| Lolita | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Adrian Lyne |
| Produced by | Mario Kassar Joel B. Michaels |
| Screenplay by | Stephen Schiff |
| Based on | Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov |
| Starring | Jeremy Irons Melanie Griffith Dominique Swain Frank Langella |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | Howard Atherton |
| Editing by | David Brenner Julie Monroe |
| Studio | Pathé |
| Distributed by | Pathé (France) The Samuel Goldwyn Company |
| Release date(s) | September 25, 1997 |
| Running time | 137 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $62 million[1] |
| Box office | $1,147,784 (US)[2] |
Lolita is a 1997 French-American drama film directed by Adrian Lyne. It is the second screen adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel of the same name and stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and Dominique Swain as Dolores "Lolita" Haze, with supporting roles by Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze, and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty.
With the central theme of Humbert's hebephilia, the film had considerable difficulty finding an American distributor[3] and premiered in Europe before being released in America, where it was met with much controversy. The film was picked up in the United States by Showtime, a cable network, before finally being released theatrically by The Samuel Goldwyn Company.[4] The performances by Irons and Swain impressed audiences, but, although praised by some critics for its faithfulness to Nabokov's narrative, the film received a mixed critical reception in the United States. Following its theatrical release, the film was distributed on VHS and DVD by Pathé, both of which are now out-of-print.
Contents |
In 1947, Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons), a European professor of French literature, travels to the United States to take a teaching position in New Hampshire. He rents a room in the home of widow Charlotte Haze (Melanie Griffith), largely because he sees her adolescent daughter Dolores (Dominique Swain), also called "Lo", while touring the house. Obsessed from boyhood with girls of this age (whom he calls "nymphets"), partly because of a boyhood sexual experience and subsequent tragic loss, Humbert marries Charlotte for the sake of access to her daughter.
Later in their marriage, Charlotte becomes furious after she, by way of reading Humbert's secret diary, discovers Humbert's preference for her daughter. Moments after, Charlotte goes to the mailbox to mail some letters when she is struck by a car and killed. Her death frees Humbert to pursue a sexual and emotional relationship with Lo, whom he nicknames "Lolita". Humbert and Lo then travel the country, staying in various motels before eventually settling in the college town of Beardsley, where Humbert takes a teaching job. However, Lo's increasing boredom with Humbert, as well as her growing desire for independence, fuels a constant tension between them. Humbert's desperate affections for Lo are also rivaled by another man, playwright Clare Quilty (Frank Langella), who has been pursuing Lo since the beginning of their travels. Quilty's name and identity are at first unknown to Humbert, and when Lo runs away to him, Humbert's search for her is unsuccessful.
Three years later, Humbert receives a letter from Lo asking for financial help. Humbert visits Lo, who is now married to another man and pregnant. Humbert, who still loves Lo, asks her to run away with him, but she refuses. He relents and gives her a substantial amount of money and information about her inheritance from her mother. Lo also reveals to Humbert how Quilty actually tracked young girls her age and took them to Pavor Manor, his home in Parkington, to film the girls performing various sexual acts with the help of his assistant Vivian.
She also tells him about how after being taken from Humbert, Quilty tried to film Lo performing sex acts in a group settings. When Lo refuses and prefers Quilty to be like a father to her, Quilty leaves Lo on her own. After his visit with Lo, Humbert tracks down Quilty and kills him. After being chased by the police, Humbert is arrested and sent to prison. He dies in November 1950, and Lo dies on Christmas Day in childbirth.
The first screen adaptation of Lolita (1962) was written by Nabokov and directed by Stanley Kubrick.
The screenplay for the 1997 version, more faithful to the text of the novel than the author's adaptation, is credited to Stephen Schiff, a writer for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and other magazines. He was hired to write it as his first movie script, after the film's producers had rejected screenplays commissioned from more experienced screenwriters and directors James Dearden (Fatal Attraction), Harold Pinter, and David Mamet.[5][6][7]
According to Schiff, "Right from the beginning, it was clear to all of us that this movie was not a 'remake' of Kubrick's film. Rather, we were out to make a new adaptation of a very great novel." Schiff stated that "Some of the filmmakers involved actually looked upon the Kubrick version as a kind of 'what not to do'" and quipped that Kubrick's film should have been called Quilty, due to the prominent role of that character.[8]
The film received mixed reviews, with an approval rating of 67% at Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 46/100 at Metacritic.[9][10] Many critics evaluated the film highly and appreciated aspects of it, though some tended to qualify their positive comments. For example, James Berardinelli praised the performances of the two leads, Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain, but he considered Melanie Griffith's performance weak, "stiff and unconvincing"; he considered the film better when she no longer appeared in it and concluded: "Lolita is not a sex film; it's about characters, relationships, and the consequences of imprudent actions. And those who seek to brand the picture as immoral have missed the point. Both Humbert and Lolita are eventually destroyed—what could be more moral? The only real controversy I can see surrounding this film is why there was ever a controversy in the first place."[11]
The film was The New York Times "Critics Pick" on 31 July 1998, with its critic Caryn James championing it and saying, "Rich beyond what anyone could have expected, the film repays repeated viewings...it turns Humbert's madness into art."[12]
Writer and director James Toback lists it in his picks for the 10 finest films ever made, but he rates the original film higher.[13]
Commenting on differences between the novel and the film, Charles Taylor observes that "[f]or all of their vaunted (and, it turns out, false) fidelity to Nabokov, Lyne and Schiff have made a pretty, gauzy Lolita that replaces the book's cruelty and comedy with manufactured lyricism and mopey romanticism."[14] Extending Taylor's observation, Keith Phipps concludes: "Lyne doesn't seem to get the novel, failing to incorporate any of Nabokov's black comedy—which is to say, Lolita's heart and soul."[15]
Lolita took in a gross income of $19,492 in its opening weekend. The final domestic gross income was $1,147,784[2] on a $62,000,000 budget, making the film one of the biggest box office bombs of all time.
|
|||||||||||