Kubrick's Lolita - DVD Times Review

[Raphph]

Have just reviewed the brilliant Kubrick version of Lolita, a classic slice of sixties cinematic entertainment.

The review can be found by clicking here (http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/index.cgi?page=Review&id=965&story=3428) !

[Yonathan Gal]

Funny, I only just saw this for the first time a few days ago as I picked up the R4 cheaply. I agree, 9/10, a brilliant film, a masterpiece in fact. Hilarious comedy, brillaint drama, impeccable acting, and a very touching, moving story. Definitely a keeper. You should reviewi the entire Kubrick collection! Great review by the way.

[Raphph]

I'll be doing Barry Lyndon soon, and also doing a feature on Kubrick's film available on DVD. :)

[Yonathan Gal]

Great, cheers for that. So far I've got these:

2001 (R4 remastered) (10/10)
Clockwork Orange (R4 remastered) (9/10)
Dr. Strangelove (R2 CE) (10/10)
Lolita (R4 Remastered) (9/10)
The Shining (R4 Remastered) (10/10)

and on order: Full Metal Jacket R4 (9/10)

Now I wanna check out barry lyndon as I haven't seen it and also buy eyes wide shut as I saw that and it was excellent (9/10) and wanna watch those original 3 releeases that mgm jst released: pathsof glory, killing and killers kiss....

Either way, Kubrick was a genius, and I wanna get all his films on dvd and have the complete collection..

By the way, you should do a feature on Hitchcock and his films available... that would be a big article! :):)

[John Hodson]

You are going to love Barry Lyndon; it's a stunning piece of film making with some of the most remarkable cinematography I've ever seen.

---
So many films, so little time...

[Tiffany Bradford]

I know many people will rhapsodise about the Lyne version, but I am not one of them. The Kubrick version is far superior - maybe because Dominique Swain actually looked her age as opposed to an older-looking Sue Lyon and because Jeremy Irons' portrayal of an obsessed dirty old man/pedophile (take your pick) was so convincing, that I felt uncomfortable with the Lyne version. There was more humour in this one and it didn't try to pass itself off as a romance. I am also a huge Kubrick fan - the man can do no wrong! :D

I can't wait to read your take on Barry Lyndon Raph! A truly beautiful film!

[Fawlty]

I have all the Kubrick films (excluding Fear & Desire of course :))

They all have something to say which is moe than can be said for some(most) directors...

I rate most of his films 9 or 10 out of 10 in fact what the hell...

Killer's Kiss - 7
The Killing - 9
Paths of GLory - 10
Spartacus - 9
Lolita - 9
Dr Strangelove - 10
2001 - 10
Clockwork Orange - 10
Barry Lyndon - 9
Shining - 9
Full Metal Jacket - 9
Eyes Wide Shut - 9


As for the review.. good work Raphph... I personally would've honed in more on the jet black comedy aspect of the film but each to his own...

I think the film is far more successful as a black comedy... The censorship limitations that hamstrung Kubrick meant the film could'nt really be anything else.

I could easily review every film Kubrick has made unfortunately most people have got there before me :)

[Mike]

Kubrick is, in my opinion, desperately overrated. Compared to Hawks, Ford and Peckinpah he's got nothing particularly special going for him except a certain technical flair. He never made a single film worthy of standing alongside "The Searchers", "The Wild Bunch" or "The Big Sleep" and only "Barry Lyndon" stands up to close scrutiny. In the canon of American directors I would put him alongside Huston - but he never made a bad film as weirdly compelling as "Reflections In A Golden Eye" so I might put him slightly below. When Kubrick is bad, as in "Clockwork Orange" or "Full Metal Jacket", he is bad in a tedious, unimaginative and plodding way. In fact, I'd happily take Samuel Fuller or Allan Dwan over Kubrick anytime - "Sands Of Iwo Jima" is a much better war film on every level than "Full Metal Jacket" and Kubrick could never have made a film as genuinely provocative as "The Naked Kiss".

His more rabid admirers (and there are a lot of them) have managed to get him canonised but there's a lot less to his films than meets the eye. His most interesting work tends to have been more criticised than the rest - I think "Barry Lyndon" is a remarkable film and it fully justifies all the praise that has been heaped on his other work. I also thought "Eyes Wide Shut" was interesting, for its atmosphere of menace as much as anything else.

I should hasten to add that I except "The Killing" from my comments - a trim, efficient thriler made before he began to believe his own admirers.

[Tiffany Bradford]

Originally posted by Mike
His more rabid admirers (and there are a lot of them) have managed to get him canonised but there's a lot less to his films than meets the eye.

I have never been able to understand the extreme reactions Kubrick seems to provoke. Other directors have their fanboys/detractors, but his are split right down the middle - no gray area appears to exist. I would be interested to know why you consider Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange bad, Mike. FMJ is flawed admittedly, but far from bad. Can you please enlighten me?

[Ol' Blue Eyes]

The Adrian Lyne version of Lolita is a lot more faithful to the source novel, perhaps too faithful and it's a dull film in the end, like Merchant Ivory on a bad day. Also it cops out, just like Richard Attenborough's Chaplin does, by suggesting the protaganist's interest in young girls was caused by the love of his life dying when he was a teenager. Pretty dodgy psychology there I think.

[Fawlty]

the reaction to Kubrick seems to be a case of "Horses for Courses" at its most extreme...

Kubrick films are certainly an acquired taste of that there is no doubt... His attention to the visual is almost absolute... which leaves alot of people cold... indeed the most common criticism levelled at Kubrick is that his films are cold... not one that I agree with.

Personally I find it difficult to work out how either Clockwork Orange or FMJ is a "bad" film... this would indicate it is worse than a lot of mediocrity that Hollywood spews out.

To be honest looking through the directors mentioned I haven't seen a lot of the films mentioned as I have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to Westerns(which discounts a fair portion of two of the directors)... Indeed two of your examples are Westerns... I find the American obsession with Westerns a bit dull so therefore I am not likely to eulogise over them... When I was a child my father watched endless Westerns until they just became a blur to me :)... I also cannot stand Monroe so I regard Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Monkey Business as "bad films" ....

Whilst all three have a well regarded back catalogue that is held in high esteem I feel that they sometimes lack the variety in genre that Kubrick managed in far fewer films...

Personally I think it is both an indication of his greatness and a shame that we are unlikely to see anyone quite like him again.

I can't think of many US directors that are on a similar level (given my own predelictions :))

EDIT - I should point out that my dislike of Westerns is not complete as I have a soft spot for the Eastwood Spaghetti Western trilogy and the Unforgiven... odd really

[Michael Brooke]

I have to say I pretty much agree with Mike - Kubrick's films have a phenomenal visual and technical flair, and are certainly worth seeing on those grounds alone, but I think David Thomson hit the nail on the head when he described the monomaniacal Jack Torrance in <I>The Shining</I> as being a near-perfect example of Kubrick's work made flesh - many of his films come perilously close to Jack writing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over and over again in terms of the effect they have on me: it's occasionally (or, to be fair, often) hypnotic, but I usually emerge feeling bludgeoned.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the overwhelming majority of Kubrick's fans are male and that many of his strongest detractors (most notably Pauline Kael and quite a few of my friends) have been female, because his films are the perfect embodiment of the least attractive aspects of the male psyche: most notably an obsessive interest in irrelevant minutiae, a fondness for pacing that's politely described as "deliberate" to no particularly useful effect, and a tendency to reduce his minor characters (and occasionally major ones) to the crudest caricatures - Michael Bates and Miriam Karlin in <I>A Clockwork Orange</I> being particularly blatant examples.

I do owe him gratitude for some things, though - like virtually all hardcore György Ligeti fans, I first discovered his extraordinary music through Kubrick's films, and firmly believe that <I>2001</I> would be an infinitely duller film if it hadn't been for his (unwitting) contribution. But this underlines another problem I have with Kubrick - often, I respond more to the music (Ligeti, Schubert in <I>Barry Lyndon</I>, Bartok and Penderecki in <I>The Shining</I>, Shostakovich in <I>Eyes Wide Shut</I>) or memories of the original source material than I do to the films - has any other director of his stature been so reliant on the pre-existing creative work of others?

[Fawlty]

Originally posted by Michael Brooke
because his films are the perfect embodiment of the least attractive aspects of the male psyche: most notably an obsessive interest in irrelevant minutiae, a fondness for pacing that's politely described as "deliberate" to no particularly useful effect, and a tendency to reduce his minor characters (and occasionally major ones) to the crudest caricatures - Michael Bates and Miriam Karlin in <I>A Clockwork Orange</I> being particularly blatant examples.


Whilst your thoughts are interesting I feel this portion is at best a sweeping generalisation...

Men have a tendency towards a slow "deliberate" pace? Examples? Most typical men like things and films fast to be honest... I find most rom-coms plodding nonsense but they seem to appeal to women despite the slow "Deliberate" pace (My wife liked "Meet Joe Black"!). Whereas your average boy's toys action film is fast and furious with cutting at a blistering speed... also a lot of generic horror films are fast paced and cut fast.

Men have a tendency towards making minor characters into caricatures? Again I point you in the direction of rom-coms where even the major characters are crude caricatures... this tendency is prevalent in both male and female orientated cinema... I always felt that Kubrick did it because the minor characters were of limited importance to the story (in his eyes) and therefore had very little time spent on them.

Men have an obsessive interest in irrelevant minutae... this one is 100% true... the fact that the majority of obsessive DVD collectors are male is an indication of that... and how many times do we see women complaining about a slight tear on a DVD case or a bilingual cover :)

As for your comments regarding the music in his films... Surely the skill is in picking the music which suits the images... true that the music is not his work but he chooses how to blend the two together... I would argue that a director who hires someone to do a soundtrack is less skillful as they have palmed off the work onto a third party to generate a sound that fits the images... Obviously the director then has final say but they haven't blended the music and images themselves rather a composer has put together the music and the Director has basically said whether it is good or bad...

Are you saying that any director who's film depends on music is being propped up by the work of a third party?...

Is Tim Burton dimished by the fact that his films tend to depend heavily on an Elfman score?

[Tiffany Bradford]

Originally posted by Fawlty
and how many times do we see women complaining about a slight tear on a DVD case or a bilingual cover :)

You obviously haven't read my anal about my DVD collection posts!

[Mike]

<b>Whilst all three have a well regarded back catalogue that is held in high esteem I feel that they sometimes lack the variety in genre that Kubrick managed in far fewer films... </b>

Hawks lacks variety ?

Screwball comedy, film noir, gangster movies, westerns, jungle adventures, drag-strip racing, musicals, historical epics, war films, whodunnits.....

I'm not sure that variety in genre is an automatic guarantee of quality though. Arthur Hiller has worked in virtually every genre there is and is yet to make a halfway decent film. Ford, on the other hand, is possibly American cinemas greatest director and he made many films but concentrated on the Western. Having said that, he also made comedies, gangster movies, historical epics, respectable literary adaptations, British crime films and sentimental melodramas.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Ol' Blue Eyes
The Adrian Lyne version of Lolita is a lot more faithful to the source novel, perhaps too faithful and it's a dull film in the end, like Merchant Ivory on a bad day. Also it cops out, just like Richard Attenborough's Chaplin does, by suggesting the protaganist's interest in young girls was caused by the love of his life dying when he was a teenager. Pretty dodgy psychology there I think.

I tend to agree but that back story is taken straight from the novel so its Nabokov's fault as much as Lyne's. I don't think it's necessarily a cop-out either - it goes toward explaining Humbert's acts but doesn't exculpate him and Nabokov doesn't let him off either. The remake tries to make it into a tragedy about Humbert when it should really be a tragedy about Lolita - it doesn't help that Jeremy Irons has played the role time and time before and is so predictable. Christopher Walken or Alan Rickman would have been interesting choices. Or maybe James Woods...

On the other hand, I don't think turning it into a black comedy was the right approach either. Nabokov's book is poised on a knife edge - we have to understand Humbert without excusing him. Nabokov's verbal pyrotechnics cannot be reproduced on film anyway - as Fassbinder found out in "Despair".

[McD]

Originally posted by Michael Brooke
...has any other director of his stature been so reliant on the pre-existing creative work of others?

This applies to any major working director who doesn’t write his own material. Or any that use pre-existing music of any kind. In other words – almost all of them – and there is NOTHING unique about Kubrick in this regard.

Of all the winners of the Best Director Oscar in the last 20 years only James Cameron appears to be also responsible for his material. And even then, it's far from clear cut.

[Tiffany Bradford]

Originally posted by Tiffany Bradford
I would be interested to know why you consider Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange bad, Mike. FMJ is flawed admittedly, but far from bad. Can you please enlighten me?

Okay then, I guess he doesn't want to answer. :sad:

[stigdu]

I have yet to see Kubrick's version of Lolita, and look forward to the day when I eventually do.

I have seen the Adrian Lyne version though, and I consider it a masterpiece. Irons is flawless in his portrayal of a paedophile, and I find it amazing that we, the audience, geuinely feel pity for him as his true love is taken away by Quilty. I haven't read the book, so I can't compare it, but I certainly wouldn't call it boring. Moving, yes. But never dull. And Dominique Swain was a revelation in the title role.

Plus any film that kills off Melanie Griffith near the start just has to be given a chance!

[Michael Brooke]

Originally posted by McD
This applies to any major working director who doesn’t write his own material. Or any that use pre-existing music of any kind. In other words – almost all of them – and there is NOTHING unique about Kubrick in this regard.

My point was that virtually everything by Kubrick is an adaptation, and in that respect he is indeed unusual - at least in comparison with the kind of undisputed cinema giants that his fans would seek to rank him alongside (as opposed to winners of the Best Director Oscar, many of whom are decidedly mediocre).

True, Bergman, Bresson, Bunuel and Renoir all made adaptations as well - but they also made a significant number of wholly original films. So did Hitchcock, probably Kubrick's closest equivalent in terms of producing commercially successful but deeply personal films within the mainstream production sector.

[Fawlty]

Does that mean that even if a director was a visionary and produced the most stunning films in the world he/she wouldn't rank alongside the best because he didn't write the stories from scratch?

To me a director should be ranked for their direction/filmmaking... whether that is via acting performances garnered or via the visual spectacle produced...

Then again which is the more demanding skill?

Writing an original story or collaborating and developing a script which moulds the original source into something that is personal to the director?

2001 - from The Sentinel which is a thin premise at best
The Shining - Which ends up bearing little resemblance to the book
Clockwork Orange - conveniently missing chunks out to (IMO) improve the story
Dr. Strangelove - turning the concept upside down into a comedy
Lolita - Turned into a black comedy through necessity
AI - from the Aldiss short story... fleshing it out etc

I believe Kubrick had a hand in all of these... personally I feel this shows different skills but they are no less important... The nubmer of iraste authors left in Kubricks wake seems to indicate that he moulded their material to his own vision.

Kubrick may not have been much of an original story developer... Killer's Kiss illustrates that but he knew how to mould original material for his own purposes...

To deny a director a place amongst top director's purely because he didn't write enough original material seems a bit limiting to me...

[Michael Brooke]

I'm not for one second denying that all Kubrick's films have his own personal stamp (and then some!), but neither do I think his work deserves to be ranked alongside the greatest films of many of the names mentioned above for all sorts of reasons other than the ones that you and McD have jumped on.

Mike and I are coming from different perspectives - Mike's ranking Kubrick alongside his American contemporaries, while I'm setting him up against various European cinema giants - but I'm intrigued to see that we're both reaching the same conclusions!

I completely agree about Fuller and especially Peckinpah, two genuinely great American film-makers who have been scandalously underrated in the rush to deify Kubrick, but whose work has infinitely more passion, spontaneity and insight into the human condition (not to mention technical virtuosity in Peckinpah's case). Imagine a triple bill of <I>Cross of Iron, The Big Red One</I> and <I>Full Metal Jacket</I> - the last of these looks a bit feeble by comparison, doesn't it?

[Fawlty]

Maybe Michael...

but what about a triple bill of

Cross of Iron, The Big Red One and Paths of Glory...

I think it is fairest if you use Kubrick's best war film as a comparison rather than his worst ... :)

and it would arguably make a more sensible triple bill covering as it does, two World Wars.

The problem with Kubrick is where and how to rank him anyway...

Do you compare him to European director's as his films have a more European film than his American counterparts...

Or do you compare him with American directors despite the fact that his films have a European feel to them (not least in casting)

He is a bit of an odd hybrid if you ask me...

Personally he is my favourite director... which means I rank him at the top ... it is always interesting to hear other people's views on him and how he ranks but as we all know it is subjective with some people preferring certain genre or certain aspects of a director's duty...

[Michael Brooke]

I picked those three titles because they have a huge amount in common - they were all made within a ten-year period towards the end of each director's career, they're all European films made by American directors (Kubrick is hardly unique or even especially unusual in this!), they cover very similar subject matter on a similar scale, and they all received a somewhat mixed reception when they opened from both critics and audiences.

[Fawlty]

Even if we stick to your original comparison I don't feel FMJ is as easily outclassed as you seem to think... The first half of FMJ can easily sit amongst that company without batting an eyelid... Admittedly the second half would be a slight letdown ;)...

As for my comparison (which is equally valid even though it may be based on simpelr criteria) I would argue that Paths of Glory in places outclasses those two films easily and I know which I'd prefer to watch...

It seems the point of agreeing to disagree is fast approaching here :)