Lolita (1997) 137m.
I did not really want to like this film. In a display of petulance befitting its title character, I spent the best part of two years rehearsing my gripe about how Adrian Lyne deserved to fail spectacularly for having the chutzpah to tamper with such a classic. It wasn't just me. It seemed everyone had a bone to pick with LOLITA - its long-delayed and highly publicized search for a distributor was ample proof of that. There were the Nabokovians who didn't want to see their beloved classic - which rated #4 on 1998's 100-Best-Books-of-the-Century list - fall into the hands of the director responsible for such pop-sleaze as 9 1/2 WEEKS, FATAL ATTRACTION, and INDECENT PROPOSAL. There were the usual lobbyists who objected to the film's subject matter presumably on the pretext that it would somehow endorse underage sexual activity (this argument is true inasmuch as cartoons promote the wilful dropping of pianos onto pedestrians). And then there was a smaller arena of controversy - for all I know, I was the only person in it, which reads as thus: I just didn't like the thought of someone monkeying around with a story that had already been established as a film classic by Stanley Kubrick. For years we've always thought of Kubrick's LOLITA as the one, the only, definitive film version, shot in tasteful black and white, boasting sharp performances by James Mason and Peter Sellers, and forever fixing in our minds the image of a B/W Sue Lyon and her heart-shaped sunglasses as the novel's heroine.
And then along comes Lyne. I remember feeling furious when I first read of his intentions for a remake. But maybe it's just as well that there has been a two-year hiatus as a cooling-off period, because by the time of viewing I was ready to accept Lyne's LOLITA as an alternative, not a replacement. And here's the news, which surprises me more than anyone - I saw LOLITA and loved it.
Sticking faithfully to the text and events of the book (although Lolita is a couple of years older in the film, one concession Lyne felt obliged to make to take off some of the heat), LOLITA is a sumptuous, mesmerizing piece of work. I can't think of anything else quite like it, although Visconti springs clearly to mind in the opening scenes. Unlike Kubrick's cool, black comedy, Lyne's LOLITA displays a much broader emotional tapestry - with remarkable ease he moves between scenes of drama, humor, eroticism, and romance. The storyline parallels Kubrick's version closely, reminding us that the 1962 film probably wasn't as much of a departure from the book as it first seemed: Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons) falls in love with 14-year old Lolita (newcomer Dominique Swain) and marries her mother (Melanie Griffith) just to be near her. A few weeks after the marriage, he becomes a widower and finds he has 'Lo' all to himself.
The performances Lyne draws from Irons and Swain are arresting - these two have more intense screen time together than any other recent couple that springs to mind, and sparks are always flying. Right from the tortured timbre of Iron's opening narration it's plain to see that this is a tale of the heart. It's interesting because the romance is purely on Humbert's behalf (the film's prologue does well to establish his motivation as the pursuit of an ideal rather than lust-driven obsession), and even when Lolita draws her role in the story to a close with the unconsciously cruel remark about "the only man I was ever crazy about" (which he knows isn't him) he finds himself evermore besotted with her. Nowhere in this story does either one of them say that they love one another - instead, all we hear is is the refrain "I'm sorry".
The on-screen relationship between Swain and Irons was always going to be Lyne's most difficult task, but he pulls it off well. The obvious tack is to make Humbert the innocent one and Lolita the manipulator, but this is just as liable to elicit charges of unfair sexual politicking: that young teens are being grossly misrepresented as knowing carnal creatures. Instead, Lyne shows us how gauche Lolita is - the kind of thing that would be anti-erotic to anyone but idealistically-blinded Humbert. Swain moves everywhere with lanky, lumpy gestures; she sprawls over furniture, chews gum, fidgets, sneers at her mother, thinks only of herself and depends on two favored expressions - sleepy and sassy. She is indifferent, a behavior that Humbert confuses with a power he believes inherent to all nymphets, yet far from naive - she for one has not mistaken their escapade for some wildly romantic journey. If Nabokov's book is a portrait of the hedonistic bubblegum heart of America then Swain's Lolita ably incarnates his themes, and Irons' Humbert is suitably by turns amused, irritated, and bewildered.
Looking at the thoughtful and detailed work that Lyne has done with LOLITA it is easy to believe that this is his best film - certainly since his debut FOXES which in itself was not without Lolitaesque colorings. He is able to include head-and-shoulder-only lovemaking scenes between Swain and Irons without making it offensive (at the point that Humbert is ready to acknowledge that their relationship would be seen as nothing more than the corruption of a minor, Swain interrupts and diverts him with the facetious remark "the word is incest"). It isn't sordid or exploitative, and while it may be romantic, and even arousing, it is held in check by a sense of mistrust. Ennio Morricone's lush score and Howard Atherton's beautiful, drowsy cinematography wrap LOLITA in a doomed wistfulness. It's a good example of how human emotion can really be amplified in a cinema with the right use of images and sound.
It's a shame that LOLITA had such a troubled history. I even feel guilty myself for doubting that it could have been anything other than an attempt to cash in on a controversial title. And yet here I am, ready to move Kubrick's version to one side of the pedestal to make room for another. As Lolita herself might have said, who woulda thunk it?
sburridge@hotmail.com
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