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Re: Lolita and Leon (movies)

Posted by Dante on Wednesday, April 23 2014 at 3:03:02PM
In reply to Lolita and Leon (movies) posted by girllovepride on Wednesday, April 23 2014 at 01:23:06AM

kittens has it right about Nabakov's protagonist not being a GLer, but an obsessive. He is damaged goods and manipulates Lolita. Quilty is his counterpoint as the unrepentant monster.

As for the Kubrick version; even when Kubrick missed the entire point of a book ( see The Shining ) he never failed to make great art. But at the point in his career when he did Lolita, he had been seduced by Quilty Peter Sellers, and allowed him to run roughshod improvising wildly. Sellers was a comic genius. And listening to the Goon Show on the radio gives you a glimpse of just what his mind was capable of ( when linked to the unhinged Spike Milligan. ) But Lolita is not really an exercise in manic free-association nor multiple-personalities.

Further, I also prefer Melanie Griffith's version of Charlotte Haze. You can see, despite her crassness and pretentiousness that she might have been a halfway decent match for some Teleiophile. You also see the jealousy over Lolita's youth more clearly. Shelly Winters' version is such a caricature that you cannot see her appealing to anyone in such a way as to have begot a daughter.

Kubrick's version is worthwhile seeing. And it may even be better art than Adrian Lynne's adaptation ( just as his version of The Shining is better art than Mick Garris' miniseries; ) but in its way, I think it gets more things right.

As for Leon. Its a masterpiece. Though too check out kid Portman in the film Beautiful Girls as the tween soul-mate of Timothy Hutton's character returning to his hometown. And I also thought that she was perfection as Pacino's step-daughter in the film Heat; which has a scene many step-dads have seen played-out in RL, but never before in film.

Dante

Dante





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