August 16: Lolita

Lolita

Sandwiched between Stanley Kubrick’s masterworks Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove, the charcoal black comedy Lolita (1962) eschews Kubrick’s usual wide angle camerawork, patterns that fill up the frame, or the symbolism he often employed that hides in plain sight – for what has proved to be his most conventional storytelling effort of his luminous film canon. When Humbert Humbert (James Mason) accepts a lodging invitation, and later, a hand written marriage proposal from Charlotte Haze (Shelly Winters), a woman he finds beneath him socially, physically and culturally, just to be close to Charlotte’s precocious under age daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon), his obsession with her blooming sexuality has tragic implications that forever alters their lives. Kubrick coaxes strong performances, while deftly maneuvering around the taboo at the center of the Nabokov novel, with emphasis on the dialogue, innuendo, and the dark comedy that is born out of Humbert’s lust, guilt, jealousy and paranoia over Lolita. Peter Sellers shines in a Golden Globe nominated performance as Clare Quilty, a man who shares the same obsessive pedophilic machinations as Humbert.

Kim Morgan discusses Lolita on the New Beverly blog.