Lolita (1962)
Location: Home (DVD)
Seen Before: Yes
Rating: 5.0
For my money, Stanley Kubrick has one of (if not the) greatest, most consistently masterpiece-laden track record in film history; those are strong words, but his body of work holds right up to it. Lolita is no exception with its wickedly funny and daring situations, photography on par with the other installments of the director's work, and spellbinding turns by James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelly Winters, and Peter Sellers. A practically flawless work.
posted by Marco Roman at 12:40 AM
3 Comments:
Did you ever notice that cinephiles seem to dislike Kubrick more and more as they continue watching films? I think he was the first older/artistic director for many people, which might be why this happens.
Here's Jean-Luc Godard's review of The Killing written in te 1950s: (it might explain a few things)
"This is the film of a good pupil, no more. An admirer of Max Ophuls, Aldrich, and John Huston, Stanley Kubrick is still far from being the bright boy heralded by the excited publicity surrounding this little gangster film which makes even The Asphalt Jungle look like a masterpiece by comparison. Kiss Me Deadly even more so. I shall not mention Ophuls, who would have nothing to do with the matter except that Kubrick claims his influence through irritating movements of the camera resembling those beloved of the director of Le Plaisir. But what on Ophuls corresponds to a certain vision of the world, in Kubrick is mere showing-off.
"The enterprise is not without its sympathetic side, however. An independant production, The Killing was shot quickly and on a low budget. Although the story is not particularly original (robbery of the Los Angeles race-track), and the ending very little better (banknotes fluttering away in the wind after a very badly filmed stroke of bad luck, exactly as in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), one must praise the ingenuity of the adaptation: by systematically dislocating the chronology of events, it maintains one's interest in a plot which otherwise never leaves the beaten track. Once on has commended the newsreel-style camerawork and Sterling Hayden, there is little left to do but wait, not too impatiently, for Kubrick's next feature, Paths of Glory, which has been very highly praised by the American Press."
I've yet to notice that (I don't find it too hard to believe, though) but, if I recall correctly, Kubrick's films were mostly panned upon their original releases.
This Godard review is really interesting--where did you find it? I almost want to say that it seems kind of typical of him, in a sense. In my mind, Kubrick certainly hadn't fully developed his craft and style until Lolita (maybe Paths) and I can only imagine that Godard would have disliked those even more. The other interesting aspect involved with our opinions, of course, is that Killing was a contemporary film when Godard saw it and, now, 50 years have passed and we look at it with very different eyes.
Regardless, I think Jean-Luc is much too harsh here.
I found it online a few years ago and saved it, though I think it's been reprinted in Godard on Godard.
I agree that Kubrick didn't fully find his voice until Lolita and while Paths was a great film, I think Kirk Douglas was still running the show.
Though going back to Godard, I'm not sure how much I agree with him but I don understand where he was coming from at the time. His main concern was dialect and with the exception of a few directors, he was overly critical in general, but if you think of yourself as a revolutionary you often tend to be. I do wonder what he thought of later Kubrick films.
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