Lolita (1962) (B&W) (DVD)

Lolita is Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel, with a screenplay by Nabokov himself (he receives sole writing credit, although Kubrick discarded much of his work). I have not read the novel, but I think few would argue how brave Kubrick was to take on this material during this time. He later admitted that had he realized how severe the censorship limitations would be, he wouldn't have made the film. I'm, for one, glad he did. Not only is this a brave, boundary pushing film but it shows early signs of Kubrick's trademark style and is a perfect example of how some filmmakers were able to brilliantly work past the censors. In an age where you can show anything on film, it takes a special creativity to show nothing and not let the audience notice. Furthermore, it's one of Kubrick's most emotionally dynamic films. Emotional content was not his strong suit as a director and he's been accused of making emotionless films. This is not the case with Lolita. While it has moments of comedy, it's a profoundly sad film.The film takes place in the 1950s and begins at the end. Humbert Humbert (James Mason), a 50-something British professor of French literature, arrives at the home of Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) and murders him. The film takes us back four years as Humbert arrives in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, where he'll spend the summer before moving on to Beardsley College in the fall. In looking for a room to rent, he encounters Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters), a lonely widower. At first, Humbert is put off by her flirtatious nature and only agrees to rent the room after eyeing her 14-year-old daughter, Dolores "Lolita" Haze (Sue Lyon). After Charlotte becomes infatuated with Humbert, she sends Lolita away to summer camp and professes her love for him. In an effort to remain close with Lolita, he marries Charlotte. Under tragic circumstances Charlotte dies suddenly, leaving Humbert to care for Lolita. He picks her up from camp and the two begin a sad odyssey across the United States, with the mysterious Clare Quilty always close by.With a running time of 2 hours and 33 minutes, Lolita is the rare kind of movie that races by while fitting in a substantial amount of plot. Much occurs in this film within the running time, but it never feels as long as it is. Because it's an adaptation of a celebrated piece of literature, this film would be remembered today regardless of the finished product. I don't believe it would be regarded as highly had any other director been behind it. Despite such rigid restrictions on the content of the story, Kubrick managed to create a special film that is both effective and affecting. In telling a story about a forbidden relationship between an adult and, essentially, a child, he managed to make a film that says all it needs to about the relationship and makes a stunning emotional impact, while never showing them being intimate in any way. Lolita kisses Humbert on the cheek in one scene and (if memory serves me) that kiss isn't even indicative of anything else. Lolita feels timeless, like a recent film rendered black and white. There are those with an aversion to old movies, but even that audience may be surprised by how modern this film seems. It is further proof of what a progressive, ingenious filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was.For all its brilliance as a film, Lolita can be watched just to see the coy, clever ways Kubrick got past the censors. For this story to be conveyed, cinematic trickery had to be employed often, as well as a (unheard of in today's studio system) reliance on the intelligence of the audience and their ability to read between the lines. After all, Humbert is a pedophile (perhaps a hebephile, more accurately) and the slightest implication of that, even today, will get your film in trouble. In one scene, Humbert is embracing Charlotte and they fall onto her bed. His eyes wander and a picture on her nightstand of Lolita comes into the foreground. In other scenes, the screen fades to black after some envelope-pushing dialogue. This effect is utilized a fair amount, but the lines and looks they were able to get past the censors remain surprising.Lolita, the film, the story, really toys with the morals of the viewer in the way it manipulates you to sympathize with some thoroughly immoral people. Humbert is a rather despicable character who only grows more so as the film progresses, yet he receives sympathy almost immediately. Winters' Mrs. Haze is the most sympathetic character, if not the true innocent of the story, and while your heart aches for her, you simultaneously pity Humbert's plight. Much of this owes to Mason's characterization of Humbert; all upper-class arrogance, betraying deep self-loathing. It was a brave move to accept this role and Mason is really quite good. Amusingly enough, he bears a passing resemblance to Richard Nixon and I wonder if this attribute has ever assisted his performance by way of audience sympathy or repulsion. Ultimately, it may be the way Lolita is portrayed that makes it easier to genuinely empathize with Humbert. Or, it may just be the generalized emotions that allow audiences to connect with hi; the genuine longing, the unrequited love, and the feeling of constantly being deceived by this woman/girl. Lolita is a "victim," but in many ways she's the villain. Lyon, only fourteen when she played Lolita, gives a dynamic performance that is simultaneously naïve, cunning, innocent, and promiscuous. It's a mature, intelligent performance as evidenced by the interactions between Lyon and Mason. As smart as Humbert is, Lolita always seems to be one step ahead of him.With Humbert being the "hero" of the piece, Quilty almost comes to be the personification of evil. I'd guess due to his admiration for Peter Sellers, Kubrick greatly increased Quilty's role in the film. Sellers is remembered as a comedian, but his performance here is far from funny. There's something frightening about the rambling, accented portrayal. The disguises he uses in the film to torment Humbert show the seeds of Dr. Strangelove, but they come across as ominous rather than humorous. Maybe it's just the character itself, but Sellers makes him so creepy. The grip on atmosphere that Kubrick would carry through every one of his films, beginning with 2001, began to rear its head here. His mastery of creating an unbearably tense, uncomfortable feeling out of nothingness (an effect I can't explain or describe in any cinematic terms) started to become prevalent, most notably when Quilty is onscreen.The stunning, ageless, and beautiful black & white cinematography by Oswald Morris and the music by Nelson Riddle (particularly the cheery "Lolita Ya Ya' that becomes haunting in context) add to the atmosphere. It's really a beautiful film to see and hear. Especially in regards to Charlotte Haze, Kubrick successfully wanders into emotional territory without sacrificing that tone/style that he's so well-known for. The only flaw I find with the film (and it may be part of the novel) is Lolita and Humbert's final exchange, where she reveals Quilty's appearances to Humbert over the years. This makes those scenes feel like they lose some of their mystique. It also seems unnecessary as a viewer, as we know most of what she tells him. Obviously, it's essential that she tell him about Quilty but I found it unnecessary for her to reveal everything.Even today, Lolita is pretty taboo. Many would call it unthinkable to get an audience to sympathize with a character like Humbert, but Kubrick was the one director crazy enough to attempt it in such a conservative time. He succeeded and, despite being rushed in the end, it's another masterpiece from the great director. While much is hinted at or left to the imagination, the film leaves little to be desired. It's marvelously effective and its profound sadness makes it one of Kubrick's most emotional films. It's a startling accomplishment.GRADE: A

The first lines of the film:Humbert: Quilty! Quilty?Quilty: Ah, wha? Who's there?Humbert: Are you Quilty.Quilty: No, I'm... Spartacus. You come to free the slaves or sumpn?Humbert: Are you Quilty?Quilty: Yeah, yeah, I'm Quilty, yeah, sure.We all know Stanley Kubrick's Lolita.Many of us have been waiting for years for this cinema classic to be released in HD.This review will concentrateon the BR playback experience and not the narrative.I initially feared that both Lolita and Barry Lyndon were part of a hurried transfer to facilitatethe recently released "Kubrick Limited Edition Collection" on BR. Basically a quick cash-grabpackage from Warner Brothers. I was expecting a rushed transfer with a PQ that left muchto be desired.During playback, I was pleasantly awarded with a PQ that was consistently satisfying.The b&w images displayed clean edge detail, luminous whites, believable mid-tones and levels of gray, aswell as deep black levels. Great contrast throughout the whole feature with very minor crush on only the darkestof blacks.Keep in mind that both Lolita and Barry Lyndon BRs were not part of an extensive fullrestoration project. Instead they are the result of clean and deft transfers.The PQ's overall detail at 1080P was more than enough to fill a 52" XBR lcd screen with authority.Projecting the BR image to a 150" screen ( via Sony VPL-VW50 1080P projector ) was a major treat,with no noticeable loss of detail or contrast ( the inky blacks, crisp whites and endless gray levels with just enough filmgrain remaining. )The SQ was equally satisfying presented in DTS-HD master-audio 5.1.As with the Barry Lyndon BR release, my minor complaints:Only 1 SD trailer included in this single disc, no other supplementary material.Flimsy BR case with no inner card, a spartan treatment of a cinema masterpiece..5 stars for the film4 stars for PQ and SQ1 star for the packaginghalf star for supplementary materialNext year ( 2012 ) will be 50 years since Lolita was released.....could there be a 50th Anniversary BR edition with allthe supplemental goodies awaiting in the wings? Maybe the Criterion Collection will take a swing at bat on BR?Who knows, but for now at under $15, this BR version satisfies.BTW the last 2 films in Kubrick's canon will be available on BR Aug 16th! The Killing BR disc will contain Killers Kiss ( both remastered).Kubrick disowned Fear and Desire, so I think a transfer into BR for that title would be wishful thinking.

and thats my review

James Mason perfectly captures Nabokov's Humbert Humbert's (aka the "Professor") delusional obsession with sexy American twelve-year old Dolores Haze (aka "Lolita") in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film adaption of Nabokov's famous novel ("Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins"). He plays his landlady Charlotte Haze's (Shelley Winters) fascination with Humbert Humbert's erudite European sophistication (a dryly funny parody of Nabokov himself) in order to groom young Lolita for the darkly illicit plans he has for her future. Their eventual road trip together is like nothing in contemporary literature or film. Only Luchino Visconti's film version of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (1971), with Dirk Bogarde playing Mann's elderly aesthete Gustav von Aschenbach, compares in unveiling the hollow inner emotional life of the classic sexually-repressed European intellectual.Kubrick has taken other novels (some famous, some not so famous) for his films, in each case varying the genre: Anthony Burgess' famous dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange; Arthur C. Clarke's less-known 1951 short story The Sentinel for Kubrick's sci-fi epic 2001: A Space Odyssey; Gustav Hansford's little-known short story about US Marine recruits The Short Timers for Kubrick's (subtly antiwar) film Full Metal Jacket; and the mostly unknown psychological study of the 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler for his final film Eyes Wide Shut. In each case, Kubrick's film is lucid and compelling, and true to the spirit of the novelist's story, even if the film varies in significant ways from the underlying novel.

IS ABOVE,

Edicion alemana genial. Tiene audio en castellano. Al poner el disco en una PlayStation el menú aparece directamente en castellano. Al estar descatalogada en España es una gran opción.

Carátula muy vieja... Por lo que a la película se refiere, algo decepcionado con Kubrick. Conocía el libro de Nabokov y Kubrick no hace más que adaptar literalmente la novela, con pasajes algo tediosos y caricaturescos que desmontan su interés.

白黒です。

Jeremy IRONS INSUPERAVILE , MA SUA LOLITA INSOPPORTABILE!!QESTA E LA VERA LOLITA E MELANIE GRIFFITH PER QANDO MERA VIGLIOSA -APPUNTO TROPPO BELLA, MOLTO PIU DELLA FIGLIA DI NULLA. SHELLWY WINTERS LA MADRE PERFETTA. IL PROFESSORW UN OTTIMO ARTORE MA PER QI GIA TROPPO VECCHIO. PER MIO GUSTO. MARTA BEATRIX DARDAY