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EDNOTE. I have extracted the Kubrick-Nabokov part from this long and thorough survey fo Kubrick's career. The full text is avail at
----- Original Message -----
From: Alphonse Vinh
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: Nabokov and Napoleon
Dear Colleagues,
As we know so well, Nabokov disdained despots of all varieties and he would certainly have regarded Napoleon as a despot. Given this thread regarding Countess Marie Walewska, there was a tribute to Stanley Kubrick in the English paper The Independent entitled, "The Man Who Would Be King", which touches upon both Napoleon and Nabokov. I'm enclosing the article for your perusal.
Regards,
Alphonse Vinh
NPR
The man who would be king: Stanley Kubrick, THE INDEPENDENT
Mahbub Husain Khan
03/20/1999
THE INDEPENDENT
Copyright 1999 WorldSources Online, Inc., A Joint Venture of FDCH, Inc. and World Times, Inc.
Orson Welles achieved greatness with his first film Citizen Kane in 1940. As some critics say, if he had then died at
the age of 25, he would undoubtedly have been mourned today as the ultimate American film-maker. Stanley
Kubrick, when he died in London on the 7th of March having crossed 70, strived to achieve greatness in his films,
but in some of them fell just short of it trapping them within the limits of the merely perfectable. For Kubrick, the
cinema was a laboratory for observation and experiment and his findings have revealed a mind of the highest
intellect and provoked more critical debate than any American director since Orson Welles. Interestingly enough,
Kubrick is one director all of whose films I have watched at sometime or other, in cinema theatres or on video, some
in Dhaka, such as The Killing and Lolita in Naz cinema and Spartacus in Balaka.
............................................
By now he was only in his early thirties, but Kubrick was clearly remarkable and when he said he would film
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, with the author doing the screenplay, that was very earnest and very showy. The book
was so literary as to challenge the movies. It was also a dangerous, sexy sensation, a novel known all over the
world. The result was not Nabokov, as Kubrick drastically rewrote the novelist's profuse, poetic script. Nor was it
the love story it needed to be so much as a chess match between Humbert and Quilty with Sue Lyon's Lo as the
trophy. Worst of all, the book's wondrous evocation of motel Americana was lost in the decision to shoot the film in
England. So the movie Lolita was not that great as the book, but it was entertaining. I watched the recent version of
Lolita as I was writing this piece and found Jeremy Irons's Humbert too wooden, Melanie Griffiths is no Shelly
Winters, and Sue Lyon vs Dominique Swan, Peter Sellers vs Frank Langella - no contest. Adrian Lyne could not
match this warm creation of Kubrick's. Kubrick has made Lyon both touching and ordinary, while James Mason's
Humbert is the richest performance in Kubrick's work, as well as the most poignant example of the flawed intellect
that so intrigued the director, to say nothing of Shelley Winters or Peter Sellers.
Copyright 1999 THE INDEPENDENT all rights reserved as distributed by WorldSources, Inc.
Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
----- Original Message -----
From: Alphonse Vinh
To: 'Vladimir Nabokov Forum'
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 11:03 AM
Subject: Nabokov and Napoleon
Dear Colleagues,
As we know so well, Nabokov disdained despots of all varieties and he would certainly have regarded Napoleon as a despot. Given this thread regarding Countess Marie Walewska, there was a tribute to Stanley Kubrick in the English paper The Independent entitled, "The Man Who Would Be King", which touches upon both Napoleon and Nabokov. I'm enclosing the article for your perusal.
Regards,
Alphonse Vinh
NPR
The man who would be king: Stanley Kubrick, THE INDEPENDENT
Mahbub Husain Khan
03/20/1999
THE INDEPENDENT
Copyright 1999 WorldSources Online, Inc., A Joint Venture of FDCH, Inc. and World Times, Inc.
Orson Welles achieved greatness with his first film Citizen Kane in 1940. As some critics say, if he had then died at
the age of 25, he would undoubtedly have been mourned today as the ultimate American film-maker. Stanley
Kubrick, when he died in London on the 7th of March having crossed 70, strived to achieve greatness in his films,
but in some of them fell just short of it trapping them within the limits of the merely perfectable. For Kubrick, the
cinema was a laboratory for observation and experiment and his findings have revealed a mind of the highest
intellect and provoked more critical debate than any American director since Orson Welles. Interestingly enough,
Kubrick is one director all of whose films I have watched at sometime or other, in cinema theatres or on video, some
in Dhaka, such as The Killing and Lolita in Naz cinema and Spartacus in Balaka.
............................................
By now he was only in his early thirties, but Kubrick was clearly remarkable and when he said he would film
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, with the author doing the screenplay, that was very earnest and very showy. The book
was so literary as to challenge the movies. It was also a dangerous, sexy sensation, a novel known all over the
world. The result was not Nabokov, as Kubrick drastically rewrote the novelist's profuse, poetic script. Nor was it
the love story it needed to be so much as a chess match between Humbert and Quilty with Sue Lyon's Lo as the
trophy. Worst of all, the book's wondrous evocation of motel Americana was lost in the decision to shoot the film in
England. So the movie Lolita was not that great as the book, but it was entertaining. I watched the recent version of
Lolita as I was writing this piece and found Jeremy Irons's Humbert too wooden, Melanie Griffiths is no Shelly
Winters, and Sue Lyon vs Dominique Swan, Peter Sellers vs Frank Langella - no contest. Adrian Lyne could not
match this warm creation of Kubrick's. Kubrick has made Lyon both touching and ordinary, while James Mason's
Humbert is the richest performance in Kubrick's work, as well as the most poignant example of the flawed intellect
that so intrigued the director, to say nothing of Shelley Winters or Peter Sellers.
Copyright 1999 THE INDEPENDENT all rights reserved as distributed by WorldSources, Inc.
Copyright © 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.