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September 1995, Week 2

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:
From:
lang thompson <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 12 Sep 1995 03:57:07 GMT
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******  But the point might be not whether Lolita would be considered
attractive by a majority of people but that Humbert thinks she is so.
For the film to make her conventionally pretty might make Humbert's
actions understandable to more viewers but part of the focus of the
book and novel is the obssession.  It shouldn't really make much
difference whether anybody but Humbert finds her attractive.  The film
also raised Lolita's age by two or three years which probably changed
the meaning(s) far more than making her pretty instead of plain.
 
But this goes back to my point that unreliable narrators are common in
literature but not film.  In the book we have only Humbert's opinion of
Lolita; a few other reactions or hints might indicate that his opinion
isn't shared by many others but ultimately even those are given to us
by Humbert.  On screen, though, every viewer gets to see for themself.
No matter how Humbert on screen acts, a viewer gets other information.
 
Lang Thompson
 
 
In <[log in to unmask]> Aaron White
<[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
>Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but when a film is adapted from a
>novel which has an unreliable narrator, how the filmmakers choose
>to present things can indicate interesting things about the adaptation
>process.  For example, in the novel Lolita, narrator Humbert
rapsodises
>about Lo's extraordinary beauty, but their are many indications that
>she is a perfectly ordinary girl, in appearance as well as behavior.
>what is one to make, then, of Kubrick's casting of lovely Sue Lyon,
who
>won beauty contests as a child?  Obviously he either wanted us to
>understand Humbert's passion in an easy way (she IS beautiful and
sexy,
>rather than, she resembles his first childhood love) or he just wanted
>to cast a pretty girl to keep the average moviegoers interested.  I
>doubt that Dominique Swain, the new Lolita, will prove to be any less
>ambiguously attractive than Sue Lyon.  It would be interesting to see
>an adaptation of this novel which feutured a less attractive girl in
>the role, providing a cinimatic equivalent of author Nabokov's
addressing
>of the unaccountable nature of passion.  Sorry if this is a bit
off-topic.
>
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