Member-only story
“Lolita” by Stanley Kubrick could’ve been so much better
Believe me. Such heresy has a decent argument behind it. SPOILERS ARE DISCUSSED.
There is a reason why Lolita often happens to be selected as the first movie represented in a Stanley Kubrick collection.
For some, this film represents the very first jump the young director made all the way back in 1962 towards truly untouched and controversial matters head on. Not to say that The Killing or specially Paths of Glory do not belong to that realm. But there is something brutally seductive and inherently disturbing about this film which converted Stanley Kubrick from a rising star to a whole fucking constellation.
Everything starts with the book. Nassim Nicholas Taleb once quoted: “for pleasure, read one chapter by Nabokov. For punishment, two.”
This book undoubtedly represents a major twist in one’s self as it deals with a subject that will most likely get you in trouble just by mentioning it: pedophilia.
The main narrator of the novel happens to be its own tragic protagonist. Poor Humbert Humbert, a clearly made up name to protect himself, explains his tortuous life to us as he loses all sanity (and any possible sympathy from any outside observer) as he unwillingly falls in love with a 12 year old (14 year old in the movie) Dolores “Lolita” Haze.
