There are fleeting but quite significant references to Nabokov, specifically The Defense, in Eastern Promises, the new film by David Cronenberg presently playing in North American theaters.

 

Late in the film, the last name of Viggo Mortensen's character, a serious Russian gangster, is pronounced: Luzhin. Also, the set piece of the film, an incredibly violent fight between a naked Mortensen and two men armed with knives, occurs in a bath house whose black and white tiles clearly suggest a chess board.

 

 

Joshua Roberts