Subject
Re: LOLITA Dali query
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Stephen Schiff <schiff@echonyc.com>, NEW YORKER staff
writer and script writer of the new Adrian Lyne LOLITA replies to
Christine Raguet-Bouvart's query.
------------------------------------------------
Raguet-Bouvart query:
> I have always wondered whether there was a real painter / painting
> hiding behind those lines in LOLITA, I, 13, p. 58 (Appel's
> Annotated)(despite the fact that it is a superb "mise-en-abyme" of H & Lo's
> relation on the couch and what / where is (or might be) this "picture of the
> week".
> a surrealist painter relaxing supine, on a beach and near him, likewise
> supine, a plaster replica of the Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand. The
> Picture of the Week, said the legend. > > If anyone can give a clue or
a cue,... > > Thanks. > Christine Raguet-Bouvart
>-------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Schiff replies:
I have no scholarly basis for this, but when I was writing the
screenplay for the new movie version of "Lolita," I was attracted to this
scene. I concluded that the only "surrealist painter" likely to be
featured in an elaborately staged "Picture of the Week" in a popular
magazine (I decided that the magazine was "Life," although it could as
easily have been "Look") was the indefatigably self-promoting Salvador
Dali. When we filmed the scene, we even located just such a picture of
Dali from just such a magazine, and I invented some dialogue for Lolita
about the great man's moustache.
writer and script writer of the new Adrian Lyne LOLITA replies to
Christine Raguet-Bouvart's query.
------------------------------------------------
Raguet-Bouvart query:
> I have always wondered whether there was a real painter / painting
> hiding behind those lines in LOLITA, I, 13, p. 58 (Appel's
> Annotated)(despite the fact that it is a superb "mise-en-abyme" of H & Lo's
> relation on the couch and what / where is (or might be) this "picture of the
> week".
> a surrealist painter relaxing supine, on a beach and near him, likewise
> supine, a plaster replica of the Venus di Milo, half-buried in sand. The
> Picture of the Week, said the legend. > > If anyone can give a clue or
a cue,... > > Thanks. > Christine Raguet-Bouvart
>-------------------------------------------------------
Stephen Schiff replies:
I have no scholarly basis for this, but when I was writing the
screenplay for the new movie version of "Lolita," I was attracted to this
scene. I concluded that the only "surrealist painter" likely to be
featured in an elaborately staged "Picture of the Week" in a popular
magazine (I decided that the magazine was "Life," although it could as
easily have been "Look") was the indefatigably self-promoting Salvador
Dali. When we filmed the scene, we even located just such a picture of
Dali from just such a magazine, and I invented some dialogue for Lolita
about the great man's moustache.