ࡱ;  Root Entry FFCompObjbWordDocument@ObjectPool>6 F>6 F 4@   FMicrosoft Word 6.0 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.6;  Oh+'0$ H l   D hC:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE\NORMAL.DOTby Caren WeinerAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMERAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMER@{ܥe- e@lllllll RA    )444TYRl Rllll llll Iby Caren Weiner The "Lolita" Controversy GUILTY PLEASURE Dominique Swain plays the beguiling "Lolita" in the new film of Nabokov's book. MORE SITESMovies TV Shopping Family Music Books Miscellany Site of the Week Type "Lolita" into the average search engine, and you'll find plenty of porn sites. But these days, you'll also link to several sites about Vladimir Nabokov's novel, which inspired the controversial $58 million film that airs on Showtime next week (and then opens at New York and L.A. movie theaters in September). The film's official site delivers the requisite info about director Adrian Lyne and the cast (Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith), along with a "photo play," a series of excerpts from the script accompanied by photos. Though occasionally defensive about the concept of the March-December romance ("People may be too blinded by grisly current events to remember that pubescent girls have been marriageable and mateable in many cultures, from those of the pharaohs, of Dante, of Petrarch to the Tokyo of today"), the site creators also display a welcome sense of humor, incorporating, for example, such grace notes as a Groucho Marx one-liner ("I'm going to put off reading 'Lolita' for six years; I'm waiting until she turns 18"). The controversy about "Lolita," however, began long before this film. It was temporarily banned in France on the grounds of obscenity in the mid-'50s and later banned by some U.S. libraries after its 1958 U.S. publication. But an Atlantic Monthly review from September of that year argues, "There is not a single obscene term in Lolita, and aficionados of erotica are likely to find it a dud. Lolita blazes, however, with a perversity of a most original kind." (Indeed, on Salon, latter-day literati Amy Tan and Mary Elizabeth Williams explain why they consider "Lolita" their favorite novel, and Mary Gaitskill offers a tribute essay entitled "Vladimir Nabokov, Sorcerer of Cruelty.") Stanley Kubrick snapped up the rights to the notorious novel and grappled with the Hollywood production code in filming his 1962 version of "Lolita," which starred James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters, and Peter Sellers. Video distributor Criterion provides a detailed account of the production's difficulties, including first-time screenwriter Nabokov's 400-page first draft of the script; "Nabokov then wrote a considerably shorter version," it notes, "of which Kubrick ultimately used only about 20 percent." This time around, Lyne and screenwriter Stephen Schiff tried to hew more closely to the book. (Schiff candidly admits on Penn State University's site Zembla that "some of the filmmakers involved actually looked upon the Kubrick version as a kind of 'what not to do.'") In the child-abuse-conscious '90s, though, maintaining fidelity to the book added some complications to the filming: Irons explains to the U.K.'s Electronic Telegraph that "when [Swain] sat on my lap I'd have to have a cushion on my lap. I was made to feel like a pervert." He also describes, in fascinating detail, how he and his 15-year-old costar managed to film a squirm-inducing bedroom scene: "She lay down on the bed fully clothed, and I lay on top of her, or beside I think it was because the angle was very strange, so we cheated a bit. And I said, 'I can't do this.' And she looked at me, like any woman could look at a man, and she said, 'Yes you can,' and she just fed me with the necessary impulse to allow me to do it." The result is surprisingly good, according to some critics. Time magazine's Richard Schickel says of the director, "He didn't deliver an Adrian Lyne movie, something with the mildly transgressive, slightly trashy, hugely promotable edge of his 'Fatal Attraction' or 'Indecent Proposal.' All that, he seems to be signaling here, is behind him." Tom Hutchinson, of the U.K.'s Ham & High Network, agrees: "Lyne has a rather tacky track record, but this time he's come good." Before too much longer, you'll be able to judge for yourself. ࡱ; SummaryInformation(F@@{F@F#Microsoft Word 6.01ࡱ; )r*oGg=\0 x  L !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- V + p E /tJ f\2|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!K@Normal]a"A@"Default Paragraph Font      IAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMER*C:\1PROJECT\2CH\1NABOKOV\GK\LOLITA\EW1.DOC@HP LaserJet 4ML PostScriptLPT1:HPWINPSHP LaserJet 4ML PostScript VD[ od,XZZeHP LaserJet 4ML PostScript VD[ od,XZZeATimes New Roman Symbol &ArialNewtonCTT"h'f'fYby Caren WeinerAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMERAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMERࡱ; Root Entry FަCompObjbWordDocumentObjectPool>6 F>6 F 4@  !"#$%&'()*+SummaryInformation( F@@'Ҧ@ Microsoft Word 6.02ࡱ;  FMicrosoft Word 6.0 Document MSWordDocWord.Document.6;  Oh+'0$ H l   D hu1eqpvtkdwvqtuPcx0jvon 5626 ;235C:\WINWORD\TEMPLATE\NORMAL.DOTby Caren WeinerAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMERAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMER@{ܥe- elllllll Afhhh)TqY-l llllfllllfby Caren Weiner The "Lolita" Controversy GUILTY PLEASURE Dominique Swain plays the beguiling "Lolita" in the new film of Nabokov's book. MORE SITESMovies TV Shopping Family Music Books Miscellany Site of the Week Type "Lolita" into the average search engine, and you'll find plenty of porn sites. But these days, you'll also link to several sites about Vladimir Nabokov's novel, which inspired the controversial $58 million film that airs on Showtime next week (and then opens at New York and L.A. movie theaters in September). The film's official site delivers the requisite info about director Adrian Lyne and the cast (Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, Melanie Griffith), along with a "photo play," a series of excerpts from the script accompanied by photos. Though occasionally defensive about the concept of the March-December romance ("People may be too blinded by grisly current events to remember that pubescent girls have been marriageable and mateable in many cultures, from those of the pharaohs, of Dante, of Petrarch to the Tokyo of today"), the site creators also display a welcome sense of humor, incorporating, for example, such grace notes as a Groucho Marx one-liner ("I'm going to put off reading 'Lolita' for six years; I'm waiting until she turns 18"). The controversy about "Lolita," however, began long before this film. It was temporarily banned in France on the grounds of obscenity in the mid-'50s and later banned by some U.S. libraries after its 1958 U.S. publication. But an Atlantic Monthly review from September of that year argues, "There is not a single obscene term in Lolita, and aficionados of erotica are likely to find it a dud. Lolita blazes, however, with a perversity of a most original kind." (Indeed, on Salon, latter-day literati Amy Tan and Mary Elizabeth Williams explain why they consider "Lolita" their favorite novel, and Mary Gaitskill offers a tribute essay entitled "Vladimir Nabokov, Sorcerer of Cruelty.") Stanley Kubrick snapped up the rights to the notorious novel and grappled with the Hollywood production code in filming his 1962 version of "Lolita," which starred James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters, and Peter Sellers. Video distributor Criterion provides a detailed account of the production's difficulties, including first-time screenwriter Nabokov's 400-page first draft of the script; "Nabokov then wrote a considerably shorter version," it notes, "of which Kubrick ultimately used only about 20 percent." This time around, Lyne and screenwriter Stephen Schiff tried to hew more closely to the book. (Schiff candidly admits on Penn State University's site Zembla that "some of the filmmakers involved actually looked upon the Kubrick version as a kind of 'what not to do.'") In the child-abuse-conscious '90s, though, maintaining fidelity to the book added some complications to the filming: Irons explains to the U.K.'s Electronic Telegraph that "when [Swain] sat on my lap I'd have to have a cushion on my lap. I was made to feel like a pervert." He also describes, in fascinating detail, how he and his 15-year-old costar managed to film a squirm-inducing bedroom scene: "She lay down on the bed fully clothed, and I lay on top of her, or beside I think it was because the angle was very strange, so we cheated a bit. And I said, 'I can't do this.' And she looked at me, like any woman could look at a man, and she said, 'Yes you can,' and she just fed me with the necessary impulse to allow me to do it." The result is surprisingly good, according to some critics. Time magazine's Richard Schickel says of the director, "He didn't deliver an Adrian Lyne movie, something with the mildly transgressive, slightly trashy, hugely promotable edge of his 'Fatal Attraction' or 'Indecent Proposal.' All that, he seems to be signaling here, is behind him." Tom Hutchinson, of the U.K.'s Ham & High Network, agrees: "Lyne has a rather tacky track record, but this time he's come good." Before too much longer, you'll be able to judge for yourself. ࡱ; )r*oGg=\0 x  L !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- V + p E /tJ f\2|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!K@Normal]a"A@"Default Paragraph Font  n  !   AUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMER*C:\1PROJECT\2CH\1NABOKOV\GK\LOLITA\EW1.DOCAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMER2C:\1PROJECT\2CH\1NABOKOV\GK\LOLITA\REVIEWS\EW1.DOC@HP LaserJet 4ML PostScriptLPT1:HPWINPSHP LaserJet 4ML PostScript VD[ od,XZZeHP LaserJet 4ML PostScript VD[ od,XZZe(ATimes New Roman Symbol &ArialNewtonCTT"h'f'Yby Caren WeinerAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMERAUTHORIZED GATEWAY CUSTOMERfJjJkJlJmJnJoJqJrJtJsJvJwJyJxJ{JzJJ|J}J~JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJKJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJKJJJJK