Subject
Kubrick-Nabokov (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
There is a long article on Kubrick in the most recent VANITY FAIR by
Michael Herr. In addition to brief discussions of Kubrick's LOLITA --
"Think of LOLITA, with its cherry-pie, cavity-filling, and limp-noodle
jokes, so blatantly smutty, without shame, subversive, which was the idea.
He'd set the lyric-erotic Nabokovian tone and captured an essence of the
novel in the opening credit sequence, the tender and meticulous painting
of Lolita's toes, and then begun the comedy. What a fabulous shiny moral
barometer that movie looked like in 1962, when it was new, and how we
loved which way we thought the wind was going to blow" -- it also can help
to suggest that there was much affinity between Nabokov's and Kubrick's
artistic temperaments and personalities, including their desire of
absolute control and fascination with chess. Another Russian
connection for Kubrick -- outside of his own Russian-Jewish heritage in
the previous generations -- is Eisenstein who apparently was the primary
influence on his decision to become a filmmaker.
Galya Diment
There is a long article on Kubrick in the most recent VANITY FAIR by
Michael Herr. In addition to brief discussions of Kubrick's LOLITA --
"Think of LOLITA, with its cherry-pie, cavity-filling, and limp-noodle
jokes, so blatantly smutty, without shame, subversive, which was the idea.
He'd set the lyric-erotic Nabokovian tone and captured an essence of the
novel in the opening credit sequence, the tender and meticulous painting
of Lolita's toes, and then begun the comedy. What a fabulous shiny moral
barometer that movie looked like in 1962, when it was new, and how we
loved which way we thought the wind was going to blow" -- it also can help
to suggest that there was much affinity between Nabokov's and Kubrick's
artistic temperaments and personalities, including their desire of
absolute control and fascination with chess. Another Russian
connection for Kubrick -- outside of his own Russian-Jewish heritage in
the previous generations -- is Eisenstein who apparently was the primary
influence on his decision to become a filmmaker.
Galya Diment