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Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film
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----- Forwarded message from as-brown@comcast.net -----
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 21:50:23 -0400
From: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
Reply-To: Andrew Brown <as-brown@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Anthony,
I did not address this in my note on Monday because I it is probably a small
point. I have avoided the word "censored" to describe Kubrick's and Lyne's
decisions, because I think this word connotes interference on the part of
other powers over the filmmakers' choices. I don't think a repressive
censorship was exercised over either artist. I believe they reached their
decisions on their own. Sorry if this is just a matter of word choice with no
other significance.
Jansy,
I agree strongly that the isue of HH's legal guilt is scanted entirely in
Lolita, but for good reason. Nabokov often said he was not a writer of "big
idea" books. He loved the particular detail and had no use for "general ideas"
such legalisms or "social guilt." The "beautiful literary revery" is the
novel's essense. John Ray Jr´s preface is, in my view, Nabokov performing --
and simultaneously mocking -- the convention of having a "professional" from
the legal, ethical, or medical community, tack a moral onto any text that might
cause worries for a publisher. Hitchcock's Psycho, for example, has a similar
tacked-on ending which, to me, becomes funnier with each passing year.
In my comments, yesterday (Monday) I was not discussing HH´s guilt or his moral
responsibilty towards Lolita. I wished to comment only on what I believe were
certain pragmatic film-making choices made by Kubrick and Lyne. Neither film
shows Humbert Humbert behind bars. Unless I'm mistaken, I don't think it's
clear in either movie that the story is the postumously released memoir of a
criminal.
To address a point that seems to have been made in earlier posts that I've
missed (my apologies), I'm not sure that I can accept Humbert Humbert as
expecting clemency from any imaginary jury. He has no remorse for killing
Quilty, and feels the charge itself should be dropped. As HH says, these notes
are written not to save his head, but to save his soul. More importantly, he
has made the condition that no one will read this text while Lolita is alive.
Even though these notes may be used in "hermetic sessions," I don't see HH
expecting a "healing process." He regrets stealing his victim's childhood. But
he will never reject his obsession with nymphets. And rather than see his love
for Lolita mitigating the crime of murder, it would seem that the humanity she
ultimately engendered in him, a degree of emotional depth that might have
cleansed him of the (lifelong pattern of) violence, failed completely. HH was
able to feel, at last, an abject, tender love for his captive. And he instantly
set out to commit murder in the first degree.
As poetic and as "fancy" as we can count on a murderer's style to be, HH is,
from first to last, a selfish and evil brute. He shares the sensibility of
Hitler's favorite architect, Albert Speer. A civilized, well-read, talented,
artistic Nazi who knew, from first to last, that his leader's objective was the
foulest genocide that a genocide-intoxicated century ever vomited up.
Sandy,
As indicated in a previous paragraph, I do not at all think that, for Lolita,
Nabokov decided to abandon his lifelong disapproval of the the general idea.
So, his view of America could not be less "panoramic." It's a brilliant jewel
box of individual images, from gas station signs, to neon shadows in puddles,
to candid shots of the different types of male and female motor court managers,
the different types of hitchhikers... Specifics. Thousands of specifics. But not
a "panoramic" view. Anymore than VN's examination and cataloging of individual
lepidopteral genitalia was panoramic.
Consequently, I cannot find Nabokov "examining a liberal American tendency to
"explain" evil - to find that psychology or history mitigated moral repugnance,
as with Bolshevism or Psychoanalysis."
But I may be badly misunderstanding something here. Especially since I cannot
find a way to classify Bolshevism and Psychoanalysis together.
"Not only on film, but in the text as well, it is important that the
viewer/reader become at least somewhat seduced by the attractive,
urbane European. For when that happens, a degree of complicity can be brought
home in the final hill-top scene."
I'm going to have to forego accepting any degree of complicity with HH. I don't
think that this was VN's intention. But I will try to review posts I've missed
over the past couple weeks, in which I've been drawn away from the List in
order to do other writing, and I certainly apologize for what may look like
willful stupidity on my part for having mangled anyone's ideas.
Andrew Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: Donald B. Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2005 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film
----- Forwarded message from STADLEN@aol.com -----
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 09:54:45 EDT
From: STADLEN@aol.com
Reply-To: STADLEN@aol.com
Subject: Re: Fw: Humbert's pedophilia on film
To:
I think Sandy Drescher, Kellie Dawson and Andrew Brown all go a long way to
answering my question about why the "Lolita" films censor out HH's psychiatric
(as opposed to sentimental psychoanalytic) status.
Thank you.
Anthony Stadlen
----- End forwarded message -----
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I think Sandy Drescher, Kellie Dawson and Andrew Brown all go a long way to
answering my question about why the "Lolita" films censor out HH's psychiatric
(as opposed to sentimental psychoanalytic) status.
Thank you.
Anthony Stadlen
----- End forwarded message -----