Lolita (1962 film)
| Lolita | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Stanley Kubrick |
| Produced by | James B. Harris |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on |
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov |
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| Music by |
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| Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
| Edited by | Anthony Harvey |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
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Release date
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Running time
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152 minutes |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | $9.25 million |
Lolita is a 1962 British-American black comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov, about a middle-aged man who becomes obsessed with a teenage girl. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze (Lolita), and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze, with Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.
Owing to the MPAA's restrictions at the time, the film toned down the more provocative aspects of the novel, sometimes leaving much to the audience's imagination. The actress who played Lolita, Sue Lyon, was 14 at the time of filming. Kubrick later commented that, if he had realized how severe the censorship limitations were going to be, he probably never would have made the film.
Set in the 1950s, the film begins in medias res near the end of the story, with a confrontation between two men: one of them, Clare Quilty, drunk and incoherent, plays Chopin's Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1 on the piano before being shot from behind a portrait painting of a young woman. The shooter is Humbert Humbert, a 40-something British professor of French literature.
The film then flashes back to events four years earlier. Humbert arrives in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, intending to spend the summer before his professorship begins at Beardsley College, Ohio. He searches for a room to rent, and Charlotte Haze, a cloying, sexually frustrated widow, invites him to stay at her house. He declines until seeing her daughter, Dolores, affectionately called "Lolita". Lolita is a soda-pop drinking, gum-snapping, overtly flirtatious teenager, with whom Humbert becomes infatuated.
To be close to Lolita, Humbert accepts Charlotte's offer and becomes a lodger in the Haze household. But Charlotte wants all of "Hum's" time for herself and soon announces she will be sending Lolita to an all-girl sleepaway camp for the summer. After the Hazes depart for camp, the maid gives Humbert a letter from Charlotte, confessing her love for him and demanding he vacate at once unless he feels the same way. The letter says that if Humbert is still in the house when she returns, Charlotte will know her love is requited, and he must marry her. Though he roars with laughter while reading the sadly heartfelt yet characteristically overblown letter, Humbert marries Charlotte.
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