In "
Selling (Out) Nabokov: A humorless new Lolita mistakes satire for
tragedy." (originally published in the October/November 1998 issue
of Boston Review), Alan A. Stone states that: "Kubrick had
the
sly wit to put a conspicuous but unidentified picture of Nabokov on the
wall in the scene of the fatal confrontation between Quilty and Humbert.
This is exactly the kind of literary allusion that Nabokov worked into every
page of his novel. And like most of Nabokov's readership, James Mason as
Humbert does not get it. In a supremely Nabokovian touch, Kubrick's camera
moves in on Humbert as he quizzically eyes the photograph, obviously failing
to recognize who it is. To enjoy the humor of this moment, you must know
Nabokov's face. But, then, it is a stretch for most people to recognize any
humor at all in a movie about a middle-aged man having a sexual relationship
with his 12-year-old stepdaughter."
JM: I watched the DVD with the scene where there should
be a "conspicuous picture of Nabokov on the wall". Unless my copy has
been edited and Kubrick's original movie altered, there is no picture of
Nabokov anywhere in this sequence. Can anyone confirm A.A.Stone's information?
Checking other reviews I found a 1962 review ("Great Films") by Tim
Dirks. According to him, Nabokov's picture hangs on Charlotte's wall, above
the urn with her husband's ashes. He describes the events: "She points toward
her husband's picture [a serious portrait which looks like a photograph of
a young Nabokov, the novel's author] - and her prized materialistic
possession: "He was a lovely human being. A man of complete
integrity....(Humbert touches a black vase beneath the picture, not realizing
that it is Mr. Haze's cremation urn.)...Those are his ashes." Humbert recoils
his hand away."
I photographed the scene and got a closer look at Mr. Haze. I could
find no similarity with the man in the portrait and young Nabokov from
the other photographs of Nabokov that I've seen.
A.A.Stone is so positive about his vision and adds to it such an
important place in his commentary that I'd be thankful if some Nab-L
participant could confirm or deny his assertion.