Vladimir Nabokov: Lolita

[Peder]

Couldn't resist poking about in the screenplay...
I just opened it up where ever it wanted to open, and it opened at the place of HH picking up Lo at Camp Q after Charlotte's death (something bad is soon to happen!)

On p. 107 of the screenplay, after Humbert has spoken with Quilty on the porch and is going in to Lolita, he passes a beaming Dr. Braddock and some matrons and is accidently photographed with them. Now the part I do not remember from the book:



Just checked to be sure, that bit of dialogue was not in the book.

VN's playful giving the viewer a hint.

Pontalba,
ROTFL, He was irrepressible!
Even if it were going to be hours and hours long, as Kubrick complained, I would have gladly sat through it. Is that the whole screenplay that you have? /Poising finger to click button/
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Well according to the thesis, the original no longer exists. However, this un, is pretty darned good! From the back cover:

Vladimir Nabokov''s rapturous masterpiece of erotic obsession entered our language (most dictionaries have a definition of the word "Lolita") and inspired two motion pictures. It also inspired the master himself to try his hand at screenwriting, and the result was this typically graceful and ingenious screenplay, which Nabokov wrote in 1960.
As it charts the hypnotized progress of Humbert Humbert, a hypercivilized and amoral European emigre, into the orbit of a treacherously lovely and utterly unimressionable preteen, Lolita: A Screenplay gleefully demolishes a host of stereotypes--sexual, moral, and aesthetic. Not least among the casualties is the notion that cinema and literature are two separate spheres. For in his screenplay, Nabokov married the structural and narrative felicities of great cinema to prose as sensuously entrancing as any he had ever written, resulting in a work that will delight cineasts and Nabokovians alike.

What else is there to add??

Need I say more?

 

[Peder]

Well according to the thesis, the original no longer exists. However, this un, is pretty darned good! From the back cover:


What else is there to add??

Need I say more?

No, Pontalba,
Not a word more.
So it's over to amazon I go, to check it out.
Selected Letters should be coming in this week, so the screen play will get scheduled for next week, or whenever my next coupon is good for.
Peder

 

[Peder]

Pontalba,
Back again, and it doesn't cost any more than going to the movie would! YAY

Plus I came across a book by Stephen Shiff called Lolita: The Book of the Film, about the making of the Lyne/Irons movie. The Reader Reviews contain a very lively debate about whether the movie stank or not, with reasons, which is really interesting to read. I have no comment on the book.

Lolita: The Book of the Film

Forget it's a book, just read the reviews
Charles

 

[pontalba]

Too Late, I already have it.

 

[Peder]

Too Late, I already have it.

Pontalba,
Oh, my! What are we going to do with you?
ROTFALOLTIC,
Peder

 

[steffee]

I looked at this book in the library a few weeks ago, but didn't get it out.

LOL at the comments on the Amazon link:
"This move stinks"
"To the man who said it "stunk""
"To the man who said "To the man who said it "stunk""

hehe, what a laugh.

 

[Peder]

I looked at this book in the library a few weeks ago, but didn't get it out.

LOL at the comments on the Amazon link:
"This move stinks"
"To the man who said it "stunk""
"To the man who said "To the man who said it "stunk""

hehe, what a laugh.

Steffee, Hi!
And yes! Those are exactly the reviews I had in mind.!
It is that last one there that seems to show a really deep understanding of the novel as being more than just an older guy getting involved with a young girl. Right or wrong I don't know, but it is hard to argue against and I have to say he sounds convincing to me. And it is his conception of the novel, or something quite like it, that causes the author at SFG's Metamorphoses link to say that both the movies missed the point completely, and that the real Lolita movie remained to be made.
Going to have to reread both those interpretations of the novel much more carefully when I am more awake, because they are quite different from the usual commentary one sees.
They seem to get at the 'inner' reasons the novel gets such a grip on the reader.
Glad to hear from you as usual
Take care,
Peder

 

[pontalba]

.....that the real Lolita movie remained to be made.

I quite agree with that. I believe it was in SFG's linked thesis that it mentioned that VN's screenplay would have taken 7 hours of film. Well worth in IMHO.....nowadays it could be a made for cable movie!

But who could play HH? Charlotte, and above all Little Lo?

 

[Peder]

I quite agree with that. I believe it was in SFG's linked thesis that it mentioned that VN's screenplay would have taken 7 hours of film. Well worth in IMHO.....nowadays it could be a made for cable movie!

But who could play HH? Charlotte, and above all Little Lo?

Pontalba,
Well, maybe the guy from Hannibal Lecter for HH? Or Quilty?
For Little Lo, in a few years there will be the little girl whose name I forget, but who was in The Door in The Floor movie based on John Irving.
Charlotte is a real puzzle. They are all so skinny now. Maybe a good British actress I remember from BBC-America. Pamela Richardson?

And now really to sleep,
Peder

 

[steffee]

I think Lolita would be good, and true to the story I pictured in my head, if HH was played by someone who looked somewhat like a "mad-scientist", a bit of a "thuggy" look, but also an intellectural, as HH was... maybe Michael Caine



I agree with Anthony Hopkins, and maybe Jack Nicholson, too (who is such a fantastic actor, I reckon)

And Quilty, the same, but more effeminate than HH, due to the screenwriting (dare I say the next bit... um, no)... moving on. Maybe Hugh Grant or

Charlotte I pictured as being lonely and highly-strung, and quite viscious at times, perhaps played by... jeez, I dunno, they are all too skinny.

Now, Lolita... throughout the whole book I pictured a kind of Leon scenario. Entirely different story but there's just something about the two of them (Lolita and Leon) that strikes me as having a similarity... so for that reason, I propose Natalie Portman.

 

[StillILearn]

I think Lolita would be good, and true to the story I pictured in my head, if HH was played by someone who looked somewhat like a "mad-scientist", a bit of a "thuggy" look, but also an intellectural, as HH was... maybe Michael Caine

I thought I was pretty much Nabokoved out, steffee, but yeah -- Michael Caine! I can see a woman falling for him, and he has a kind of a humblefunny quality about him. Jack Nicholson is obviously way too evil, I mean who would let that man come within a mile of her child? And how old is Natalie Portman, anyway? We need a twelve year-old for our Lolita this time for God's sake.

 

[Peder]

I think Lolita would be good, and true to the story I pictured in my head, if HH was played by someone who looked somewhat like a "mad-scientist", a bit of a "thuggy" look, but also an intellectural, as HH was... maybe Michael Caine



I agree with Anthony Hopkins, and maybe Jack Nicholson, too (who is such a fantastic actor, I reckon)

And Quilty, the same, but more effeminate than HH, due to the screenwriting (dare I say the next bit... um, no)... moving on. Maybe Hugh Grant or

Charlotte I pictured as being lonely and highly-strung, and quite viscious at times, perhaps played by... jeez, I dunno, they are all too skinny.

Now, Lolita... throughout the whole book I pictured a kind of Leon scenario. Entirely different story but there's just something about the two of them (Lolita and Leon) that strikes me as having a similarity... so for that reason, I propose Natalie Portman.

Steffee, Great pictures!!!

And YES, YES, YES for Natalie Portman! I think your picture of her is from Closer and exactly the scene I had in mind. That is a fantastic film, one of the greatest, and a must see! Directed by Mike Nichols, it stars Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Jude Law and Clive Owen. But the scene in the VIP room where Portman is wearing little else than that choker and one of the men is pleading for her to come back, is a scene that would redefine Lolita and Humbert for all time to come! Even if it isn't quite in the book. But a similar scene could be arranged to fit Humbert begging Lolita, and Lolita holding out for a rate increase. I would die to see it, or Closer again also.

Michael Caine for Humbert sounds quite right, and Anthony Hopkins I'm certain would do well. But, Oh, to imagine Jack Nicholson in the role! There is no telling the heights to which he would raise it! A total pleasure to contemplate! /drool/

As for Charlotte, I just saw Match Point and the mother there (Penelope Wilton?) might do. She's not quite Shelley Winters but she seems suitably bluff and indomitable.

But really, no Pamela Richardson? I'm crushed.

Pontalba, where are you? We are casting an important movie here!

Peder

 

[StillILearn]

Oops. Caine is too old also. How old was HH anyhow? And who do you think VN had inmind for the part? Cary Grant maybe?

 

[Peder]

Jack Nicholson is obviously way too evil, I mean who would let that man come within a mile of her child? And how old is Natalie Portman, anyway? We need a twelve year-old for our Lolita this time for God's sake.

Still,
Jack can be charming; he has had a way with older women in some movies.

But Natalie Portman. I don't care if she is twelve or twenty, I want to see her taking Humbert down a peg! So we'll have a movie "Lolita Grown Up." Anything, but she's gotta do it! Sweet revenge and that man has to be made to grovel!

Peder

 

[Peder]

Perhaps they could be engaged.

 

[pontalba]

Still,
Jack can be charming; he has had a way with older women in some movies.

But Natalie Portman. I don't care if she is twelve or twenty, I want to see her taking Humbert down a peg! So we'll have a movie "Lolita Grown Up." Anything, but she's gotta do it!

Peder

Good Morning All!
I cannot abide Jack Nicholson.............he's outta here (IMHO). Michael Caine can do no (hardly) wrong so he is fine as HH. As for Quilty, hmmm Hugh Grant has the right personna, but is too good looking. Anyway, I want James Mason for HH again, and I think Frank Langella was perfect as Quilty. Even as to VN's description in the novel. I'll leave it to you guys to cast Lolita herself. A younger Portman looks good to me though. After all this is a fantasy casting.....

Actually, now that I think about Jack Nicholson can be Quilty!

 

[steffee]

Natalie Portman is the same age as me, now (25) but in Leon, she played a 12-year old girl who meets a bad man (Leon) and ends up falling in love with him, well they fall in love with each other (though they don't do anything, not even kiss, as far as I recall). It's a fantastic film, and all through reading Lolita, I imagined her playing as Lolita, because the stories seemed so similar to me.

I have Closer here, just arrived this morning actually, from a dvd rental online thingy, but now it's been mentioned here, on the Lolita thread itself, I can't wait to watch it!

Pamela Richardson... searching google but with no success! Haven't a clue who she is, but yeah ok, we can go with that.

Jack Nicholson wasn't evil in As Good As It Gets - I was thinking that kind of Jack Nicholson, rather than The Shining or Cuckoo's Nest Jack Nicholson. And yes, Michael Caine is a bit too old, now

 

[Peder]

And as for Pamela Richardson, it sounds like I am asking for an actress who doesn't exist by that name. So what else is new?
Peder

 

[pontalba]

Peder...did you mean Helen Mirren?