problem here. Something this beautiful doesn’t have to make sense.
Kurosawa (1990)
“Once I had a dream ...”
A boy whose family hacked down a peach orcard. Hikers stranded in a blinding blizzard. A soldier literally haunted by his past. A nuclear disaster. A fantastical hellscape. And Vincent Van Gogh? Normally I’m not a fan of the director name (or author name as with so many Stephen King titles) appearing as part of a movie title. Bit of an arrogant move. Yes, I’m still thinking of you Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute! But I can’t quibble with it here. As the back story goes these are Akira Kurosawa’s dreams, various visions that came to him in waking and sleeping hours. Some joyful. Some verging more on nightmare. But all him.
There’s so much art and beauty in Kurosawa. And yet, I’m not sure I ever fully think of him in that sense. Spielberg is the clear modern/American equivalent. Two men among the great film entertainers in the history of the medium. Artists undoubtedly, but again, not what I first think of. Apologies for some basic binary thinking here. A crackling bit of entertainment can be art and art can be entertaining. The Seven Samurai is the former. Ran is the latter.
Here we have Dreams, which is a more standard bit of abstract film artsiness. But it’s an engaging one. More than anything, it’s the colors that got me. Right from the start, the boy’s vision with the spirits of the trees clad in striking orange, green, purple. Man, that stuff just POPPED off my TV. The ghastly blue faces of the ghost platoon. The paintings of Van Gogh visualized on film (with a quirky cameo from Martin Scorsese). Blood red pits of a post-nuclear terrain (really reminded me out of the vision of hell presented in Jigoku). Visually, this made quite the sumptuous back-to-back with The Assassin.
I suppose in the ultimate nod to Kurosawa’s spirit, Dreams also proves to be, dare I say it, fun? It’s got some weighty themes at times and its more abstract turns don’t fully land on me, but I didn’t find that to be a problem here. Something this beautiful doesn’t have to make sense.
Dreams (1990) Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Federico Fellini, the great Italian director, when asked why he made Satyricon, one of his last movies, responded effusively by saying "The movies made me dream it." The movies probably made Akira Kurosawa dream Dreams, too. In both cases, it is an understandable but thin excuse, reasoning that sounds charming but hides the truth. Directors, like many rock stars and athletes, have a tendency to stay too long at the fair. In the case of movies, directors want to direct--that's what they do. And as long as they are in demand, there is a reason to do so. But few great directors--Truffaut, Kubrick, Antonioni. Bertolucci, Resnais, Welles, Bergman, Chaplin, et al--age very well. Even my favourite director, Satyajit Ray, who at least made good movies in his dotage, could not equal the majesty of his early works. But they do keep trying.
Dreams is a visual feast, imaginative to the eye as it is leaden to the intellect. The film is basically an anthology of Kurosawa's alleged dreams. They are at best a mixed lot. Some of the early dreams have a pleasing fantastic element. But most dreams, especially as the movie progresses, have a strong anti-nucclear, pro-ecology message that overwhelms the story-telling. Despite some fantastic settings--giant dandelions, a molten Mount Fuji, a deadly blizzard--most of the vignettes are hopelessly static--two characters in a single pose talking to one another. It is a film that is pretty to look at, but the movie doesn't really move. It is largely an immobile work as though more elaborate direction was beyond Kurosawa's grasp at this time. Should Kurosawa not have made Dreams, taken up knitting instead? No, a director of his stature is permitted to make movies to the very end (like Spain's Manoel de Oliveira who made feature length movies virtually until the day he died at 106 years of age). The problem is that such movies are not likely to be good ones. From a strictly critical perspective, Kurosawa should have quit with Ran, his take on King Lear, which he had made five years earlier. Both the execution and, especially, the subject matter would have marked a fitting conclusion to one of the finest artists in cinema's long history. But that is too harsh and just not the way most humans work.
subtitles
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Ralph Spoilsport
Registered User
- Jun 4, 2011
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- 427
So this is Akira Kurosawa's Dreams? Yikes…would hate to see his nightmares. Through eight short films Kurosawa depicts some of his dreams, from boyhood to adulthood, and this is some disturbing shit. In the first segment he's just a boy yet he's given a suicide mission by his mother, his punishment for spying on a foxes wedding...something he has been forbidden to do. What does it mean? Dreams are usually ambiguous, leaving us to interpret their meaning. One segment might be a puzzle for the viewer. But after seeing eight in a row a general theme emerges: man's disrespect of nature will be his self-destruction.
None of the dreams have a contemporary setting, we're either looking back to his younger years or forward to a post-apocalyptic future. But Dreams has a very environmentalist, Greenpeace-friendly theme which is highly contemporary. Best known for his samurai epics, Kurosawa didn't make a lot of films about the modern world, and his pessimism probably explains why. Dreams was his first film with a contemporary theme since Dodes'ka-dan and, like that movie, it is vibrant and colorful (he clearly dreams in technicolor) but quite depressing as he sees mankind going to hell in a handbasket.
Am I being mean and nitpicky to complain that a movie about dreams is unrealistic? Dreams is a movie that leans heavily on special effects, and sometimes it's the effects which let things down: the powdered snow which buries the cast in the "The Blizzard" section looks unconvincing, and the visual effects in the "Mt. Fuji in Red" look to be from the Godzilla era. These segments fell flat for me, and the preachy tone of the latter (and in other segments) didn't help. So it's pretty hit-or-miss. On the other hand, the visual effects of the "Crows" segment, in which Kurosawa as a young artist literally enters the world of a Van Gogh painting and meets the nature-loving artist himself (it's like Alice through the looking glass with Van Gogh as the white rabbit), are a treat to watch and were a welcome respite from the preceding doom and gloom. The final dream, depicting a world of regressive technology where man and nature coexist in harmony, is more hopeful and clearly a more upbeat note to send people home with compared to the damnation he sees for us elsewhere. This movie about dreams is actually more of a wake-up call.
None of the dreams have a contemporary setting, we're either looking back to his younger years or forward to a post-apocalyptic future. But Dreams has a very environmentalist, Greenpeace-friendly theme which is highly contemporary. Best known for his samurai epics, Kurosawa didn't make a lot of films about the modern world, and his pessimism probably explains why. Dreams was his first film with a contemporary theme since Dodes'ka-dan and, like that movie, it is vibrant and colorful (he clearly dreams in technicolor) but quite depressing as he sees mankind going to hell in a handbasket.
Am I being mean and nitpicky to complain that a movie about dreams is unrealistic? Dreams is a movie that leans heavily on special effects, and sometimes it's the effects which let things down: the powdered snow which buries the cast in the "The Blizzard" section looks unconvincing, and the visual effects in the "Mt. Fuji in Red" look to be from the Godzilla era. These segments fell flat for me, and the preachy tone of the latter (and in other segments) didn't help. So it's pretty hit-or-miss. On the other hand, the visual effects of the "Crows" segment, in which Kurosawa as a young artist literally enters the world of a Van Gogh painting and meets the nature-loving artist himself (it's like Alice through the looking glass with Van Gogh as the white rabbit), are a treat to watch and were a welcome respite from the preceding doom and gloom. The final dream, depicting a world of regressive technology where man and nature coexist in harmony, is more hopeful and clearly a more upbeat note to send people home with compared to the damnation he sees for us elsewhere. This movie about dreams is actually more of a wake-up call.
Though I had a far less favourable view of the movie, this is a terrific review.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Dreams (1990) - Jesus Christ. Call it recency bias, but this is one of the prettiest, most aesthetically pleasing films that I have ever seen, if not THE one. It ties in perfectly with my review of The Assassin, where I talked about classical aesthetic not being what's most likely to stick with me. THIS is it. Kurosawa nails perfectly the coherent incoherence of dreams (whether in dialogue or images), while pacing from flash to flash beautifully. This is a masterwork, IMO. The vignettes follow along perfectly, almost as if a single dream, instead of eight separate one's and the pleas (moreso than actual stories) conveyed by Kurosawa are incredibly poignant and effective. I was close to tears at certain visual moments, such as Kurosawa flowing perfectly from the museum and into Van Gogh's world - what a set! - or when he is walking amongst his various paintings. I'd be deeply interested in understanding how they pulled this one off on a technical level. Or when the boy is allowed a final performance of a blossoming peach tree. It's definitely a little preachy, but I didn't mind, because it wasn't as if Kurosawa is making an attempt at telling the viewer a coherent story for the sake of story-telling. It didn't feel like the goal here. It's incredibly intimate, and in that sense, I have no problem with the director pouring out his heart here, accentuated by a visual feast, one that I can take everywhere with me from now on, safely stored inside my thoughts. Gorgeous imagery, breathtaking photography, and a use of colors that I would want replicated in my version of heaven. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Favorite vignettes:
The Peach Orchard
Crows
Sunshine Through the Rain
The Tunnel
Village of the Watermills
Mount Fuji in Red
The Blizzard
The Weeping Demon
Favorite vignettes:
The Peach Orchard
Crows
Sunshine Through the Rain
The Tunnel
Village of the Watermills
Mount Fuji in Red
The Blizzard
The Weeping Demon
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Pranzo Oltranzista
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 4,010
- 2,932
kihei said:
I don't have the means to watch my old VHS tape anymore, and I haven't checked through my disks to find it (I'm sure I have it somewhere, but this is too much of a mess), so this isn't a review per se, only some thoughts based on memory...
The three quotes above go hand in hand. Dreams is a demonstration of cinema as art, and as so it shows off its materiality in different ways: by the fake snow and tricks and amazing colors, by the theatrically-driven sets, by the immobility and references to painting, by the use of Scorsese (as Van Gogh!), by the use of some japanese folklore (the source material is not restricted to Kurosawa's dreams and childhood). In a more subtle way, we are on the territories of Godard's Histoires du cinéma, and Kurosawa is showing not only what cinema is, but what cinema should be: not settling for telling stories, but teaching, and preaching. So no, nothing subtle here, and it is very preachy, but I think it's part of the brilliance. My favorite Kurosawa film, even if not the easier to re-watch.
Ralph Spoilsport
Registered User
- Jun 4, 2011
- 1,234
- 427
A middle-aged professor pays the price of immorality due to his infatuation with his landlady's teenage daughter. Lolita's suspense, tension, paranoia and humour is wrung from an unusual reversal of roles: usually, movie teens are rebelling against the rules imposed on them by adults while envying the freedom (they think) adults have. But here we have a grown man having an affair with an underage girl: it is the adult whose behaviour is strictly governed by rules, while the girl, presumed innocent--that's a laugh--has the liberty to play whatever games she likes.
Lolita charms and teases as it tiptoes around a delicate situation, as sensitive a subject today as 50 years ago, and I prefer that it leaves the graphic details to the imagination. Lolita whispering in Humbert's ear, despite the privacy of their hotel room, is sexy and innocent at the same time. We don't know what was said and the scene fades out then, but in the next shot she's sipping out of a Coke bottle and asking questions about kissing the Blarney Stone. Alrighty then.
Alfred Hitchcock's movies were known to have a wickedly perverse and macabre sense of humour underscoring their suspense and horror, and if he ever made a sex comedy it might be something like Lolita. Hoping to lay low, Humbert checks Lolita into a hotel which just happens to be hosting a police convention. Lolita responds to news of her mother's death with peals of laughter. Humbert squirms and struggles to maintain composure while Quilty's (or anyone's) questioning gets too close for his comfort. Just a few of Lolita's Hitchcockian touches, with the MacGuffin being the age of consent laws or rather the avoidance of them. Still, I don't think Hitchcock ever had the secret weapon that Kubrick has here in Peter Sellers, stealing the show in his Hollywood debut.
Lolita charms and teases as it tiptoes around a delicate situation, as sensitive a subject today as 50 years ago, and I prefer that it leaves the graphic details to the imagination. Lolita whispering in Humbert's ear, despite the privacy of their hotel room, is sexy and innocent at the same time. We don't know what was said and the scene fades out then, but in the next shot she's sipping out of a Coke bottle and asking questions about kissing the Blarney Stone. Alrighty then.
Alfred Hitchcock's movies were known to have a wickedly perverse and macabre sense of humour underscoring their suspense and horror, and if he ever made a sex comedy it might be something like Lolita. Hoping to lay low, Humbert checks Lolita into a hotel which just happens to be hosting a police convention. Lolita responds to news of her mother's death with peals of laughter. Humbert squirms and struggles to maintain composure while Quilty's (or anyone's) questioning gets too close for his comfort. Just a few of Lolita's Hitchcockian touches, with the MacGuffin being the age of consent laws or rather the avoidance of them. Still, I don't think Hitchcock ever had the secret weapon that Kubrick has here in Peter Sellers, stealing the show in his Hollywood debut.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Lolita (1962)
" Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days
Profession: none, or ' starlet ' "
Lolita, in my view, is Kubrick's forgotten masterpiece. It a first-rate philosophical and practical demonstration in how directors and screenwriters should approach novel adaptations for the screen. Kubrick - who ditched Nabokov's screenplay but was still kind enough to credit him as sole writer - takes the source material and creates his own story, one almost radically different from the novel, while retaining what the attuned reader will recognize as the novel's comedic and scornful spirit.
Recounting the tale of a middle-aged professor who lusts after a prepubescent child (although due to the world's sensitivity, he had to hire Sue Lyon who looks quite older, but is perfect in the role) and offers wild take on forbidden love. An aspect that I love about the film is how incompetent all major characters are in the story. Despite their culture - or supposed culture - the entire ordeal is a series of rushed mistakes made by irrational adults. Unfortunatelty for them, the object of their affection (or scorn, in the case of the try-hard Charlotte Haze) is just as good, if not better, at manipulative schemes, which makes the theme of comedy in universal human tragedy even more effective. The little moments makes this movie, and there are too many to count (I'm just a normal guy, the adults forcing Humbert Humbert into the invasive Mother Haze's arms, her own clumsiness, Clare Quilty's mischievous charm) and helps the movie suceed brilliantly at finding the humor in a tragic story, but from which the resilient and combative Lolita is able to bounce back as she matures.
Aesthetically, the film stands on its own, while mirroring the novel. While I have my gripes with the latter, gripes that Kubrick takes care of in the film (their extremely scenic and descriptive travels following Humbert Humbert's imprisonment of Lolita are quite a bore, and craters a big chunk of the novel), the movie nails the prose's flair for style and elegance. Kubrick's background as a photographer shines here. Immobile shots are some of the most pleasing moments in the film, making great use of lighting (Lolita's first appearance in the garden, Clare Quilty and Vivian Darkbloom hiding behind a newspaper, Clare Quilty waiting in the shadows before taking on the role of a curious policeman).
But the true ace in the hole in Kubrick's arsenal, the one that elevates the film to astronomical heights, is his brilliant use of Peter Sellers. I've read many comments that bemoan Clare Quilty's bombastic and consistent presence in the film and Kubrick leaving him unrestrained. I strongly disagree, and Kubrick did well in recognizing Sellers' genius talent and using his ability for disguise to maximum effect (Dear Dr.Zampf! Keeps ze pack...). It adds the perfect absurdist touch the story, while keeping the film's pace perfect and working within the differences between of the two mediums. Just a perfect work of art to me, and it's no wonder, considering the stylish aesthetical showcase and morbid humor, that Nabokov, an artist who cared nothing for films but as a way to provide for his family, held no ill-will in his own work not being used and declared the film as a first-rate work. I know this is an opinion that would send me straight to the guillotine with certain art aficionados, but since I've no shame, I'll readily admit that I find Kubrick's Lolita a more satisfying work of art than Nabokov's Lolita. One of my favorite films of all-time, with my favorite acting performance of all-time.
" My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the
weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust... "
" Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days
Profession: none, or ' starlet ' "
Lolita, in my view, is Kubrick's forgotten masterpiece. It a first-rate philosophical and practical demonstration in how directors and screenwriters should approach novel adaptations for the screen. Kubrick - who ditched Nabokov's screenplay but was still kind enough to credit him as sole writer - takes the source material and creates his own story, one almost radically different from the novel, while retaining what the attuned reader will recognize as the novel's comedic and scornful spirit.
Recounting the tale of a middle-aged professor who lusts after a prepubescent child (although due to the world's sensitivity, he had to hire Sue Lyon who looks quite older, but is perfect in the role) and offers wild take on forbidden love. An aspect that I love about the film is how incompetent all major characters are in the story. Despite their culture - or supposed culture - the entire ordeal is a series of rushed mistakes made by irrational adults. Unfortunatelty for them, the object of their affection (or scorn, in the case of the try-hard Charlotte Haze) is just as good, if not better, at manipulative schemes, which makes the theme of comedy in universal human tragedy even more effective. The little moments makes this movie, and there are too many to count (I'm just a normal guy, the adults forcing Humbert Humbert into the invasive Mother Haze's arms, her own clumsiness, Clare Quilty's mischievous charm) and helps the movie suceed brilliantly at finding the humor in a tragic story, but from which the resilient and combative Lolita is able to bounce back as she matures.
Aesthetically, the film stands on its own, while mirroring the novel. While I have my gripes with the latter, gripes that Kubrick takes care of in the film (their extremely scenic and descriptive travels following Humbert Humbert's imprisonment of Lolita are quite a bore, and craters a big chunk of the novel), the movie nails the prose's flair for style and elegance. Kubrick's background as a photographer shines here. Immobile shots are some of the most pleasing moments in the film, making great use of lighting (Lolita's first appearance in the garden, Clare Quilty and Vivian Darkbloom hiding behind a newspaper, Clare Quilty waiting in the shadows before taking on the role of a curious policeman).
But the true ace in the hole in Kubrick's arsenal, the one that elevates the film to astronomical heights, is his brilliant use of Peter Sellers. I've read many comments that bemoan Clare Quilty's bombastic and consistent presence in the film and Kubrick leaving him unrestrained. I strongly disagree, and Kubrick did well in recognizing Sellers' genius talent and using his ability for disguise to maximum effect (Dear Dr.Zampf! Keeps ze pack...). It adds the perfect absurdist touch the story, while keeping the film's pace perfect and working within the differences between of the two mediums. Just a perfect work of art to me, and it's no wonder, considering the stylish aesthetical showcase and morbid humor, that Nabokov, an artist who cared nothing for films but as a way to provide for his family, held no ill-will in his own work not being used and declared the film as a first-rate work. I know this is an opinion that would send me straight to the guillotine with certain art aficionados, but since I've no shame, I'll readily admit that I find Kubrick's Lolita a more satisfying work of art than Nabokov's Lolita. One of my favorite films of all-time, with my favorite acting performance of all-time.
" My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the
weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust... "
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
My next pick is The Sunset Limited. I hesitated between this and Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro, but think I will keep the latter in my backpocket for the next round.
Lolita (1962) Directed by Stanley Kubrick
I'll start with a blanket assertion that I think is hard to dispute: it is impossible for a movie to do justice to Vladimir Nabokov's immaculately written, morally complex, hugely controversial Lolita. I don't think the Stanley Kubrick version comes close to doing so, though I do give some points to Adrian Lyne's 1997 version of Lolita, starring Jeremy Irons. I think the more recent film is superior to the Kubrick version on nearly all counts (though as good as he is, and he is very good, Frank Langella as Clare Quilty is no match for Peter Sellers). What does the first movie get wrong that the later movie gets right? The Kubrick version boasts a script that was co-written by Nabokov, so isn't that a plus? No, Nabokov handed in a 700 page draft of a screenplay that James B. Harris, one of the producers of the movie, said "it was impossible to shoot--it was impossible to lift." Harris and Kubrick took over the task of coming up with a workable screenplay and the result is often entertaining and repulsive simultaneously but the end result is more a Kubrick movie than a Nabokov adaptation. While the movie, consistent with the novel, incorporates humour into the narrative, it lacks almost completely the sensuality and eroticism that exists in the novel. What we end up getting in the Kubrick version is a movie about an aging pedophile whose story is reduced to screechy melodrama by the end. James Mason is too old for the role with the result that he comes across as a dirty old man with a terrible obsession. In the Lyne's version, Humbert Humbert is played by Jeremy Irons as more of a tortured soul aware of his own corruption but incapable of halting his moral decay. As in the novel he is a monster, but a monster the audience can feel a hint of empathy for, something that invariably complicates reaction to his character's treachery.
The biggest difference in the two movies has to do with the sensual, erotic element of the book. The Lyne version doesn't shy away from this at all, and is much, much truer to the novel in this regard. Through no fault of its own, the Kubrick version is made in the wrong time and place. Censorship in the US in 1962 forbade anything but the subtlest hint of Humbert and Lolita's true relationship. Much was implied, of course, but in only one very brief scene does it look like the pair are about to have sex. Kubrick's movie focuses on their destructive relationship but from the standpoint of a jealous suitor and his uncontrollable partner, not from the complex psychological framework that Nabokov constructs in the book. And Kubrick spends far more time on Lolita's over-the-top fishwife of a mother, played for maximum vulgarity by Shelley Winters. Kubrick gives Winters a lot of leeway, not to mention screen time, and she sure uses it. This is equally true of Peter Sellers whose Claire Quilty is literally a show stopper. Sellers is great whenever he is on screen, but like Robin Williams, another actor who preferred the broadest of strokes, he has a tendency to suck all the oxygen out of the room. Though I enjoyed him immensely I was mostly watching Sellers, the actor, and not Quilty, the character. In the same respective roles, Melanie Griffith and Frank Langella are both used far more sparingly and in the right proportion. As a result they fit into the movie much more believably and appropriately than Winters and Sellers do.
However, no movie can capture the brilliance and command of Nabokov's writing. Lolita, the novel, works partly because even given its highly controversial subject matter, Nabokov has the ability to create a complex inner world that is gracefully and beautifully expressed. The journey in literature is far more complex and thematically challenging than the journey provided in either movie. The humour, the wit, the psychological insight, the satiric element are all handled by Nabokov with a delicate touch, free from the morbid and the sensational. Other adaptations of Nabokov works have run into similar problems. If you eliminate the author's use of language from the interpretation in other media, you eliminate what made the work transcendent in the first place. Nabokov as a prose stylist may be unmatched in the 20th century. Not bad for someone writing in his third language.
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Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
Lolita (1962) Directed by Stanley Kubrick
I'll start with a blanket assertion that I think is hard to dispute: it is impossible for a movie to do justice to Vladimir Nabokov's immaculately written, morally complex, hugely controversial Lolita. I don't think the Stanley Kubrick version comes close to doing so, though I do give some points to Adrian Lyne's 1997 version of Lolita, starring Jeremy Irons. I think the more recent film is superior to the Kubrick version on nearly all counts (as good as he is, and he is very good,Frank Langella as Clare Quilty is no match for Peter Sellers). What does the first movie get wrong that the later movie gets right? The Kubrick version boasts a script that was co-written by Nabokov, so isn't that a plus? No, Nabokov handed in a 700 page draft of a screenplay that James B. Harris, one of the producers of the movie, said "it was impossible to shoot--it was impossible to lift." Harris and Kubrick took over the task of coming up with a workable screenplay and the result is often entertaining and repulsive simultaneously but the end result is more a Kubrick movie than a Nabokov adaptation. While the movie, consistent with the novel, incorporates humour into the narrative, it lacks the sensuality and eroticism that exists in the novel almost completely. What we end up getting in the Kubrick version is a movie about an aging pedophile whose story is reduced to screechy melodrama by the end. James Mason is too old for the role with the result that he comes across as a dirty old man with a terrible obsession. In the Lyne's version, Humbert Humbert is played by Jeremy Irons as more of a tortured soul aware of his own corruption but incapable of halting his moral decay. As in the novel he is a monster, but a monster the audience can feel a hint of empathy for, something that invariably complicates reaction to his character's treachery.
The biggest difference in the two movies has to do with the sensual, erotic element of the book. The Lyne version doesn't shy away from this at all, and is much, much truer to the novel in this regard. Through no fault of its own, the Kubrick version is made in the wrong time and place. Censorship in the US in 1962 forbade anything but the subtlest hint of Humbert and Lolita's true relationship. Much was implied, of course, but in only one very brief scene does it look like the pair are about to have sex. Kubrick's movie focuses on their destructive relationship but from the standpoint of a jealous suitor and his uncontrollable partner, not from the complex psychological framework that Nabokov constructs in the book. And Kubrick spends far more time on Lolita's over-the-top fishwife of a mother, played for maximum vulgarity by Shelley Winters. Kubrick gives Winters a lot of leeway, not to mention screen time, and she sure uses it. This is equally true of Peter Sellers whose Claire Quilty is literally a show stopper. Sellers is great whenever he is on screen, but like Robin Williams, another actor who preferred the broadest of strokes, he has a tendency to suck all the oxygen out of the room. Though I enjoyed him immensely I was mostly watching Sellers, the actor, and not Quilty, the character. In the same respective roles, Melanie Griffith and Frank Langella are both used far more sparingly and in the right proportion. As a result they fit into the movie much more believably and appropriately than Winters and Sellers do.
However, no movie can capture the brilliance and command of Nabokov's writing. Lolita, the novel, works partly because even given its highly controversial subject matter, Nabokov has the ability to create a complex inner world that is gracefully and beautifully expressed. The journey in literature is far more complex and thematically challenging than the journey provided in either movie. The humour, the wit, the psychological insight, the satiric element are all handled by Nabokov with a delicate touch, free from the morbid and the sensational. Other adaptations of other Nabokov works have run into similar problems. If you eliminate the author's use of language from the interpretation in other media, you eliminate what made the work transcendent in the first place. Nabokov as a prose stylist may be unmatched in the 20th century. Not bad for someone writing in his third language.
I don't believe we could disagree more.
If it means anything, Vladimir Nabokov and David Lynch both adored the film!And somehow, I am completely unsurprised that Nabokov turned in a 700 page (!!!) screenplay. That's longer than the book and still, completely Nabokovian. Incredibly funny coming from a man who gave a crap about nothing but literature, butterflies, chess and his wife.
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KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,792
- 3,846
Lolita
Kubrick (1962)
“Oh you know how people talk.”
An angry Humbert Humbert bursts into the home of a drunken Clare Quilty and shoots him dead. Jump back four years to a small New Hampshire town, Humbert is looking for some peace and quiet one summer before heading off to a college professorship in Ohio. Charlotte invites him to rent a room in her home. He isn’t really interested until he meets Lolita, her flirtatious teenage daughter. It’s lust at first sight. For everyone. Charlotte is just as obsessed with the sophisticated Humbert, so much so she sends the distracting Lolita away for summer camp (Camp Climax, ho ho!). He decides to marry “the cow” though the peace doesn’t last long. Charlotte reads his diaries, his confessions of love for Lolita. She does not like this. A fight ensues and, hysterical, she flees the house and is claimed by some duex ex car wreck. Humbert goes to Lolita and, at first, hides her mother’s death. They begin their affair. He shared the truth with her finally as they’re off to Ohio. They joy, again, is short lived. Now posing as father and daughter, the maturing Lolita wants the life of a typical high schooler, but the obsessed Humbert stands in her way. After one particular fight, they go on the run. After a hospital stay she finally breaks free. Years later Humbert receives a letter from her, explaining her new life and the various deceptions Quilty was involved in. The beaten Humbert makes one last attempt to win Lolita back. He fails, leaving her with a check to cover debts. He goes off to kill Quilty (an old New Hampshire neighbor). He dies in prison awaiting trail.
An undoubtedly discomfitting story. Our main character openly lusts for, woos and consummates an ongoing sexual relationship with a child. Just seeing those words makes the next sentence, at least to anyone who isn’t familiar with the source material, an odd one to type. But Lolita is funny. Darkly, dryly, sadly funny. There is nary a likable character in the script. Charlotte is pitiable, but far from sympathetic. Quilty is wise, but undeniably irksome. Lolita herself, though a victim, she’s far from defenseless and soon shrewdly knows how to manipulate her captor.
But this is Humbert’s story. His sad, pathetic tale. And this is James Mason’s masterpiece. He’s a calculating manipulator who believes he’s superior to everyone he encounters. It’s hubris that ultimately dooms him in the end. He never grasps what a leering, lecherous man he actually is. He’s jittery and flailing. He becomes the paranoid and put-upon partner that Charlotte at least briefly was. He’s threatened by boys. She’s petulant and immature, but she’s 14. What’s his excuse?
As for Kubrick, this is practically quaint compared with the rest of his filmography. It’s borderline noir at points with the lurky and lusting and the shadows and the whatnot.
Unimportant randomness — both Cec Linder and Lois Maxwell, both would go on to be in Bond movies after this.
(I should also note I've never read the book).
Kubrick (1962)
“Oh you know how people talk.”
An angry Humbert Humbert bursts into the home of a drunken Clare Quilty and shoots him dead. Jump back four years to a small New Hampshire town, Humbert is looking for some peace and quiet one summer before heading off to a college professorship in Ohio. Charlotte invites him to rent a room in her home. He isn’t really interested until he meets Lolita, her flirtatious teenage daughter. It’s lust at first sight. For everyone. Charlotte is just as obsessed with the sophisticated Humbert, so much so she sends the distracting Lolita away for summer camp (Camp Climax, ho ho!). He decides to marry “the cow” though the peace doesn’t last long. Charlotte reads his diaries, his confessions of love for Lolita. She does not like this. A fight ensues and, hysterical, she flees the house and is claimed by some duex ex car wreck. Humbert goes to Lolita and, at first, hides her mother’s death. They begin their affair. He shared the truth with her finally as they’re off to Ohio. They joy, again, is short lived. Now posing as father and daughter, the maturing Lolita wants the life of a typical high schooler, but the obsessed Humbert stands in her way. After one particular fight, they go on the run. After a hospital stay she finally breaks free. Years later Humbert receives a letter from her, explaining her new life and the various deceptions Quilty was involved in. The beaten Humbert makes one last attempt to win Lolita back. He fails, leaving her with a check to cover debts. He goes off to kill Quilty (an old New Hampshire neighbor). He dies in prison awaiting trail.
An undoubtedly discomfitting story. Our main character openly lusts for, woos and consummates an ongoing sexual relationship with a child. Just seeing those words makes the next sentence, at least to anyone who isn’t familiar with the source material, an odd one to type. But Lolita is funny. Darkly, dryly, sadly funny. There is nary a likable character in the script. Charlotte is pitiable, but far from sympathetic. Quilty is wise, but undeniably irksome. Lolita herself, though a victim, she’s far from defenseless and soon shrewdly knows how to manipulate her captor.
But this is Humbert’s story. His sad, pathetic tale. And this is James Mason’s masterpiece. He’s a calculating manipulator who believes he’s superior to everyone he encounters. It’s hubris that ultimately dooms him in the end. He never grasps what a leering, lecherous man he actually is. He’s jittery and flailing. He becomes the paranoid and put-upon partner that Charlotte at least briefly was. He’s threatened by boys. She’s petulant and immature, but she’s 14. What’s his excuse?
As for Kubrick, this is practically quaint compared with the rest of his filmography. It’s borderline noir at points with the lurky and lusting and the shadows and the whatnot.
Unimportant randomness — both Cec Linder and Lois Maxwell, both would go on to be in Bond movies after this.
(I should also note I've never read the book).
Jevo
Registered User
- Oct 3, 2010
- 3,503
- 401
Lolita (1962) dir. Stanley Kubrick
The British literature professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) arrives in a small New Hampshire resort town to spend his summer, before starting a professorship in Ohio. He acquires lodging at Charlotte Haze, who considers herself something of a socialite in the little town. Charlotte is a sexually frustrated widow, who repulses Humbert, and he's ready to look for another room, until he meets Charlotte young teenage daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon), Humbert becomes infatuated at first sight, and immediately accepts the room in the house to be close to Lolita, despite Charlotte's unwanted advances. Charlotte considers herself something of a socialite in the small town, and one of her grandest achievements is getting acclaimed Hollywood writer Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) to deliver a talk in the town. Charlotte also threw herself at Quilty, but he too was more interested in the small blonde in the house rather than Charlotte.
I'm not really sure how I feel about Lolita. Maybe because I end up somewhere in a somewhat indifferent middle ground. It's one of Kubrick's weaker films in my opinion. You can tell it's one of his earlier films, because it feels very restrained compared to some of his later films. There's no doubt in my mind, that had he made it 10 years later it would have been a completely different film. The relationship between Humbert and Lolita would have been much more overtly sexual, more like the book. I'm however not entirely convinced it would make it a better film. Lolita is simply a really hard book to adapt to film. The story is told through the eyes of Humbert, and he's not a reliable narrator. Herein lies the problem with adapting the book, because I don't think the story works if you adapt it entirely as an "objective" film made from a 3rd person perspective. You could make that film, but it would become something entirely different. In a written medium you can describe things that you can't show in the same way in a visual medium. In Humbert's mind the relationship between him and Lolita is beautiful. There's mutual love, mutual sexual attraction. When they have sex it is beautiful and sexy in the way it is when two people who are in love have sex. If you have to stay true to Humbert as a narrator of the film, you have to show it that way if you are going to show their sexual relationship explicitly. And that's just something that's going to be hard to do in a mainstream movie, a sexy scene between an adult man and a 12 year old girl. Even Lars Von Trier and Gaspar Noe might even stop to think twice before doing that. Getting the tone right would be almost impossible. I'm not a creative genius, but I have tried giving it some thought, and I can't come up with an angle that I feel would work. If you are not going to be explicit about it, we just end up with what we have here. Where we all know it's there, but we are not really talking about it, and that also makes the movie fall a bit flat.
There's one thing I really like about Lolita, and that is James Mason. I really like his performance. He can play the upstanding British gentleman that Humbert is outwardly, and he can also play that pathetic little man that Humbert is inside, and who Lolita slowly brings the front as the she chips away his armor and leaves him scared and exposed. Mason plays the whole range of Humbert really well. Peter Sellers also plays a creepy version of Peter Sellers, which is always fun to watch.
The British literature professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) arrives in a small New Hampshire resort town to spend his summer, before starting a professorship in Ohio. He acquires lodging at Charlotte Haze, who considers herself something of a socialite in the little town. Charlotte is a sexually frustrated widow, who repulses Humbert, and he's ready to look for another room, until he meets Charlotte young teenage daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon), Humbert becomes infatuated at first sight, and immediately accepts the room in the house to be close to Lolita, despite Charlotte's unwanted advances. Charlotte considers herself something of a socialite in the small town, and one of her grandest achievements is getting acclaimed Hollywood writer Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) to deliver a talk in the town. Charlotte also threw herself at Quilty, but he too was more interested in the small blonde in the house rather than Charlotte.
I'm not really sure how I feel about Lolita. Maybe because I end up somewhere in a somewhat indifferent middle ground. It's one of Kubrick's weaker films in my opinion. You can tell it's one of his earlier films, because it feels very restrained compared to some of his later films. There's no doubt in my mind, that had he made it 10 years later it would have been a completely different film. The relationship between Humbert and Lolita would have been much more overtly sexual, more like the book. I'm however not entirely convinced it would make it a better film. Lolita is simply a really hard book to adapt to film. The story is told through the eyes of Humbert, and he's not a reliable narrator. Herein lies the problem with adapting the book, because I don't think the story works if you adapt it entirely as an "objective" film made from a 3rd person perspective. You could make that film, but it would become something entirely different. In a written medium you can describe things that you can't show in the same way in a visual medium. In Humbert's mind the relationship between him and Lolita is beautiful. There's mutual love, mutual sexual attraction. When they have sex it is beautiful and sexy in the way it is when two people who are in love have sex. If you have to stay true to Humbert as a narrator of the film, you have to show it that way if you are going to show their sexual relationship explicitly. And that's just something that's going to be hard to do in a mainstream movie, a sexy scene between an adult man and a 12 year old girl. Even Lars Von Trier and Gaspar Noe might even stop to think twice before doing that. Getting the tone right would be almost impossible. I'm not a creative genius, but I have tried giving it some thought, and I can't come up with an angle that I feel would work. If you are not going to be explicit about it, we just end up with what we have here. Where we all know it's there, but we are not really talking about it, and that also makes the movie fall a bit flat.
There's one thing I really like about Lolita, and that is James Mason. I really like his performance. He can play the upstanding British gentleman that Humbert is outwardly, and he can also play that pathetic little man that Humbert is inside, and who Lolita slowly brings the front as the she chips away his armor and leaves him scared and exposed. Mason plays the whole range of Humbert really well. Peter Sellers also plays a creepy version of Peter Sellers, which is always fun to watch.
Spring in Fialta
A malign star kept him
I've got to say, how delusional - when it comes to Lolita's affection - is Humbert Humbert in the book? He readily admits that Lolita isn't fond of him and he continuously uses bribes and threats in exchange for sexual favors. He's delusional about his illness (' poets never kill ', concluding that he's only guilty of statutory rape) but he openly says that he's aware of Lolita's terrible predicament (my paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames) so I don't think a loyal adaptation told from Humbert Humbert's POV really shows the relationship as a beautiful one.
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Been some time since I read the book, but I pretty much agree that "beautiful" is not a word that describes their relationship accurately. As Humbert Humbert is the narrator in the book we see things through his perspective. Lolita, as a distinct human being, hardly registers at all. We don't have access to her inner thoughts about what is going on, only his point of view emerges, and he objectifies her as a nymphet and is too preoccupied with his own complex justifications and delusions to recognize her as a real person as opposed to a fantasy come true. Nabokov makes Humbert human but he never lets him off the hook.
KallioWeHardlyKnewYe
Hey! We won!
- May 30, 2003
- 15,792
- 3,846
The Scarlett Empress
Von Stenberg (1934)
“I like it here. I intend to stay.”
The story of Catherine II, who rose from Prussian girl to Empress of Russia, and one of the most famed ones at that. It’s a history, a bio and one heck of a sultry and stylish one at that. An impressive feat for 1934. Not all the legends are here, the most demeaning urban legend isn’t touched though there is are no attempt to dodge the particular character trait that birthed such tales. The Catherine here starts as a somewhat meek and reserved interloper, betrothed to an inattentive and goonie Archduke Peter. She adjusts soon enough, learning both how to meet, um, personal and professional goals. The film climaxes with a coup and a triumphant horse ride through the palace backed to an anachronistic blast of the 1812 Oveture.
Von Sternberg takes a pretty dim view of Russia. There’s an opening montage of torture. The editing transitions turn like pages from a book. My personal favorite was the guy inside the bell. Peter is a grinning imbecile. It’s a funny contrast for Sam Jaffe, who about 15 years later would be the exact opposite in The Asphalt Jungle, which we watched a few months back. Empress Elizabeth is shrewd and a hard case, which is especially driven home by Louise Dressler who opts to play the role as a matter-of-fact, disapproving American. I found the incongruity funny more than problematic. Though she also looks like my Aunt Linda (my favorite aunt) who is a genuinely sweet woman.
I’m burying the lede here by waiting this long to bring up Marlene Dietrich, our star here. This is one of her most iconic roles. That face. That voice. That brass. If you’ll allow this crudity, she’s got the biggest balls in the movie. She’s a kitty with claws. She toys with the leering and horny Alexei. They nearly have a literal roll in the hay, a scene in which Dietrich playfully and provocatively plays with several strands of straw. Chekov’s straw. She pulls a nice trick with it later. Again, I’m shocked at how much they were able to get away with. Earlier, he pretty much asks to be whipped. Meeeeeow. There’s a killer double entendre about “picking up” the archduke’s soldiers (he liked to play with toys). This movie almost needs hosed down.
Von Sternberg and Dietrich make quite the interesting twosome. Their mutual affinity is obvious and they made for quite the team. A more sexual Herzog-Kinski. She was cited in his divorce proceedings later in life. The Scarlet Empress isn’t just bold in its desires, but in his direction. The set design was striking. Big sprawling sets, heavy wood doors, high ceilings. Real things. Opulent outfits, furs, jewels. Leaves an impression. And a mark.
Von Stenberg (1934)
“I like it here. I intend to stay.”
The story of Catherine II, who rose from Prussian girl to Empress of Russia, and one of the most famed ones at that. It’s a history, a bio and one heck of a sultry and stylish one at that. An impressive feat for 1934. Not all the legends are here, the most demeaning urban legend isn’t touched though there is are no attempt to dodge the particular character trait that birthed such tales. The Catherine here starts as a somewhat meek and reserved interloper, betrothed to an inattentive and goonie Archduke Peter. She adjusts soon enough, learning both how to meet, um, personal and professional goals. The film climaxes with a coup and a triumphant horse ride through the palace backed to an anachronistic blast of the 1812 Oveture.
Von Sternberg takes a pretty dim view of Russia. There’s an opening montage of torture. The editing transitions turn like pages from a book. My personal favorite was the guy inside the bell. Peter is a grinning imbecile. It’s a funny contrast for Sam Jaffe, who about 15 years later would be the exact opposite in The Asphalt Jungle, which we watched a few months back. Empress Elizabeth is shrewd and a hard case, which is especially driven home by Louise Dressler who opts to play the role as a matter-of-fact, disapproving American. I found the incongruity funny more than problematic. Though she also looks like my Aunt Linda (my favorite aunt) who is a genuinely sweet woman.
I’m burying the lede here by waiting this long to bring up Marlene Dietrich, our star here. This is one of her most iconic roles. That face. That voice. That brass. If you’ll allow this crudity, she’s got the biggest balls in the movie. She’s a kitty with claws. She toys with the leering and horny Alexei. They nearly have a literal roll in the hay, a scene in which Dietrich playfully and provocatively plays with several strands of straw. Chekov’s straw. She pulls a nice trick with it later. Again, I’m shocked at how much they were able to get away with. Earlier, he pretty much asks to be whipped. Meeeeeow. There’s a killer double entendre about “picking up” the archduke’s soldiers (he liked to play with toys). This movie almost needs hosed down.
Von Sternberg and Dietrich make quite the interesting twosome. Their mutual affinity is obvious and they made for quite the team. A more sexual Herzog-Kinski. She was cited in his divorce proceedings later in life. The Scarlet Empress isn’t just bold in its desires, but in his direction. The set design was striking. Big sprawling sets, heavy wood doors, high ceilings. Real things. Opulent outfits, furs, jewels. Leaves an impression. And a mark.
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