Lolita?

Started by tpfkabi, January 10, 2003, 10:58:27 PM

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tpfkabi

i've seen all of Kubrick's films from The Killing on except for Lolita. this seems to be hard to find to rent
how does it compare?
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

bonanzataz

I love Lolita. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! Such excellent black comedy. I thought it would be a task to watch, because it was also one of the Kubrick films I needed to see in order to get a full view, but the performances are laugh out loud funny. Try and find a copy, and if you can't, buy it and then sell it used on amazon or something.
The corpses all hang headless and limp bodies with no surprises and the blood drains down like devil's rain we'll bathe tonight I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls Demon I am and face I peel to see your skin turned inside out, 'cause gotta have you on my wall gotta have you on my wall, 'cause I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls collect the heads of little girls and put 'em on my wall hack the heads off little girls and put 'em on my wall I want your skulls I need your skulls I want your skulls I need your skulls

Cecil

same here. i love it.

tpfkabi

how does it fit to his other stuff? particularly STrangelove
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Cecil

well its more serious. its a drama.  i like strangelove better though. have you seen the 1997 remake? kubricks is way better.

Duck Sauce

Lolita is great. It was one of those movies I had no interest in, other than it was directed by Kubrick, so I forced myself to watch it and I loved it. Its pretty funny too. Also, The Killing is an awesome movie, really short too.

Gold Trumpet

Lolita is a very good Kubrick movie but for the period of post Spartacus, it is at the bottom for me for the main reasons it shows Kubrick constrained a lot in trying to tell the story. He does a good job and all but he never really fully attains the sexual feeling of the very sexual novel. He does well with all the other elements that made the book great, but doesn't accomplish at all in this very important aspect. With Spartacus, Kubrick knew he needed to have complete control in the making of his movies from then on but ran into problems with Lolita after the Catholic Church basically banned it. The banning put so many constraints on what could even be shown. So much so that the shot of James Mason embracing Shelley Winters on the bed in a more than friendly way but actually just looking at the picture of his daughter was almost removed because it was deemed too much for the church. That example alone showed of how tightly controlled the film world was in the early 60s but as major studios started to go bankrupt and find more awareness to a realistic nature in idependent filmmaking that did things really open up for sexuality to be explored in films. After Lolita was made, Kubrick admitted he prolly would never have made the film if he knew how constrained the film would have been. Lolita seems like it would have been more fulfilled if made in the early 70s instead of 60s because the degree of exploration Kubrick would have had would have been completely different.

~rougerum

xerxes

i love the book, it is actually my favorite novel... but in my opinion it has never and will never be fully realized on film.  i didn't care for the kubrick version very much at all, it didn't capture the feeling of the book at all.  the newer version was not too much better, although i did enjoy it a bit more, it didn't have much of the humor... anyway neither of them should have been done.

Duck Sauce

Quote from: xerxesi love the book, it is actually my favorite novel... but in my opinion it has never and will never be fully realized on film.  i didn't care for the kubrick version very much at all, it didn't capture the feeling of the book at all.  the newer version was not too much better, although i did enjoy it a bit more, it didn't have much of the humor... anyway neither of them should have been done.

Well how are you reviewing the film? On its own or in comparison to the book? I hear people say "The Shining" is a terrible adaptation of the book, but then again its a great movie. I think you should judge the film on its own.

xerxes

kubrick's version, i didn't care for, taken on its own and when compared to the book. i enjoyed the newer version somewhat... but both are nothing compared to the book

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: Duck SauceAlso, The Killing is an awesome movie, really short too.

Killer's Kiss is also a must see, you know, to look at his roots and everything... really formulaic, but you can just see his visual style developing.

By the way, is the money-blowing-in-the-wind scene at the end of The Killing the first of its kind?

Gold Trumpet

I doubt that scene is really the first of its kind because its just something arbitrary actually giving away a criminal in an obvious way. With the great number of film noir films made before it, I'm sure a scene played like that before, maybe if not exactly that way.

But I've never understood the great appeal to The Killing. Its a dated film by Kubrick but without any of the qualities in direction that made Kubrick Kubrick. It's like people calling La Strada the best Fellini film ever made when it is barely with any of the magic that would develop later in the director's career that let him flourish with his own identity. Yea, I liked The Killing and all, but I prolly will never watch it again unless Criterion releases it on dvd in some nice loaded dvd or something. It also reminds me of popular movies these days like Memento and Donnie Darko and how the only thing really mentioned about those movies are there very different structures in telling the story and how my thoughts for them will be the same with The Killing that as they get older, they only get more dated because it wasn't movies really can't survive off just some cute structure or way of telling a story because in reality, its a mere trick and nothing more.

I've also never seen Killer's Kiss nor Fear and Desire and I really don't want to see them at all. I just have no interest.

~rougerum

Ghostboy

Lolita is also one of my favorite novels. I love the Kubrick version, even though he made it something different than the book. The Lyne version stayed truer to the novel, which basically ruined it in comparison. I think Kubrick's approach -- to make it a black comedy -- worked as good as any adaptation could have. Lyne's film just took itself so seriously!

I'm actually surprised that Kubrick got away with as much as he did in the movie, considering the time period. I guess raising the girl's age to 15 helped a bit.

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: The Gold TrumpetI've also never seen Killer's Kiss nor Fear and Desire and I really don't want to see them at all. I just have no interest.

Aw, c'mon, Killer's Kiss is a fun movie. Very short, very formulaic, but very Kubrick (directorially at least).

life_boy

I just saw Lolita and it is great!  Peter Sellers is brilliant and I wish he was still alive, or at least hadn't gone away so soon.  This has some great performances from everyone involved.