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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