Salvation and corruption in Lolita
- changes of perspetive in film narrative -
American comedian and film star , Groucho Marx once declared : “ I’m going to put off reading Lolita for 6 years , I’m waiting until she turns 18 . ” Suffice is to say that all of us are inclined to give full credit to Marx’s words – at least due to his credibility . From a shallow reading of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita , we draw the simplest and maybe the narrowest conclusion : a well – mannered English literate corrupts an American underaged girl into easy morals. But this is only at a first glance.
One who reads the book cannot state that any further images do not follow in ones mind . The truth is that the many readers there are , the different perspectives may rise . Nabokov himself said : “ I don’t think in any language , I think in images . ” This is maybe why he wrote the screenplay for the 1962 movie adaptation . The movie called Lolita directed by Stanley Kubrick , had as its central figure that of Humbert Humbert interpreted by James Mason – the middle – aged gentleman , or at least as he relates to himself . The movie has a round structure : it starts and in ends with the scene of Prof. Humbert entering Clare Quilty’s house and making direct accusations of child-abuse . Humbert eventually kills the pedophile writer who will play the part of the shadow to our English literate . Quilty will follow the existence of the unusual couple Humbert and Lolita . His pursue leads to his own distruction and death .
Leaving aside – at least for the moment - the intricate character of Clare Quilty , we should tackle the issue of Humbert Humbert . In the book as well as in the movie , Humbert is the narrator . How should we feel about a vicious character with the priviledge of pleading his own case ? Should we consider him to be a genuine , trust – worthy narrator ?
In an article , Andrei Gorzo , the Romanian movie critic , deals with the ancestral – as for we define ancestral the times of the book – point of view wich has split the critics’ into at least two parties : ‘ How can somebody perform Lolita on stage or an the screen ? In the book she is captive , she lives within the words of Humbert ; all we know about her comes from him . ‘ Gorzo resumes what has already been said : ‘ On the contrary , Humbert lacking confidence in himself as an artist , tries to claim his past literally – but he fails as this path leads to corruption , not salvation . I’ m afraid that no matter what Humbert claims to be , he remains a pedophile . “
This perspective presenting Humbert as a pedophile has been the most prolific and somehow the easy – going choice . If we try to reabilitate in a decent manner this point of view , we might as well be charged with taking sides . What lead us to this affirmation are the few pages in which Humbert describes himself as a young , jolly boy who fell desperately in love with a girl of his age . Her name was Annabel Leigh , a beautiful child , the image of perfection . Once she dies he never recovers and develops a trauma that will haunt him in his following existence .
Annabel Leigh and the failure to consummate the love affair have been the second explanation to Humbert’s obssesion . When we speak about change of perspective in film narrative , we have in mind a few differences that may occur in the movie – in this case in the two movies – apart from the book. Are we entitled to state that the book is the original and the movie is the copy ? As Lolita is the copy of Annabel . Neither a better , nor a worse one , simply a copy . If so , the essence is maintained with narrow changes . It is the original as we refer to an incipient form , from which further one developped . But it is not , as it depends on the director and the screenplay to give colour to the movie . The narrative may as well suffer tremendous changes , or it may not . Put face to face , as in a mirror we can see that there is no such thing as perfect copy . It couldn’t be even if Nabokov wrote the screenplay – as to be declared more accurate . It is like in Atonement when we remember how Briony thought about the difficulty of writing a play apart from a story : ‘ a story was direct and simple , allowing nothing to come between herself and her reader – no intermediaries with their private ambitions or incompetence , no pressure of time , no limits on resources. In a movie all that occurs : time, intermediaries , incompetence . A director cannot depict the reality of the book , he can only give his reality , a complementary one – but without streaming from the right path .
Stanley Kubrick did not go astray . He followed a decent recipe , given by the creator himself . On the contrary, Adrian Lyne put in front of us his version of Lolita Apparently all remains the same : the names , the attitudes , the forbidden love the accusations of pedophilia . The differences are given by the characters – mainly the way in which they are interpreted by the actors , the alternation of plans so that it would be decent to compress time and content .
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