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Speaker 1: Yeah, Welcome back to Lolita Podcast. I am your host,

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Speaker 1: Jamie Loftus. This is part two of our episode about

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Speaker 1: the adaptation of Lolita by Adrian Line. So if you

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Speaker 1: haven't listened to part one, I would recommend going back.

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Speaker 1: We covered in our last episode some of the production

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Speaker 1: of the movie, a few movies of the seventies and

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Speaker 1: eighties that attempted to address child sex abuse with mixed results,

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Speaker 1: as well as real life cases of c s A

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Speaker 1: and the stranger danger culture of the nineteen eighties. And

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Speaker 1: in part two, we're going to start out in the

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Speaker 1: early nineties, when the friction between the messaging of we

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Speaker 1: must protect the children and a pop culture landscape that

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Speaker 1: is very willing to sexualize the underage then blame them

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Speaker 1: for it continues to escalate. Friction between protecting the children

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Speaker 1: and over sexualizing the children reaches its fever pitch by

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties, shortly before Adrian Lines Lolita went

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Speaker 1: into production. Keep in mind, erotic thrillers were what Line

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Speaker 1: was famous for before he made Lolita, particularly Fatal Attraction

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Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty seven. There is a distinct trend in

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Speaker 1: the early nineties of vindictive, sexually evil teenage girls. There's

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Speaker 1: countless movies with this theme, but the best remembered one

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Speaker 1: is probably a movie from nineteen ninety three called The Crush,

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Speaker 1: starring Alicia Silverstone in her first movie, when she is

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Speaker 1: only sixteen. She plays the part of Adrian, a conniving

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Speaker 1: young woman man who seduces an older man who's played

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Speaker 1: by Carrie els Elves. I never know how to say

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Speaker 1: his name. He was in The Princess Bride and she

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Speaker 1: ruins his life. The Crush was written and directed by

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Speaker 1: a man named Alan Shapiro, who claims that this movie

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Speaker 1: is based on his life, so keep that in mind

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Speaker 1: when hearing the events that take place in this movie. Well.

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Speaker 1: Alicia Silverstone, the actor, is sixteen when this is filmed.

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Speaker 1: The character Darien, whose name is later changed to Adrian,

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Speaker 1: is only fourteen. The genre of The Crush is firmly

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Speaker 1: erotic thriller, and while the movie was probably the most

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Speaker 1: successful to feature an over sexed teenager as an antagonist,

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Speaker 1: there are at least fifty thousand movies with this exact

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Speaker 1: theme released in the early nineties. This media is overwhelmingly

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Speaker 1: angled to make it seem like white heterosexual men with

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Speaker 1: good careers are being actively seduced into ruin by teenage girls.

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Speaker 1: And it's no coincidence that all of the high profile

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Speaker 1: child sex abuse cases in Hollywood of this era involve

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Speaker 1: men of this exact description. Everyone everyone, Okay, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the crash, must paying to watch me? Just running

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Speaker 1: the guest house. From the moment she met Nick, you

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Speaker 1: the harshest for me to make friends, So everybody thinks

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Speaker 1: of some kind of freak or something. I'll be your friend.

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Speaker 1: She was crazy about him. Carrie always plays Nick Elliott,

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Speaker 1: a reporter for Peak magazine who rents a guesthouse from

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Speaker 1: a wealthy couple who have a fourteen year old daughter

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Speaker 1: named Adrian. Adrian takes an interest in Nick, and many

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Speaker 1: of the early scenes and plot points reflect adaptations of Lolita,

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Speaker 1: particularly the portion where Humbert Humbert is living as a

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Speaker 1: lodger in Charlotte Hayes's home and is obsessing over Dolores.

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Speaker 1: In the Crush, the sexualization of Adrian is made very clear.

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Speaker 1: Are you sure you're fourteen? Almost? Isn't it make fast

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Speaker 1: your bedtime? Yes? Adrian pursues Nick relentlessly, and Nick possibly

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Speaker 1: receives the attention even when his coworker slash adult love

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Speaker 1: interest warns him that Adrian is bad news. She's got

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Speaker 1: a crush on you. Don't be silly saying I did

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Speaker 1: something to provoke this, well, did you? Of course not.

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Speaker 1: Adrian and Nick kiss early on in the movie, a

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Speaker 1: kiss that is initiated by Adrian. Nick, who is twenty

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Speaker 1: eight to her fourteen very much kisses her back, but

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Speaker 1: then says it's wrong and they can't be together. I mean,

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Speaker 1: let's face it, your that's a big difference whenever you

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Speaker 1: say no, no seriously, Adrian, like night up to the

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Speaker 1: lighthouse till we kissed. Now, that was a mistake, Adrian.

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Speaker 1: When this happens, Adrian, who by the way, is also

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Speaker 1: a super genius, of course, makes it her mission in

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Speaker 1: life to punish Nick for not being her boyfriend. These

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Speaker 1: supervillain qualities are juxtaposed with the little girl aesthetics that

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Speaker 1: most fourteen year old grow out of. In a scene

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Speaker 1: where Nick sneaks into her room, then hides in a

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Speaker 1: closet and watches her undress seriously, we see that Adrian's

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Speaker 1: room is full of horse trophies and pink and lace.

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Speaker 1: This is set up as classic nymphete imagery depicting girlhood,

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Speaker 1: while also featuring long, lingering shots of Lethia Silverstone in

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Speaker 1: a bikini gazing up into Nick's window. Adrian stocks Nick,

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Speaker 1: interferes with articles that he's writing for his job, she

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Speaker 1: defaces his car, she deletes his work, she spies on

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Speaker 1: him having sex with the adult love interest, and then,

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Speaker 1: in I Ship You Not, locks Nick's love interest in

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Speaker 1: a photography dark room and fills the dark room with bees.

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Speaker 1: Alan Shapiro presents this in the movie as if these

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Speaker 1: are all things that have actually happened to him. Here's

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Speaker 1: how Variety characterizes it in their review of The Crush

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Speaker 1: At the Time, writer director Alan Shapiro says in the

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Speaker 1: production notes that the idea was inspired by an incident

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Speaker 1: in his own life where a brilliant young woman developed

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Speaker 1: a crush on him and refused to take no for

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Speaker 1: an answer. So before Adrian can get in trouble for

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Speaker 1: this whole be crime, Adrian falsely accuses Nick of sexual

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Speaker 1: assault by stealing a used condom from his trash, and

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Speaker 1: Nick is arrested by the police. After getting bailed out,

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Speaker 1: Adrian's friend tells Nick that she knows that Nick is

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Speaker 1: innocent and that Adrian has had a history of this

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Speaker 1: obsessive behavior, going so far as to say that a

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Speaker 1: camp counselor that Adrian had been fixated on had once

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Speaker 1: accidentally been poisoned to f Adrian then appears out of

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Speaker 1: nowhere with a weapon, and she and Nick have a

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Speaker 1: fight on an antique carousel I don't even know, and

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Speaker 1: the fight concludes with Nick punching Adrian across the room.

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Speaker 1: Nick's girlfriend, who almost died from bees lives. Adrian is

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Speaker 1: locked up the end. So, yeah, this is obviously not

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Speaker 1: a true story. But here's the kicker. When you watch

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Speaker 1: The Crush back now, which I would not recommend that

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Speaker 1: you do, Alicia Silverstone's character is called Adrian Forrester, but

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Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious that when it was filmed, everyone is

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Speaker 1: calling her something different. No one's mouth is forming the

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Speaker 1: name Adrian. Here's why Silverstone's character was originally named Dairy

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Speaker 1: and Forrester, which is a woman's real name, the real

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Speaker 1: name of the person. Alan Shapiro claims Alicia Silverstone's character

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Speaker 1: is based on I repeat, Alan Shapiro used a real

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Speaker 1: person's name in a movie that suggests that fourteen year

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Speaker 1: old someone unable to consent was a vindictive seductress, an

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Speaker 1: evil super genius, and an executioner via Bees. So when

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Speaker 1: the real Darien Forrester saw The Crush had been released

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Speaker 1: with her real name, she sued them and she won.

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Speaker 1: So while Silverstone was referred to as Darien in the

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Speaker 1: original theatrical release of the movie, the Crush had to

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Speaker 1: be re dubbed and she's referred to as Adrian Forrester

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Speaker 1: by the time the movie is re aired on TV

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Speaker 1: and even now. But if you go back and listen

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Speaker 1: to the trailer, Nick Elliott was looking for a nice,

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Speaker 1: quiet place to write Darien just unbucking believable. This teen

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Speaker 1: seductress trope is very prevalent around this time and is

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Speaker 1: equally insidious, poorly written as she is. Adrian slash Darien

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Speaker 1: is a solid example of how these underage characters are

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Speaker 1: written very deliberately to remove any blame from the older

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Speaker 1: man in the equation. Adrian is not just competent, she

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Speaker 1: is hyper competent. She is a genius. Writing like this

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Speaker 1: tries to sell us the idea that it's easier to

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Speaker 1: believe that a sixteen year old who does well in

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Speaker 1: school would be a vindictive murderer than the idea that

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Speaker 1: a twenty eight year old man might hit on an

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Speaker 1: underage girl when he thought no one was paying attention.

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Speaker 1: Alicia Silverstone, in spite of being pretty press shy as

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Speaker 1: a teenager, is sexualized heavily in interviews from this era,

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Speaker 1: especially after she started in the Aerosmith music video for

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Speaker 1: Crying at age seventeen and another very sexy music video

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Speaker 1: girl Role. Here's John Stewart being an absolute creep to

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Speaker 1: a seventeen year old Alicia Silverstone. I'm crushed, absolutely crushed.

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Speaker 1: How old are you? Cool man? I feel like but

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, thank you my first reference and

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Speaker 1: hold the phone there. Who's Joey Buttafuco. It's actually but

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Speaker 1: a Fuco. I have Italian family who will hand my

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Speaker 1: ass back to me if I don't say it right.

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Speaker 1: But I honestly didn't know who Joey Buttafuca was before

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Speaker 1: researching for this episode. His was the name heard around

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Speaker 1: the world in the mid nineties and is unfortunately very

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Speaker 1: relevant to what we're talking about, because Joey Buttafuco is

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Speaker 1: a statutory rapist. Around the time of the Crush, the

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Speaker 1: name Lolita was synonymized with a teenage girl who was

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Speaker 1: framed as vengeful and vindictive. I'm talking about the saga

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Speaker 1: of Amy Fisher, who had seventeen shot and wounded Mary

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Speaker 1: Joe Buttafuco, who was the wife of Amy Fisher's boyfriend,

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Speaker 1: a thirty five year old auto body mechanic named Joey Buttafuco,

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Speaker 1: who had knowingly had sex with Fisher while she was

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Speaker 1: under range. Fisher was dubbed the Long Island Lolita by

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Speaker 1: the tabloid media, and throughout nine two, when her crime

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Speaker 1: was committed, Fisher's image was everywhere. Mary Joe thankfully recovered,

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Speaker 1: but Fisher became one of the earliest examples of a

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Speaker 1: young woman absolutely devoured by the twenty four hour news media,

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Speaker 1: and she was sent to jail in late Here's an

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Speaker 1: idea of how the press was treating her at this time.

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Speaker 1: You are a tragedy and disgrace to yourself, to your family,

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Speaker 1: to your friends, and to society. Look into her eyes

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Speaker 1: and decide for yourself. Is she a little girl lost

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Speaker 1: for a hateful creature who was willing to kill to

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Speaker 1: get what she wanted. What all of this leaves out

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Speaker 1: are the actions of Joey Buttafuco. He was a thirty

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Speaker 1: five year old who had been having sex with a

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Speaker 1: minor on multiple occasions, completely knowingly, and in addition, had

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Speaker 1: recruited and made money off of Amy Fisher by prostituting

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Speaker 1: her to a Long Island s court service. And Amy

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Speaker 1: Fisher was not the only young girl he was doing

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Speaker 1: this with. So here's a man who has been bringing

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Speaker 1: a teenage girl to a motel to have sex with her,

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Speaker 1: encouraging her to become a sex worker, profiting off of that,

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Speaker 1: telling her repeatedly it sure would be great if my

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Speaker 1: wife were dead. And then when Amy Fisher does commit

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Speaker 1: the crime of her own volition, Joey Buttafuco rats her

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Speaker 1: out immediately and says that he didn't even know Amy Fisher,

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Speaker 1: she was sexually obsessed with him. This was, of course

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Speaker 1: a complete lie, by the public would learn that he

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Speaker 1: didn't just know her, but was a statutory rapist and

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Speaker 1: a sex trafficker, and that Amy was a victim of

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Speaker 1: both of these crimes. But by that point it almost

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Speaker 1: didn't matter. Amy Fisher had already been chewed up and

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Speaker 1: spit out and was sitting in jail. By the nineteen nineties,

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Speaker 1: demonizing young women was a common practice in the twenty

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Speaker 1: four hour news cycle. The year after Amy Fisher is

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Speaker 1: put in jail for assaulting Mary Joe Buttafuco, the Tanya

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Speaker 1: Harding story kicks up, and later in the decade there's

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Speaker 1: more famous public shaming and blaming of figures like Monica

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Speaker 1: Lewinsky and Anita Hill. Each and every one of these

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Speaker 1: women were characterized as obsessive, as jealous. They were judged

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Speaker 1: on their looks, and it was assumed that they were

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Speaker 1: courting the massive public scrutiny that none of them seemed

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Speaker 1: to benefit from, and in Amy Fisher's case, she was underage.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind that all these stories were being exploited

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Speaker 1: and rehashed over and over while actual issues in the US,

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Speaker 1: the ever increasing mass incarceration of Black Americans in particular,

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Speaker 1: were being completely ignored in favor of focusing on one

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Speaker 1: white eighteen year old girl going to prison. Interestingly enough,

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Speaker 1: the piece of media besides Lolita, most often brought up

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Speaker 1: in conversations about Amy Fisher in the early nineties was

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Speaker 1: Glenn closest character in Adrian Lyne's fatal Attraction Help. The

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Speaker 1: Nassau homicide detective described her in those terms right after

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Speaker 1: she was arrested. If she couldn't have him, no one

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Speaker 1: else could. She was obsessed with him. It was a

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Speaker 1: near fatal attraction. And so less than two years before

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Speaker 1: Adrian Lins Lolita would go into production, we as a

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Speaker 1: culture were buying what Joey fucking but a Fuco was selling.

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Speaker 1: The first adaptation of the story of the Long Island

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Speaker 1: Lolita was released three weeks after Amy Fisher was sentenced

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Speaker 1: five to fifteen years in prison. It was called Amy

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Speaker 1: Fisher My Story. Amy Fisher had sold her life rights

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Speaker 1: for this movie, partially in order to make bail brought

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Speaker 1: even more. A TV movie called The Amy Fisher Story

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Speaker 1: starred Drew Barrymore as Fisher, and Casualties of Love The

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Speaker 1: Long Island Lolita Story starred Alissa Milano. All of these

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Speaker 1: were panned critically and millions of people watched them, and

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Speaker 1: just as most high profile nineties women of the tabloids,

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Speaker 1: Fisher's character in these movies was over sexed, demonized, and

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Speaker 1: made to seem like the main person at fault. So

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Speaker 1: at the height of this case, Amy Fisher said in

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Speaker 1: one of her only interviews at the time, one done

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Speaker 1: with Inside edition that she was also raped by a

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Speaker 1: friend of the family at age thirteen and had intentionally

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Speaker 1: overdosed twice after another older boyfriend sold footage of her

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Speaker 1: to a tabloid press called hard Copy ahead of her sentencing.

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Speaker 1: Here's another clip from one of these movies. When I

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Speaker 1: was twelve years old, my parents had a titleman to

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Speaker 1: an Italian marble in the house and he was the

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Speaker 1: first guy I ever did it with. Yeah, You're sex

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Speaker 1: from This clip is from the Elissa Milano movie where

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Speaker 1: Amy Fisher is written particularly cruelly. But it's the Drew

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Speaker 1: Barrymore casting that I find most interesting here, and we

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Speaker 1: could get deep into why Drew Barrymore would be considered

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Speaker 1: ideal for the role of Amy, as she had become

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Speaker 1: regular tabloid fodder as a teenager herself in a way

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Speaker 1: that very much framed her as a villain and a

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Speaker 1: cautionary tale all will Profiting off of her image, Barrymore

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Speaker 1: started a movie called Poison IVY that shares a lot

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Speaker 1: of similarities with The Crush. She's featured multiple times as

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Speaker 1: a killer teen in this era of her career, and

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Speaker 1: is only eighteen when playing Amy Fisher. When it comes

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Speaker 1: to child stars who were overexposed while still under age.

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Speaker 1: Drew Barrymore always comes into the conversation and look, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to relitigate the Fisher but a Fuco case here.

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Speaker 1: It's a long story, and it's recapped in an excellent

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Speaker 1: episode of the podcast You're Wrong About with Michael Hobbs

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Speaker 1: and Sarah Marshall that I'll linkol in the description, Amy

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Speaker 1: Fisher's crime resulted in an innocent woman, Mary joe but

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Speaker 1: Afuco suffering permanent physical damage, although I'm happy to say

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Speaker 1: she's fine now. Finally divorced Joey but A Feuco years later,

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Speaker 1: and most recently released a memoir about the whole experience

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Speaker 1: called Getting It Through My Thick Skull. What there's no

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Speaker 1: question about in my mind is that Amy Fisher's crime

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Speaker 1: was connected to Lolita to characterize her as a sexually

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Speaker 1: promiscuous and vengeful teenage girl, a girl who is to blame.

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Speaker 1: One element of the story I found really interesting was

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Speaker 1: the conversation around Amy Fisher's eventual release from prison, in

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Speaker 1: she served seven out of fifteen potential years in prison,

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Speaker 1: benefiting from some clear privilege there. But what I didn't

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Speaker 1: know was that Mary Joe, but a Fuco, the woman

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Speaker 1: that Amy Fisher shot, was critical in allowing her to

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Speaker 1: get released. But Ifuko spoke at the hearing to have

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Speaker 1: Amy Fisher released, she'd been in contact with Fisher's mother

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Speaker 1: from up until her release in ninety nine, and said

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Speaker 1: the following she needed to be punished. She tried to

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Speaker 1: kill me. But Amy Fisher is not a Lolita. This

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Speaker 1: is a sick girl. This is not a Seductresses in

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Speaker 1: nineteen nineties were full of splashy overexposed stories like this

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Speaker 1: that closely connected to the rise of the twenty four

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Speaker 1: hour news cycle. Amy Fisher was eighteen by the time

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Speaker 1: she was convicted and was very much treated like an

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Speaker 1: adult seductress. During these same years, there was also an

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Speaker 1: increase in awareness of violence towards children, as well as

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Speaker 1: the existence of child pornography. So that's America in the nineties.

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Speaker 1: There is nothing more lethal than a teenage girl's sexuality.

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Speaker 1: But also we must protect the children. And here we

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Speaker 1: are a listener right back at Adrian Lines Lolita. Lolita,

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Speaker 1: starring Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain, was shot in It

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Speaker 1: features a haunting, dissonant soundtrack from Ennio Morriconi, and the

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Speaker 1: vibe on set for Elizabeth Kay's Esquire article is unique.

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Speaker 1: The shoot began in North Carolina, and Dominique Swain had

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Speaker 1: been there rehearsing with Adrian Line and a guardian for

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Speaker 1: a month before Jeremy Irons showed up. Irons was annoyed

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Speaker 1: to find that Dominique had already bonded with Line and

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Speaker 1: said so, Line replied to him with this, that's totally crazy.

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Speaker 1: I never thought about it. It's just that I have

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Speaker 1: to nurture her because she's never done it before. By

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Speaker 1: all accounts, Line treated his actors and crew kindly in

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Speaker 1: spite of a grueling shoot. Unlike Kubrick, who downplayed the

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Speaker 1: American road trip of his nineteen sixty two adaptation and

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Speaker 1: filmed the entire movie in England, Line was very focused

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Speaker 1: on the details and literally brought his cast and crew

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Speaker 1: across the country on a road trip as they shot,

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Speaker 1: going from North Carolina to New Orleans, to Texas to

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Speaker 1: New Mexico. Something I found particularly interesting was Kay's descriptions

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Speaker 1: of the crew grappling with the story that they were

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Speaker 1: bringing to life. She writes this, at times, people working

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Speaker 1: on the movie felt compelled to defend its subject, often

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Speaker 1: for the oddest of reasons, among them that since girls

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Speaker 1: must cease to be virgins, they may as well be

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Speaker 1: deflowered by their f others, who can at least be

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Speaker 1: said to love them. One principal figure in the action,

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Speaker 1: denying Humbert's calamitous effect on Lolita invoked a female friend

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Speaker 1: who had been sexually abused as a child, yet had

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Speaker 1: emerged miraculously unscathed. Another anecdote comes from the scene where

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Speaker 1: we first meet Dominique Swain's Lolita, a scene in which

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Speaker 1: her sheer dress is soaked as she lays beneath a sprinkler.

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Kay writes this, Their camera focused on lines redheaded Lolita,

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Speaker 1: a fifteen year old in a red bathing suit, sprawling

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Speaker 1: beneath a lawn sprayer that drenched her with spouting water

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Speaker 1: as she frolicked with a panting male dog in a

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Speaker 1: manner markedly erotic. While puzzled passers by looked on, what's

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Speaker 1: this movie about? One asked some middle aged guy. A

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Speaker 1: grip answered, who falls in love with a young girl

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Speaker 1: based on a literary classic? Said the unit pr woman.

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Speaker 1: Don't forget that, Jeremy Irons gets in on the fund

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Speaker 1: saying making a movie about something isn't doning it true enough,

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Speaker 1: jare but this depends very much on how the creatives

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Speaker 1: at the top of that movie view the subject matter.

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Speaker 1: Adrian Lions comments make this difficult. One quote that stands out.

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Speaker 1: If I were doing a movie about a thirteen year

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Speaker 1: old getting chopped up by cannibals, there'd be no problem.

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Speaker 1: There is no other intuitive place to put this in

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Speaker 1: this episode, So I just wanted to mention here that

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Speaker 1: while I think that Jeremy Irons turns in a pretty

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Speaker 1: solid performance in this movie, he has a pretty notable

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Speaker 1: track record of making misogynistic and homophobic comments at literally

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Speaker 1: every opportunity that simply need to be googled to be believed.

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Speaker 1: These are comments that he only began to distance himself

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Speaker 1: from beginning in February twenty twenty, where he gave a

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Speaker 1: very weird preface to a talk in Berlin by saying

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Speaker 1: that he actually didn't mean every funked up thing he's

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Speaker 1: ever said, so please stop asking. These problematic comments are

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Speaker 1: mostly taking place in the two thousand tens, not back

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Speaker 1: in the late nineties when Lolita was made, but he

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Speaker 1: does slip up a little bit in the Lolita Press

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Speaker 1: junket here saying this, we were living in a sort

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Speaker 1: of strange fantasy world whereby Dominique was fourteen, and apparently

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Speaker 1: UM had to be protected that fourteen year fourteen year

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Speaker 1: old California knows about everything. You know, Come on, UM,

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Speaker 1: So on one hand, we were trying to be legal

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Speaker 1: and and really treating her as this porcelain child who

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Speaker 1: I didn't know where she came from or how all

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Speaker 1: that occurred. On the other hand, we were dealing with

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Speaker 1: an actress who had read the book, understood the book,

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Speaker 1: quite liked the book, UM, who lived the life of

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Speaker 1: any California in fourteen year old and knew all about it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what a bunch of babies protecting a fourteen year old

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Speaker 1: on the set of a movie where your character, Jeremy

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Speaker 1: Irons is repeatedly assaulting her. Those prudes. Irons also to

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Speaker 1: repeat sign that partition, and we discussed in part one

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00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,679
Speaker 1: saying that Roman Polanski, a convicted child sex abuser, should

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Speaker 1: be released. I mean, the man plays the most famous

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Speaker 1: child sex abuser of all time and reads the audio

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Speaker 1: book that we all listened to, and he still defends

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Speaker 1: Roman Polanski. So we here at the pod, me here

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Speaker 1: at the pod, are not fans of Jeremy Irons. We

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Speaker 1: just have to talk about him a lot. In this episode,

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Speaker 1: Dominique Swain was described as being generally outgoing on the

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Speaker 1: set and worked closely with Lyne, who would described to

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Speaker 1: her when to pause and went to react within a scene.

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Speaker 1: She was also said to have held up production for

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Speaker 1: a full day with her anxiety of having to play

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Speaker 1: a seventeen year old pregnant Lolita k speculates that because

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Speaker 1: the movie was filmed in sequence, this anxiety came from

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Speaker 1: it being her last scene in the movie. There's also

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Speaker 1: a few accounts of Jeremy Irons being overly harsh with

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Speaker 1: Dominique Swain. At one point during the shoot, she made

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Speaker 1: a suggestion on how he might approach a scene, and

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Speaker 1: he replied, don't tell me what to do, and she

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Speaker 1: burst into tears. Dominique's mother was on set when sex

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Speaker 1: scenes with Swain and Irons were filmed for her safety,

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Speaker 1: and Irons was said to once being nearly in tears

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Speaker 1: with the stress of doing it, saying I can't do

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Speaker 1: this and covering his face. As Kay remembers it. Dominique

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Speaker 1: removed Jeremy Irons's hands from his face and said, kindly,

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Speaker 1: yes you can. We hear this production dissonance in how

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Speaker 1: different people viewed the story in the behind the scenes

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Speaker 1: video from the low lated DVD as well. This featurette

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Speaker 1: also has six hundred fifty thousand views in its current

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Speaker 1: YouTube upload Incarnation and I find it especially interesting how

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Speaker 1: Adrian Lyne's opinions on what the story is about seemed

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Speaker 1: to constantly be in conflict with what his leads think

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Speaker 1: it's about, especially Melanie Griffith and Dominique Swain. This dissonance

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Speaker 1: comes up multiple times in this eight minute behind the

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Speaker 1: scenes video. Line will say something like this, Charlotte sees

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Speaker 1: that Lolita is kind of attracted to Humbled as well,

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Speaker 1: so they're both really rivals for the affection of Humbled.

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Speaker 1: Immediately after he says this, Melanie Griffith has the opposite opinion.

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Speaker 1: She just sees Humbert, who's very handsome and very elegant

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Speaker 1: and different, and and she doesn't see any of these

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Speaker 1: stuff it's going on between him and Lolita. Jeremy Irons

401
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Speaker 1: says this of his thoughts on making a movie with

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Speaker 1: a child sex abuser as its protagonist. As it is

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Speaker 1: something that happens in society. It's not something that should

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Speaker 1: be condoned or encouraged, but it's something that is. And

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Speaker 1: the arts have to shed light upon question um cover

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Speaker 1: everything that happens in life. Meanwhile, Adrian Line is over

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00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: here saying ship like this. It makes you laugh, it

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00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: makes you cry, it makes you horrified, and that's all

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00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,679
Speaker 1: you can want for a movie. So filming completes in

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00:26:02,720 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: February nine six, and the movie still does not have

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Speaker 1: a distributor. This becomes a popular subject of ridicule in

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Speaker 1: snooty Hollywood circles. Did Adrian Line really make a fifty

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Speaker 1: eight million dollar art house movie? And over a year

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Speaker 1: passes without a distributor being found. Dominique Swain returns to

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00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: school and does school plays and lifeguard training, and she

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00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 1: gets a small part in the movie Face Off. And

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Speaker 1: for all the difficulty that took place on the set

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Speaker 1: of Lolita, it's once the movie is in edits that

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Speaker 1: things really start to fall apart. That is because of

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Speaker 1: the Child Pornography Prevention Act of nine. We're about to

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Speaker 1: get a little constitutional, so bear with me. The child

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Speaker 1: pornography Prevention Act of nine was put on the House

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Speaker 1: floor in September of ninety six and proposed to add

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Speaker 1: two categories of speech to the legal definition of what

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Speaker 1: child pornography is. Here's the first edition, any visual depiction,

426
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: including any photograph, film, video picture, or computer or computer

427
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: generated image, or a picture that is or appears to

428
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: be of a minor engaging and sexually explicit conduct. Here

429
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,719
Speaker 1: is the second edition. That the Act introduces any sexually

430
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: explicit image that was advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed

431
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: in such a manner that conveys the impression that it

432
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: depicts a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct. What this

433
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: meant as it pertained to Adrian Lines Lolita, is that

434
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: all portrayals of a minor engaging in sexual activity, and

435
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:38,439
Speaker 1: this included the impression of a minor, which means that

436
00:27:38,600 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 1: Adrian Lines, nineteen year old stand in for Dominique Swain

437
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: was moot. So long as she was portraying a fourteen

438
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: year old character was illegal. This Act was not put

439
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: into law in a vacuum. I am, by no means

440
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 1: an expert on this area of the law, but my

441
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: understanding is that President Clinton, who famously never committed a

442
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: sex crime, had made cracking down on possessing child pornography

443
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: a personal priority throughout his first term as president, starting

444
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 1: in late when he wrote this and a personal letter

445
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:12,760
Speaker 1: to Attorney General Janet Reno. I find all forms of

446
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:16,200
Speaker 1: child pornography offensive and harmful, as I know you do,

447
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 1: and I want the federal government to lead aggressively in

448
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: the attack against the scourge of child pornography. Here's a

449
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: quick summary of what child pornography laws were prior to

450
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:30,479
Speaker 1: this letter being written. According to a paper published by

451
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 1: Stobbs Law, child pornography laws barely existed before nineteen seventy,

452
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: and the first major law didn't come into play until

453
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: four's Child Protection Act, the same year that the Milk

454
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: Carton campaign begins. The Child Protection Act prohibited the distribution

455
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: of materials that concerned the sexual exploitation of miners, whether

456
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: the material was deemed obscene or not. In Layman's terms,

457
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: what this means is that it removes all First Amendment

458
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: Freedom of expression protections from child pornography. Child Pornography Prevention

459
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,479
Speaker 1: Act was made in response to the rise of the

460
00:29:09,520 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: Internet and increase in digital distribution of pornography. Of all

461
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 1: kinds is around the time where the Internet was becoming

462
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: widely accessible, whether it was at libraries, in schools, or

463
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: in some homes. So what does law meant for Adrian Line?

464
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: While editing his Lolita was that any implication of sex

465
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: with a minor, regardless of whether it was performed by

466
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 1: an underage actor or an of age body double, needed

467
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: to be evaluated by a lawyer down the line. In

468
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:45,840
Speaker 1: two thousand one, the Child Pornography Prevention Act is deemed unconstitutional,

469
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: and Lines adaptation of Lolita comes up on the floor

470
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court just before the Act is struck

471
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: down in two thousand and two for being too broad

472
00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: and potentially interfering with First Amendment free speech. Here's an

473
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 1: excerpt from the Green Borrow News and Record from October

474
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: two thousand one. Lolita came up in Supreme Court debate

475
00:30:06,120 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: on Tuesday, as it often seems to do in discussions

476
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: of child pornography. At issue was the Child Pornography Prevention Act,

477
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: passed by Congress in nineteen ninety six. The law was

478
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: vigorously defended by the Clinton administration and now by the

479
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 1: Bush administration. Three out of four federal courts of appeals

480
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: have upheld it, but the Ninth Circuit on the West

481
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: Coast held its basic provision unconstitutional. On Tuesday, as skeptical

482
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: Justice Anon in Scalia inquired from the bench, what great

483
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: works of art would be taken away from us if

484
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: we couldn't see miners copulating. After some hesitation, the Adult

485
00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: Entertainment Association's lawyer replied Lolita. He was clearly talking about

486
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:51,760
Speaker 1: a movie version of Vladimir Nobokov's novel. A great work

487
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: of art, exclaimed Scalia Anton in Skalia, What an amazing person.

488
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: Just kidding. But in the spring of nine, when Adrian

489
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: Line was editing and trying to find a distributor, this

490
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: law posed an understandably gigantic block to his vision of

491
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: the story getting released. So this basically destroys Lolita's chance

492
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: of getting distributed widely in the United States. International distribution

493
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: is more or less uninterrupted. It boils down to this,

494
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: Adrian Lines Lolita, which was his play to get into

495
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 1: the Oscars echelon of filmmaking after a decade of erotic

496
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: thriller's debuted in the US on TV on Showtime. So

497
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: let's take a look at this damn thing I have

498
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: seen this movie many many times over the years, always

499
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: on whichever illegal YouTube upload is currently up. But to

500
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: prepare for this show, I got an official DVD release

501
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: of the movie. Now, the plot of Adrian Lines Lolita

502
00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: is pretty close to Nabokov's book sort of. But I

503
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: am going to zip you through the plot because if

504
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: you have any doubts at this point in the episode

505
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: on how director Adrian Line you nabokov story and his

506
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: own movie, I'm going to include excerpts from the director's

507
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: commentary that appears on the DVD. I'll let Adrian Line

508
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: speak to his own work. Yea. So here it is

509
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: Humbert Humbert's I mean Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita Again. This movie

510
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: begins at the end Humbert is driving away from the

511
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: murder scene where he kills Quality, but this time it's

512
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: sexy Jeremy Irons dramatic Humbert. In this version, we do

513
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: see a flashback to some of Humbert's past. We learn

514
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: about Annabelle Lee, the girl he fell in love with

515
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: as a child, but they're aged up their fourteen, not

516
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 1: twelve as in the book. Here's what Adrian Line says

517
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: about the flashback because I think our story really is

518
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: about a man who who never grows up really as

519
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: a man who stay as a child essentially, And the

520
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 1: cinematography of this early loved scene is full on Abercrombie ad.

521
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 1: These teenagers are falling in love in this very seductive way.

522
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: It's not at all the clumsy romance that Humbert describes

523
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: in the book. Humbert goes to America to teach at Beardsley,

524
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: but first stops in New England, where as you know,

525
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: he becomes the lodger of Charlotte Hayes. There are a

526
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: lot of small details here that aren't any other adaptations.

527
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: There's the mention that Charlotte loves Mexican art but is

528
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 1: pretty racist about it. And then we see Dominique Swain's

529
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: Lolita for the first time. She looks closer to Nabokov's

530
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: description with pigtails and sandy hair, and Swain the actress

531
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: has braces at this time, as well as period appropriate clothes,

532
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: closer to nobal Gov's descriptions. But again I'm going to

533
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: refer to that kind of a late nineties Abercrombie add

534
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: over sexed presentation. When we meet Lolita. She is soaking wet,

535
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: wearing a bikini underneath a sheer dress as she reads

536
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 1: a magazine beneath a sprinkler, which you may know is

537
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: not generally how people read magazines. The Lolita of this

538
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 1: movie is aged up, as usual, to fourteen from twelve.

539
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: Adrian Lyne says this, I like the braces there. I

540
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: think it's important really to keep on remembering that that

541
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: he's fascinated by a child. You know, she's essentially part

542
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: She's at that point, you know, when she's part child

543
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: part woman, And I think that's what dominic Swain really

544
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: managed to to portray. She really had a foot in

545
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 1: both camps. I thought it was very important that really,

546
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: and ironically, by the end of the of the movie,

547
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: I don't think she could have played the hooks she

548
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 1: had grown up. The camera lingers on Dominique Swain's body,

549
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: something that obviously isn't in the book, Nor is the

550
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:13,280
Speaker 1: long piercing gaze and brush of Lolita's foot against Humbert's

551
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: leg that we see right after she carries laundry past

552
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:19,120
Speaker 1: him shortly after. What's important to note here is that

553
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: the camera is taking on Humbert's perspective in a way

554
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: that isn't really challenging the grossness of how Humbert is

555
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: viewing this child. So Humbert is moved in and Adrian

556
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: Lyne says this, when Humbert puts a ribbon in his

557
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: journal as a bookmark, I don't know when anybody gets this.

558
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 1: There's a kind of a link with the with the

559
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: piece of lace there from the underwear that Annabelle war.

560
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: I didn't know whether or not people pick up on that,

561
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: but I like the fact that he kept it from

562
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: all of those years. That's not a detail from the

563
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:59,280
Speaker 1: book and it's not necessary. So in this adaptation Humbert

564
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 1: and Loli does flirtation is far more direct. She comes

565
00:36:03,239 --> 00:36:06,720
Speaker 1: into his room and sits on his lap. That footmotif

566
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,840
Speaker 1: of her foot brushing against his body comes up again

567
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: and again, and she leans on him as they swing

568
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:17,439
Speaker 1: on the outdoor porch swing with Charlotte. She teases him

569
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: in moments like this, still do anything you say? She's

570
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 1: getting a thing about this scene is a lot Dominique swains.

571
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: Lolita is holding a doll, she grabs Humbert's thigh, she

572
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 1: rubs up against him, So we see a lot of

573
00:36:31,719 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 1: her touching him, but we don't see any of the

574
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: rough touching that humber does in the book that, according

575
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: to nabuk Off, results in her body becoming bruised. So

576
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: again a far more romantic, gauzy presentation of this flirtation

577
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:50,240
Speaker 1: between an adult and a child. Lolita is sent to camp,

578
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: but not before there is another full fantasy of a

579
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,360
Speaker 1: kissing sequence. Lolita runs up to Humbert's room to say goodbye,

580
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: and the scene becomes slow motion romantic. There's a dramatic

581
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: close up. It's essentially a Hollister bag. There's a shot

582
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: of Dominique Swain flying into Jeremy Irons's arms. The shots

583
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: focused on her crotch meeting his as he catches her.

584
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,760
Speaker 1: She kisses him for a while, and after she runs away,

585
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: Jeremy Irons clutches his heart beaming. It is framed as romantic.

586
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 1: Line says this, it's funny. The first time that she

587
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: kissed him, we were all a little terrified. We knew

588
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 1: that she had kissed boyfriend before, but nobody quite knew

589
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: what to expect. And once Lolita is gone, Humbert comically

590
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: tumbles into her closet. After she leaves This was a

591
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: tricky moment. I think when he plunges into a Lolita's

592
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: clothes there, it had to be funny or otherwise it

593
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: would have been I think grotesque. But it is grotesque, Adrian.

594
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 1: He's a sexual predator, okay, as usual. Charlotte leaves the

595
00:37:57,520 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: letter confessing her love for humbered They get married, and

596
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: he experiments by drugging her all summer long. There's an

597
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 1: extended scene here where Jeremy Irons is trying to effectively

598
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: tranquilize Melanie Griffith, only for her to wake up and

599
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: start kissing him. This is framed like a comedy scene. Eventually,

600
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: Charlotte finds Humbert's journals, revealing that he is sexually obsessed

601
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: with her daughter. She gets hit by a car and

602
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,200
Speaker 1: Humbert leaves to go pick up Lowly to at camp.

603
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,240
Speaker 1: Lolita is picked up and upon getting into the car,

604
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: she strips in the backseat to change her clothes not

605
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: in the book, and they kiss again. Adrian Lyne says,

606
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 1: this it's funny. This was the first time that she

607
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: kissed Jeremy sort of passionately, if you like. And the

608
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,719
Speaker 1: whole crew, including myself waiting with bated breath to see

609
00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 1: what was going to happen. I mean, we just didn't know, really,

610
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: And when she finally did kiss him with such gusto,

611
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: I remember the crew going but she It's funny, I

612
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: was more worried, and I think her mother was more

613
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: worried about how in the movie than she was herself. Really.

614
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,799
Speaker 1: Humbert and Lolita arrive at the Enchanted Hunter's Hotel, and

615
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: we see Lolita and Quilty meet for the first time.

616
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,720
Speaker 1: This interaction takes place. Who can smell when people are sweet?

617
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: Do you like sweet people? Nice young people. Quilty is

618
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: seen mainly in the shadows in this adaptation, which is

619
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: a little closer to how he appears in the book,

620
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: but in the movie he's almost always presented at this

621
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: kind of dramatic Dutch angle that is for me a

622
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: bit much. Humbert takes Lolita to a romantic, candlelit dinner

623
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,040
Speaker 1: at the Enchanted Hunters Hotel, and Lolita tells Humbert who

624
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 1: Quilty is. In this version, she already knows that he's

625
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 1: a famous playwright. Up in the room, Lolita delivers this

626
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 1: famous line from the book. Two people sharing the same

627
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: hotel room abound to enter into a how can I

628
00:39:59,560 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: put it in to it into a kind of incest

629
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 1: unlike the book. She kind of giggles afterwards, almost as

630
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 1: if she didn't fully mean it. Instead of drugging her.

631
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: Humber brings Lolita up to bed and she gives him

632
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: a number of seductively framed gazes. He removes her shoes

633
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 1: and socks. Another foot shot, and the whole sequence is

634
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: kind of framed more like this is her agency and

635
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 1: that she's in on this quote unquote seduction when we

636
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:31,399
Speaker 1: know this couldn't possibly be the case. Humbert goes downstairs,

637
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: has a very Dutch angle scene meeting Quilty for the

638
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:39,239
Speaker 1: first time, then comes back upstairs to see Lolita sleeping fitfully.

639
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,839
Speaker 1: He again stares at her feet, and there's a tight

640
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: shot of Lolita's butt beneath the sheets in the moonlight.

641
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 1: Lolita wakes up and asks for a glass of water,

642
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: wipes her mouth on his sleeve and slow motion, and

643
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: goes back to bed. Lions commentary during this scene is

644
00:40:55,200 --> 00:41:00,719
Speaker 1: extremely telling. First, he says, this will show me what's

645
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: very interesting with Jeremy's performance really is that you really

646
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: sense the struggle of the man. You know this is

647
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,239
Speaker 1: a man with a conscience. I mean, what he does

648
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: is awful, obviously, but you sense that he's struggling with

649
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: in a sense, being a parent but also being a lover.

650
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: He keeps on saying things like this. I think this

651
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: sequence is interesting here because it's really a bewildering mix

652
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: of sensuality and and parent and the conflict of the

653
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:44,320
Speaker 1: But Humbut has listener. He literally cannot stop saying things

654
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 1: like this. It's interesting because you sense the sexuality in

655
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: the sensuality from her side, and at this stage he

656
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 1: backs off line repeatedly talks about his low leader as

657
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: if she is acting knowingly and isn't just asleep. For

658
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 1: the entire scene, these two shots and the sheets here

659
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:08,919
Speaker 1: with a leg and a were end. I think it's

660
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: um it's nice suggesting what is there rather than seeing it.

661
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 1: He's more for his imagination, more to torturing m The

662
00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: next morning at the Enchanted Hunter's hotel is in the

663
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 1: book when Humbert first rapes Lolita. Humbert says that she

664
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: seduced him in the book, but makes it clear that

665
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: he's making this argument to a jury. In the movie,

666
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,520
Speaker 1: he says that she seduced him and that's simply how

667
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: the scene is presented. There is no creative choice made

668
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 1: reminding us that this could be an unreliable account. It's

669
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: just shown. Lolita kisses Humbert confidently and says, I guess

670
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: I'm just going to have to show you everything. She

671
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:59,800
Speaker 1: undoes his pants, removes her retainer, and the scene fades

672
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: to black. The way that this scene implies both seduction

673
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: and consent is enough to spike the entire thing in

674
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:09,919
Speaker 1: the dumpster as far as I'm concerned. But they leave

675
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,320
Speaker 1: the enchanted Hunter's Hotel, and as in the book, Lolita

676
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,600
Speaker 1: begins to feel physical pain later in the day, and

677
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 1: she says this, well, what do you expect? It was

678
00:43:21,160 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 1: a daisy fresh girl, and look what you've done to me.

679
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: It should call the police and tell them that you

680
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: raped me, you dirty old man. This is a very

681
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: memorable and telling line from the book, But like when

682
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: Dominique Swain delivers the It's called incest line, her character

683
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: always giggles or smiles at Humbert afterward, almost as if

684
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 1: to imply that she's actually kidding. After saying she should

685
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: call the police and say that Humbert raped her, she

686
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:51,320
Speaker 1: smiles and gazes out the window. She's joking. When she turns,

687
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: we can see that she has a Hickey Jeremy irons

688
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: as Humbert smiles. Then a bit later tells her that

689
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 1: her mother is dead, and we hear Lolita cry all

690
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 1: night in the hotel. Just as in the book, she

691
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 1: comes to Humbert's bed crying and he holds her line

692
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 1: says this again, this moment when she comes into bed

693
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: with him is really the moment of a of a

694
00:44:17,200 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: parent really looking after his child. There was this strange,

695
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 1: conflicted things throughout the movie. At this point, the road

696
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: trip portion of the movie begins. Lolita rarely expresses grief

697
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: about her mother again, and we see a series of

698
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: joyful scenes of her kicking him in the face with

699
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,120
Speaker 1: her feet as he drives. This whole romantic montage that

700
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:48,080
Speaker 1: has become very influential in online communities. In one particularly

701
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:51,319
Speaker 1: memorable scene, Lolita and Humbert stop at a motel with

702
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: a bed that has a magic fingers vibrator attached. This happens,

703
00:44:55,920 --> 00:45:01,440
Speaker 1: give me accord in a dime for the magic fingers,

704
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: my magic. Lolita scowls and gets her quarter, and we

705
00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: see her writhe all over the vibrating bed in a

706
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: montage before she flushes the toilet while Humbert is in

707
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 1: the shower, making the water of the shower go cold.

708
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:21,920
Speaker 1: Line comments this in this scene kind of sense that

709
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: the balance of power is changing a little bit. When

710
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 1: he was manipulating her and now she's beginning to manipulate him.

711
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: Another romantic montage as they travel across the country, a

712
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:39,399
Speaker 1: slow motion tennis sequence, Humbert removing Lolita's straps as she's

713
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 1: falling asleep. Foot shots, foot shots, foot shots, and what

714
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: I feel is the most unpleasant addition in the entire movie,

715
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: a scene where Lolita is reading a comic book while

716
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 1: sitting on Humbert's lap and he begins to have sex

717
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 1: with her. This is not in the book and is

718
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:59,240
Speaker 1: better matched with the first two minutes of an actual

719
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: pornographic video Dominique Swain as Lolita orgasms holding the comic

720
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: book in her hand. It is a difficult scene to watch.

721
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: Adrian Line offers this explanation, This was a scene that

722
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: was very troubling for people, and again, I think it

723
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: kind of reinforced the idea of child and woman. Really

724
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: child is reading the comic and getting pleasure from that

725
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 1: and also the the adult side as well. No. In

726
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: the scene immediately after this, we see another example of

727
00:46:40,120 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: Lolita crying, presumably right after sex with Humbert. Then the

728
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:47,879
Speaker 1: two of them go to Beardsley and Humbert braids Lolita's hair.

729
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 1: Before school, Lolita brings up being in the school play

730
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:55,160
Speaker 1: and Humbert says no. She replies, like this, you're depriving

731
00:46:55,200 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: me of the civil rights. H I'm intelligent. Instead of

732
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 1: being convinced by the headmistress that low leaders should be

733
00:47:06,400 --> 00:47:09,240
Speaker 1: in the play as in the book, Lolita convinces Humbert,

734
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: and another scene presented as very seductive, she caresses his

735
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:16,360
Speaker 1: leg while demanding that she be allowed to do the play.

736
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 1: Humbert starts to get turned on, and Lolita demands that

737
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: her allowance increase from one to two dollars, and he agrees.

738
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: She smiles at him deviously. Adrian Lyne says this, I

739
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:35,879
Speaker 1: like this shot of her foot rocking him A right

740
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: to be in a player if I want kind of

741
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: starts off this scene of sensuality, and and it suggests

742
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: that more and more she's in charge. If you like,

743
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:54,280
Speaker 1: she's starting to manipulate him, right I should mention there's

744
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,720
Speaker 1: another foot shot in that scene as well. So Lolita

745
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: gets to do the play and Humbert is aware that

746
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: Claire Quialty is watching the rehearsals. We then see a

747
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,960
Speaker 1: scene of a naked Lolita played by the nineteen year

748
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 1: old body double we talked about earlier, but a naked

749
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: Lolita who is frustrated with Humbered in bed. She's snatching

750
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: coined from him, biting him, pulling his hair in anger,

751
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: almost animalistic in how she's behaving. Humbered in this scene

752
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 1: is very much framed as the victim. Line says, this

753
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: where she hit the money. I never knew we used

754
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: the body double in in this scene for some of

755
00:48:32,560 --> 00:48:37,400
Speaker 1: the whitest shots. It's amazing what you get away with. Really,

756
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: Dominic was wearing a body suit, as I remember, and

757
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,399
Speaker 1: because the shelts are so quick don't see. Humbert then

758
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,439
Speaker 1: has a meeting with the headmistress of Lolita's school, and

759
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 1: the headmistress mentioned that Lolita is still fourteen. This means

760
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: the timeline of the movie is much shorter than that

761
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 1: of the book. After realizing Lolita is not going to

762
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: piano lessons, she and Humbert get into an argument, Humbert

763
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 1: slaps her, and in that same scene we saw in

764
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 1: the original Jeremy Irons Dominique Swain chemistry test, she screams,

765
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,959
Speaker 1: murder me like you murdered my mother. It's a very

766
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: intense scene. Go ahead, murder me, murder me like you

767
00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: murder murder me like you murdered my mother. Going murder me,

768
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 1: murder me like you murdered my mother. Lolita runs away.

769
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: Humbert finds her later and she's changed her mind for

770
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:29,839
Speaker 1: mysterious reasons. She says, take me to bed, and then

771
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: they hit the road again. Lolita swaps out her chewing

772
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: gum for a banana in the car. While Quality follows,

773
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,960
Speaker 1: Lolita puts on ruby red lipstick. By this point in

774
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: the movie, Humbert is portrayed as paranoid and bumbling. As

775
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 1: Qualthy continues to follow them, Humbert again slaps Lolita to

776
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:51,799
Speaker 1: scare her. This is how Line describes this. I think

777
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 1: this kind of sexuality of the way she's he's the

778
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: banana I thought was important in this scene because he's

779
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:01,719
Speaker 1: becoming more and more unhinged, more and more ragged, more

780
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 1: and more convinced that he's being followed by the police,

781
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 1: and I think the fact that he's being tortured sexually

782
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 1: at the same time, I think it's important and it

783
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 1: gets mixed up together a feline. It's iconically subtle filmmaking.

784
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 1: Adrian really good stuff. So this next sequence is unique

785
00:50:19,920 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: in Lolita adaptations and that it really focuses on Lolita's

786
00:50:24,239 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: conspiring with clare Quality to escape Humbert's clutches more so

787
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: than any other adaptation. At one motel, when Humbert comes

788
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:37,439
Speaker 1: back from getting Lolita her bananas, get it bananas. When

789
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: he comes back with the symbolic bananas, Lolita is sitting

790
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,800
Speaker 1: on the bed with smudged lipstick. It's implied that she's

791
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: been out kissing someone else. We then get a full

792
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: body shot of Lolita seductively holding the bananas in slow

793
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: motion before Humbert violently slams her to the bed and

794
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 1: demands to know who she's with. He tears at her clothes,

795
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: and instead of being afraid, Lolita is laughing maniacally and

796
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 1: seems to be getting turned on by Humbert. Fear and

797
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 1: anger again, just a wildly irresponsible way to frame an

798
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: assault like this. Adrian Line has this to say, I

799
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: like the kind of imagery of these bananas in this scene.

800
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: It's some kind of pathetic really in other ways, I've

801
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: been sent out to get them, and then it becomes

802
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 1: obviously a kind of a sexual imagery doing doing this scene,

803
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 1: he can't stop talking about these bananas. There's literally an

804
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 1: assault of a child taking place on the screen and

805
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: Adrian Line is talking about the bananas. After this scene,

806
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: Jeremy Irons is Humbert is so paranoid now that every

807
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:48,760
Speaker 1: angle is a Dutch angle. As in the book, Lolita

808
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: gets sick, she runs away. Humbert searches for her with

809
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 1: no luck, and three years later Humbert only learned of

810
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: her location when she reaches out to him asking for money. He,

811
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:03,360
Speaker 1: of course she'll up and finds Lolita, now pregnant and

812
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: living in a shack with her husband, and as in

813
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: the book, Humbert begs her to tell him who she

814
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: had left with all those years ago. Lolita says, my god, dad,

815
00:52:14,040 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 1: it was quilty. It was clear quilty. This was one

816
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 1: of the only scenes in the movie where I felt

817
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 1: like the additions made were pretty effective. Humbert gives Lolita

818
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: the money. She tells him that she is not going

819
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,240
Speaker 1: to go with him, in a scene that still breaks

820
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: my heart, And before he leaves, this exchange is added,

821
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 1: can you ever forget what I've done to say goodbye Molly,

822
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:44,800
Speaker 1: say goodbye to my dad? I actually do like this edition,

823
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: immediately followed by one that I hate. After getting in

824
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:50,319
Speaker 1: his car, Humbert looks at the shack and sees a

825
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 1: pregnant seventeen year old Lolita. He blinks a few times

826
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:57,040
Speaker 1: and suddenly there's the fourteen year old Lolita from the

827
00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: day they kissed back in the Ramsdell house down who

828
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:04,479
Speaker 1: the costume? He smiles nostalgic. Then, as always he goes.

829
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: He kills clare Quality in a scene that is way

830
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 1: too long that does feature frankl Angela's penis, something that

831
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:13,719
Speaker 1: made frankl Angela very upset because Adrian Line said he

832
00:53:13,760 --> 00:53:17,320
Speaker 1: wasn't going to include the shot of frankl Angela's penis. Anyways,

833
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 1: that's the end of the movie, And upon the first

834
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 1: rewatch of many that I was doing for this episode,

835
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 1: I thought that they had spared Dominique Swain, the scene

836
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:29,680
Speaker 1: from the book where Humbert licks Dolores's eyeball, or the

837
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: scene early on, where Humbert describes a time that he

838
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:37,239
Speaker 1: bounced Lolita on his lap and ejaculated, but claims that

839
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:40,720
Speaker 1: she didn't notice. But these scenes absolutely were shot between

840
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:44,239
Speaker 1: Irons and Swain. They appear as deleted scenes on the

841
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:48,200
Speaker 1: DVD and have hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. Well,

842
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm troubled. So, as we discussed, this

843
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: movie does not get wide distribution in the US, which

844
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 1: does end up getting it quite a bit of press.

845
00:53:56,480 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: And what did the critics have to say? In ninety eight?

846
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:04,439
Speaker 1: The new version of Lolita, released at Last, turns out

847
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 1: to be a beautifully made, melancholy and rather touching account

848
00:54:08,760 --> 00:54:11,839
Speaker 1: of a doomed love affair between a full grown man

849
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 1: and a very young woman. But that, of course, is

850
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: not what Vladimir Nobokov's masterpiece is about. The film's masterstroke

851
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:25,440
Speaker 1: is its understanding that this is Humbert's story, told in

852
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 1: his own lyrical voice, from his own passionate, sad, tortured perspective.

853
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 1: There are flashes of seduction from Lolita that are intentionally

854
00:54:34,520 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: hard to distinguish from a schoolgirl crush. The better for

855
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:42,439
Speaker 1: Humbert to misinterpret. Ms Swain walks this incredibly narrow line

856
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: between innocent playfulness and adult knowledge without a misstep. Yes,

857
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 1: the subject matter can be considered offensive, but the director

858
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:53,160
Speaker 1: Adrian Lyon has filmed the material in such a way

859
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:55,520
Speaker 1: that one would have to be awfully sensitive to be

860
00:54:55,520 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: offended by anything in the movie. The scenes of intimacy

861
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,760
Speaker 1: between Humbert and Lolita are done shadows and in a

862
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 1: manner that generally keeps their affection private. Lynn's efforts to

863
00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:11,319
Speaker 1: be both passionate and autistic are generally successful, although a

864
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:16,839
Speaker 1: few sex scenes are disturbing and arguably close to silasious.

865
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:22,320
Speaker 1: Critics generally liked this movie and objected to the reasons

866
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: that many found it to be controversial. I found these

867
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 1: reviews to all be very late nineties in their tone,

868
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:30,319
Speaker 1: so I really do try to keep my opinions out

869
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: of this show as much as I can. But I

870
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:35,160
Speaker 1: really don't like this movie as far as I'm concerned.

871
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 1: It belongs to a very particular category of movie where

872
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:42,480
Speaker 1: the books have been carefully adapted down to the smallest detail,

873
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: and yet the movie somehow manages to miss the entire

874
00:55:45,760 --> 00:55:49,600
Speaker 1: point of what it's adapting. Because lines movie pays an

875
00:55:49,640 --> 00:55:53,399
Speaker 1: extraordinary amount of attention to the details of the book.

876
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: There are these little moments, color choices, characters who only

877
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 1: appear for a line or two in the text that

878
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:03,240
Speaker 1: make it very clear that all of the critical players

879
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:07,400
Speaker 1: in this movie have read Nabokov's book many, many times.

880
00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:10,680
Speaker 1: And the visuals that this attention to detail produces can

881
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 1: often be really beautiful. There is one critical thing missing, however,

882
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: and that is any reminder or indication that Humbert Humbert,

883
00:56:20,200 --> 00:56:24,240
Speaker 1: who is a child sex abuser, is an unreliable narrator.

884
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: But they missed the point of the entire book. We

885
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: don't have Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. What we have here is

886
00:56:30,840 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 1: Humbert Humbert the fifty eight million dollar movie. How could

887
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:38,240
Speaker 1: they possibly have? I mean, they present Humbert's entire story

888
00:56:38,360 --> 00:56:40,840
Speaker 1: as if it's just the truth. It's just a story

889
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:43,440
Speaker 1: being told. You don't even find out he's gone to

890
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:46,840
Speaker 1: jail until the last slide of the movie, the same

891
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:50,239
Speaker 1: slide that tells us that Dolores Hayes has died in childbirth,

892
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 1: and you're not told that his vested interest maybe in

893
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:58,400
Speaker 1: winning your favor over making you dislike Charlotte, demonizing Dolores

894
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 1: at any opportunity. No one did. No One notice that

895
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:05,719
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be as bothered if this movie hadn't endured

896
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:08,360
Speaker 1: as much as it has, and I am not alone

897
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: in feeling this way. I was interested to learn that

898
00:57:11,160 --> 00:57:14,919
Speaker 1: many Nabokovian's throw back to a past episode that means

899
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 1: Vladimir Nabakov's scholars Navakovyan's also tend to really dislike this

900
00:57:20,200 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 1: movie and find it to completely miss the core message

901
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:27,440
Speaker 1: of Nabakov's text. Some in particular, are deeply disappointed and

902
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:31,640
Speaker 1: frustrated with the bulkhov Son Dmitri for signing off on

903
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 1: and actively participating in this production. Here's a conversation I

904
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 1: had with Nabokov's biographer Brian Boyd about an early screening

905
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: he saw of this movie where Dmitry Nabokov was speaking

906
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 1: alongside Adrian Line, and I asked him about some of

907
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:51,440
Speaker 1: his thoughts on the adaptation. I watched it for the

908
00:57:51,480 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: first time at Cornell in a large audience of students,

909
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 1: and the myth is that people who would count for

910
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: an apok of centenary celebration, and then in the Q

911
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:06,560
Speaker 1: and A, there are all these adoring questions from the

912
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:11,000
Speaker 1: student audience, and none of the the conference attendees said anything.

913
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: But I hated the movie so much that I wanted

914
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:17,680
Speaker 1: to say something, and I thought, shall I spoil the party,

915
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 1: spoil this atmosphere? And I thought, well, I'll keep myself

916
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: forever if I don't say something right. Because again Parlian

917
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:30,720
Speaker 1: renaction to the Kubrick where they had to make a

918
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: look older, the emphasis here is very much on her youth,

919
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: so the braces, the bubble gum and so on, and yeah,

920
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:46,959
Speaker 1: I just don't think he that they do it in

921
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 1: the right way. And they said last question. Stephen Schiff said,

922
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: I think Brian Boyd was going to ask a question,

923
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 1: so so I put it to him, what would you

924
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 1: say to the the comment that what you've filmed is

925
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:05,960
Speaker 1: not the pocups low leader but Hummed Slader And he

926
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:08,960
Speaker 1: didn't know what the question. He didn't understand the question.

927
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: But Hummed is very engaging and witty, and they felt

928
00:59:14,720 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 1: the need for for the film to work to make

929
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:21,320
Speaker 1: him appealing. And I don't understand why on earth they

930
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 1: felt that, but that was the decision that that Adrian

931
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:27,600
Speaker 1: Line made and that was the brief given to the screen.

932
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:31,880
Speaker 1: Various screenplay writers. And if you look at the first

933
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 1: scene between the book of between Humbert and Lolita in

934
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 1: the screenplay hummed, it's just such a slee spool and

935
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:46,080
Speaker 1: you know, he imagines that he manages to make himself

936
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 1: witty as a narrator of the novel, but here when

937
00:59:49,360 --> 00:59:53,440
Speaker 1: you see this dialogue of him sort of trying to

938
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 1: make verbal advances, and it's just so repellent. It was

939
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:02,000
Speaker 1: sinating for me to go through. You know, Okay, there

940
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: there is more cultural freedom to show things. Although you

941
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:10,320
Speaker 1: know it was there. I guess you could shoot more, um,

942
01:00:10,400 --> 01:00:12,880
Speaker 1: but it just was so in the other direction of

943
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:15,120
Speaker 1: like the you know, Vladimir and book I was great

944
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:18,040
Speaker 1: love story is like used again and again in the trailers.

945
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 1: But even the way the cinematography is encouraging you to

946
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: kind of be on Humbert's side, as it were, it's

947
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 1: just very um it's very strange, and especially for a

948
01:00:31,640 --> 01:00:34,920
Speaker 1: movie that seems to have a big, you know, agenda

949
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:39,840
Speaker 1: with with staying faithful to very minute details of the book,

950
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:43,440
Speaker 1: but then kind of missing the theme. It's just it's

951
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 1: it's frustrating. I I it is an extraordinary example of

952
01:00:52,120 --> 01:00:55,960
Speaker 1: how you can attend to the letter of the details

953
01:00:55,960 --> 01:01:01,919
Speaker 1: and get the spirit absolutely wrong. And yeah, Nebaco would

954
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:05,320
Speaker 1: have been utterly a pooled I think, thank you so

955
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 1: much to Brian Boyd, and he describes this more at

956
01:01:08,400 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: length in a book of his I Really enjoyed called

957
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:33,040
Speaker 1: Stalking nabokov Ye, so Adrian lines, Lolita romanticizes the relationship

958
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:37,360
Speaker 1: between Dolores Hayes and Humbert Humbert while generally still portraying

959
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:41,600
Speaker 1: more of the trauma and unhappiness that Dolores experiences than

960
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 1: any other adaptation does, and while seeing Dominique Swain as

961
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:51,200
Speaker 1: Lolita express this anger and sadness and remorse. As Brian said,

962
01:01:51,320 --> 01:01:54,640
Speaker 1: this movie is still an adaptation of an abuser's account.

963
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:59,680
Speaker 1: In that Lolita was sort of released into in the

964
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:03,160
Speaker 1: u S generally seemed to take away the message that

965
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:06,760
Speaker 1: this relationship was to be viewed as a romance. Don't

966
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:13,040
Speaker 1: believe me. Check this out, So lady, you're about the nominee.

967
01:02:13,640 --> 01:02:20,400
Speaker 1: Kiss best cheers when it's Paltrow, When Joseph finds Shakespeare,

968
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: Jeremy Irons and Dominique sway. But I'd be happy as

969
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:33,280
Speaker 1: to you. Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz what you just

970
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 1: heard is Dolores Hayes and Humbert Humbert being nominated for

971
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:42,520
Speaker 1: Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards. In they did

972
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 1: lose to Shakespeare in Love. But that is the level

973
01:02:45,480 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: to which Atrian Line presents this relationship as a romance.

974
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,880
Speaker 1: So what is it about this movie outside of the

975
01:02:53,040 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: dangerous lack of adequate framing of the story that convinced

976
01:02:56,840 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: us that this was a love story. I would also

977
01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: like to implicate cinematographer Howard Atherton here, because Adrian Line

978
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,240
Speaker 1: harps on the framing of his characters in the director's

979
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 1: commentary of the movie as well, and singles out romantically

980
01:03:10,920 --> 01:03:14,520
Speaker 1: lit shots of Dominique Swain as Lolita, saying things like

981
01:03:14,800 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 1: beautiful lighting. We just wanted to make her look totally alluring.

982
01:03:18,960 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 1: So while the child Pornography Prevention Act of gets all

983
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:24,840
Speaker 1: of the sex scenes with the nineteen year old body

984
01:03:24,840 --> 01:03:27,760
Speaker 1: double eliminated except for the one I described to you

985
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:31,880
Speaker 1: frantically collecting those gold coins of Humbert's that Lana del

986
01:03:31,960 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 1: racings about in her music fifteen years later. Even with

987
01:03:35,000 --> 01:03:38,400
Speaker 1: these shots omitted, Lolita and Humbert gaze at each other

988
01:03:38,600 --> 01:03:42,880
Speaker 1: lovingly upon meeting, she soaked in the spray of a sprinkler,

989
01:03:42,920 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 1: wearing a bikini, her mother completely oblivious. The camera is

990
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 1: clearly telling you this is their moment. The cinematography of

991
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:56,760
Speaker 1: Lolita is done by Howard Atherton, whose other credits include

992
01:03:56,880 --> 01:04:00,800
Speaker 1: Fatal Attraction in Decent Proposal and Bad Is. The first

993
01:04:00,840 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 1: two of those are Adrian Line erotic thrillers, and the

994
01:04:03,720 --> 01:04:07,040
Speaker 1: last you probably know is a Will Smith Martin Lawrence

995
01:04:07,080 --> 01:04:11,520
Speaker 1: action classic that, uh, you have to admit, treats women's

996
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 1: bodies like they're absolute objects. Line bringing his team over

997
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 1: from the erotic thriller genre just does not work, And

998
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:23,800
Speaker 1: that sticks out particularly in the cinematography, because here's a

999
01:04:23,800 --> 01:04:27,680
Speaker 1: cinematographer who does not and has never dealt in nuance

1000
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:31,000
Speaker 1: in a movie that desperately needs that behind the camera

1001
01:04:31,080 --> 01:04:34,720
Speaker 1: in order to work again, I'll go back to spend

1002
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:39,440
Speaker 1: Nike Fist, the cinematographer for eight Pretty Baby. His work

1003
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:43,200
Speaker 1: constantly brings you into the perspective of Brookshield's twelve year

1004
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:47,640
Speaker 1: old character. The camera communicates her confusion and fear in

1005
01:04:47,680 --> 01:04:50,959
Speaker 1: ways that don't even exist in the movie script. That's

1006
01:04:51,000 --> 01:04:54,600
Speaker 1: his job, particularly in a story hinging on something as

1007
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:58,840
Speaker 1: fraught as child sex abuse. The camera cannot simply translate

1008
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:02,120
Speaker 1: the narrative of an abuser, but that is more or

1009
01:05:02,240 --> 01:05:05,840
Speaker 1: less what Howard Atherton does here. The same thing happens

1010
01:05:05,920 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: in almost every scene in which they appear. While there

1011
01:05:09,120 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 1: is the occasional shot or a moment that reminds us

1012
01:05:12,120 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 1: what a nauseating power dynamic this is, we are far

1013
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:19,720
Speaker 1: more often presented with softly lit love scenes, with foot shots,

1014
01:05:19,920 --> 01:05:25,360
Speaker 1: with Dominique Swain gazing at Jeremy Irons knowingly seductively. It's

1015
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: the same thing we've been talking about for the entire series.

1016
01:05:30,000 --> 01:05:34,200
Speaker 1: The many moments that this movie presents as erotic are similar.

1017
01:05:34,680 --> 01:05:38,440
Speaker 1: Not only does Dominique Swain's lovely to sarcastically laugh after

1018
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:42,240
Speaker 1: a number of key lines it's called incest. I was

1019
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:44,440
Speaker 1: a daisy fresh girl and look what you've done to me.

1020
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:47,920
Speaker 1: But any moment the camera isn't presenting her as traumatized,

1021
01:05:48,160 --> 01:05:51,640
Speaker 1: It's presenting her as very sexually knowing. And this is

1022
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:55,439
Speaker 1: pretty exactly how Humbert presents Dolores in the text, as

1023
01:05:55,560 --> 01:05:59,440
Speaker 1: consenting and vindictive in one moment than crying and undone

1024
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:03,280
Speaker 1: in the net. What lines direction misses is the context

1025
01:06:03,640 --> 01:06:06,560
Speaker 1: is who is telling you this story? I know, I

1026
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 1: know I'm harping on this, but truly imagine the person

1027
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:12,600
Speaker 1: who has hurt you most in your life got to

1028
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:16,400
Speaker 1: tell your life story like it was unquestionably true. That's

1029
01:06:16,400 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 1: how this movie is adapted. Then there's the cinematography in

1030
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:22,680
Speaker 1: the sex scenes where Dominique Swain does appear. There is

1031
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:25,720
Speaker 1: that deleted scene where Humbert is aroused by Lolita on

1032
01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:29,320
Speaker 1: the couch, the camera language implying that she's in on it,

1033
01:06:29,680 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 1: shooting him knowing looks. There's that scene where she climaxes

1034
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:36,320
Speaker 1: while reading a comic book. There's that scene where she

1035
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:40,240
Speaker 1: removes her routineer before ostensibly giving Humbert a blow job

1036
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: at age fourteen. There's that scene where the camera frames

1037
01:06:43,880 --> 01:06:47,200
Speaker 1: her laughing her head off when Humbert asks her where

1038
01:06:47,240 --> 01:06:50,880
Speaker 1: she's been. The camera shows Dolores in these moments as

1039
01:06:50,920 --> 01:06:55,560
Speaker 1: a consenting and willing party, ignoring, particularly at the end,

1040
01:06:55,680 --> 01:06:58,960
Speaker 1: that the other person she's seeing is another child sex abuser.

1041
01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:02,240
Speaker 1: As Brian Boyd said, all the high level decisions in

1042
01:07:02,280 --> 01:07:06,880
Speaker 1: this movie are invested in telling Humbert's story, not Nabucos,

1043
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:09,400
Speaker 1: and that's a big problem. How can I be sure

1044
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:13,040
Speaker 1: of that? Well, this movie absolutely flopped in the US

1045
01:07:13,160 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 1: theatrically due to the whole not being released thing, but

1046
01:07:16,840 --> 01:07:20,680
Speaker 1: it does do pretty well financially and critically overseas, particularly

1047
01:07:20,720 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 1: in Russia. But as you may know, when a movie flops,

1048
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:26,560
Speaker 1: this usually means it will eventually crop up for free

1049
01:07:26,600 --> 01:07:29,160
Speaker 1: on YouTube. And that's how I found this movie in

1050
01:07:29,240 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 1: high school, via a late two thousands upload of the

1051
01:07:32,280 --> 01:07:35,440
Speaker 1: movie in fourteen parts, back when YouTube videos could only

1052
01:07:35,480 --> 01:07:37,840
Speaker 1: be ten minutes long. I'm old, and this rip of

1053
01:07:37,840 --> 01:07:40,840
Speaker 1: the movie has long been removed from YouTube. If you

1054
01:07:40,880 --> 01:07:43,880
Speaker 1: were interested in seeing this movie as a young person,

1055
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:46,520
Speaker 1: it was not hard to find it. In fact, our

1056
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 1: whole next episode is about people who either managed to

1057
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:52,760
Speaker 1: swipe a copy of Lolita from Blockbuster in the early

1058
01:07:52,760 --> 01:07:56,360
Speaker 1: two thousand's, or like me, found easy to find illegal

1059
01:07:56,440 --> 01:07:59,680
Speaker 1: rips on YouTube and daily Motion and then created fan

1060
01:07:59,800 --> 01:08:02,960
Speaker 1: for hims about the movie. I just rewatched lines Littlita

1061
01:08:03,160 --> 01:08:06,120
Speaker 1: the other day on a YouTube rip, just before recording

1062
01:08:06,120 --> 01:08:09,440
Speaker 1: this episode, and it's a great and frustrating way to

1063
01:08:09,560 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: gauge how Adrian lines presentation of Dolores Hayes's story creates

1064
01:08:13,960 --> 01:08:17,519
Speaker 1: this dissonance and confusion. Here's a random assortment of comments

1065
01:08:17,520 --> 01:08:21,200
Speaker 1: on the current upload from the past two years. But

1066
01:08:21,520 --> 01:08:26,559
Speaker 1: girl fall in love and she also enjoy it. I

1067
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 1: read this book when I was twelve. My mom was like,

1068
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:34,160
Speaker 1: you can't let read this, and my dad told me

1069
01:08:35,120 --> 01:08:38,679
Speaker 1: it's way too hard for you. But I kept reading

1070
01:08:38,920 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 1: and I didn't regret it. I'm so confused. Is he

1071
01:08:43,240 --> 01:08:45,280
Speaker 1: in love with her or no? Is she in love

1072
01:08:45,320 --> 01:08:50,480
Speaker 1: with him or no? I'm fifteen and finding this movie interesting.

1073
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:55,160
Speaker 1: I'm watching not to mention, and I hope that this

1074
01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: upload of the movie has been deleted by the time

1075
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:00,720
Speaker 1: you're hearing this, because I did report it and explicably,

1076
01:09:01,040 --> 01:09:04,400
Speaker 1: in the middle of this re uploaded Lolita for reasons

1077
01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:06,559
Speaker 1: I could not explain to you with a gun to

1078
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:10,920
Speaker 1: my head, there is actual pornography spliced into the middle

1079
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:14,240
Speaker 1: of this illegal YouTube upload, coming in about an hour

1080
01:09:14,400 --> 01:09:17,639
Speaker 1: into the normal movie. I've been frustrated by a million times.

1081
01:09:17,760 --> 01:09:21,240
Speaker 1: It is just a full ten minutes of porn spliced

1082
01:09:21,320 --> 01:09:24,639
Speaker 1: into the middle of lines movie, and the uploader placed

1083
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:29,320
Speaker 1: it right after the scene where Lolita climaxes while reading

1084
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:31,559
Speaker 1: the comic book. You're about to hear a scene from

1085
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:35,200
Speaker 1: the movie end and a nineties era porn scene begin.

1086
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 1: Even the illegal YouTube uploaders are telling you that is

1087
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:51,080
Speaker 1: how we are being encouraged to see Dolores in this movie,

1088
01:09:51,479 --> 01:09:55,519
Speaker 1: and the legacy of this ambiguous presentation is still with us.

1089
01:09:55,760 --> 01:09:58,519
Speaker 1: A lot of the influence that this movie endures is

1090
01:09:58,560 --> 01:10:03,640
Speaker 1: related to that thing that Nabokov loved, aesthetics. The aesthetics

1091
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:06,960
Speaker 1: of this movie are connected to beautiful costume design and

1092
01:10:07,120 --> 01:10:12,480
Speaker 1: set design, and yes, the aesthetics of romanticizing Lolita's relationship

1093
01:10:12,680 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 1: with Humburd Humburt. So that's Lowlita by Adrian line from

1094
01:10:18,040 --> 01:10:21,959
Speaker 1: and that's the very American America that it was released into.

1095
01:10:22,320 --> 01:10:25,120
Speaker 1: As these YouTube comments indicate, this movie may have been

1096
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:27,559
Speaker 1: a financial failure in the short term, but it has

1097
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:30,840
Speaker 1: secured a long legacy on the internet. For better and

1098
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:34,559
Speaker 1: for worse. Is right around the time when computer access

1099
01:10:34,600 --> 01:10:38,719
Speaker 1: became normal and feasible for teenagers, whether they're at their homes, schools,

1100
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:42,400
Speaker 1: or libraries, and with this, the Lauras Hayes fan communities

1101
01:10:42,439 --> 01:10:45,880
Speaker 1: and fashion sites start to crop up. The Lauras Hayes

1102
01:10:46,160 --> 01:10:52,400
Speaker 1: logs in next week on Lolita Podcast. Lolita Podcast is

1103
01:10:52,439 --> 01:10:55,559
Speaker 1: an I heart Radio Production. It is written and hosted

1104
01:10:55,560 --> 01:10:59,360
Speaker 1: by me Jamie Loftus. It is produced by Sophie Lichtman,

1105
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:03,640
Speaker 1: Beth and Marcheluso, Miles Gray, and Jack O'Brien. It is

1106
01:11:03,800 --> 01:11:07,360
Speaker 1: edited by the wonderful Isaac lu. Music is from Zoe Blade,

1107
01:11:07,640 --> 01:11:10,760
Speaker 1: theme is from Brad Dickert and My guest voices this

1108
01:11:10,840 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 1: week are Sophie lich German, Miles Gray, Isaac Taylor and

1109
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:16,920
Speaker 1: Julia Claire. See you next time.