The novel Lolita was a source of scandal and criticism from the moment it was published in 1955. Nabokov’s story follows the obsession of a 40-year-old man with a 12-year-old girl. As the novel is told from the perspective of the perpetrator, the reading experience is all the more shocking, and the narrator all the more unreliable. Lolita only exists in his perspective; she has no independent ability to act. This article doesnt just look at the novel and its consequences. First and foremost, it is designed to highlight the two cinematic adaptations, and how these created a completely new perspective.
1. The novel and Nabokov’s original intentions
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita was published in 1955 and remains one of the most controversial novels of the twentieth century to this day. The focus is on the relationship between the forty-year-old Humbert Humbert and the twelve-year-old Dolores Haze.
Nabokov never wanted to write an erotic novel. Instead, he constructed an unreliable narrator who is meant to tempt readers to adopt his perspective and understand his actions. It is precisely this manipulation that makes the novel unsettling in a iterary sense.
Nabokov also explicitly demanded that no children or young women be depicted on the cover of the book.
Similarly, when it came to the American edition, the author also said: “And no girls.”
Nabokov had a cover in mind showing landscapes, streets or motifs of American melancholia – not sexualised childishness.
Despite this, exactly the image rejected by Nabokov was used in later editions: Girls with red lips, sunglasses, lollipops and other phallic objects.
This shows the main problem with any filming of Lolita: The novel criticises Humbert Humbert’s perception, but a film works with images, the story is made more real as a result, and the actors give the characters faces.
2. The first filming (1962) in a historical context
Stanley Kubrick’s film version, released in 1962, took place during a time of social change. Sexual taboos were slowly being broken, while at the same time strict censorship rules were still in place. As a result, the character of Dolores was portrayed as being significantly older than in the novel. Sue Lyon was fourteen years old and consciously depicted as being more matureand “feminine” than the literary model. Sue Lyon was deliberately heavily made-up, and wore feminine outfits, so that she would look more adult for the audience.
The film usually only hints indirectly at sexuality, and works more strongly with irony and black humour. Despite this, nnoch wurden hier bereits die Grenzen verschoben und die Darstellungen verändert: The childish victim figure was increasingly presented as both under/age and seductive.
Looking back, the production conditions are also especially problematic. James B. Harris, the producer of the film, is said to have had a sexual relationship with the under-age Sue Lyon during shooting. This was never proven before a court of law, however.
At this time, under-age children could still legally be married with the consent of their parents in a number of states in the United States As a result, the filmmakers also played with the idea of marrying the two main characters at the end, in order to trivialise the entire situation.
On the one hand, the filming was still shaped by moral limits, while on the other the commercialisation of underage sexuality had already begun.
3. The second filming (1997): The aestheticising of sexualised children
Adrian Lyne’s filming of the novel in 1997 contributed significantly to this trend. While Kubrick’s version mostly only hinted at sexuality, Lyne shows Dolores in a fundamentally more voyeurististic and erotic way. One scene in particular leaves this impression on the memory of the viewer: Dolores is lying down on her stomach in a wet dress in the garden. The camera moves slowly across the girl’s body, so showing Humbert’s voyeuristic perspective.
Camera work, clothing, body language and visual aesthetics often present the child from Humbert’s desiring perspective.
Here, too, an actress who gave the impression of being older was deliberately chosen. Dominique Swain was portrayed as a mixture of childishness and sexual maturity. In this way, the film distanced itself even more strongly from the actual content of the novel.
The second adaption plays a crucial role in shaping the modern popculture meaning of “Lolita” entscheidend. The term was increasingly became a symbol of the “child/woman”: young, innocent and at the same time sexually available and controllable.
The actual victim perspective, therefore, disappeared almost completely.
4. The consequences for the actresses
Sue Lyon and Dominique Swain were subjected to enormous public sexualisation at an early age. Sue Lyon in particular was permenently associated with the role after the film. Her youth was commercialised in the media, while she was forced into an adult role at the same time.
The cultural consequences extend far beyond the actresses themselves, however. The figure of “Lolita” became an aesthetic categorie: Young girls were supposed to be both childlike and erotic at the same time. This visual language influences social media, the fashion industry, advertising and youth culture to this day.
The perception shifted fundamentally as a result: Instead of presenting Humbert Humbert’s violence as a problem, Dolores herself was made an object of desire.
5. Why Lolita should never have been made as a film
One might claim, therefore, and with good reason, that it is actually impossible to make Lolita as a film. Nabokov’s novel works through language, manipulation and the distance between the narrator and reality. As soon as Dolores becomes visible, and is given a face and a body, she begins to be objectified.
The story of the two cinematic versions shows that this portrayal in the media has increasingly replaced the actual message of the novel. Instead of an analysis of power, abuse and manipulation, a pop-culture phenomenon of seductive under-age girls has been created.
In this way, the films have had exactly the effect Nabokov originally wanted to avoid.
“And no girls.”
https://www.aerzteblatt.de/archiv/diskussion-ueber-literaturverfilmung-proteste-gegen-lolita-22a1a28d-ace4-484c-bc99-ef3684c2bb85
https://www.sn.at/kultur/literatur/wie-lolita-kein-skandal-wurde-art-552012
https://www.journal21.ch/artikel/die-lolita-die-gar-keine-war
Translated by Tim Lywood
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