Same with this, but it's either a rip off of the dirty projectors vid, or by the same director
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Lolita
I watched the film version of Lolita last night, and it struck me that one thing the film does very well is convey the banality, and at most instances the relative improbability plot of the film.
Ok, I do realise that it's not really the point of either of them to really concentrate on the plot, which is secondary to the context in the novel and subtext in the film (is that too wanky to say?), but it's one thing that does get glossed over.
Similarly, both the film and book seem to portray the weaknesses of each of their creators - I find Nabokov to only really be interested in drawing one strong character through which he tells his story, leaving the characterisations of his supporting players appear relatively arbitrary. I suppose this is due to the three books of Nabokov's that I have now read - Pnin, Lolita and Pale Fire, all of which deal, to some extent with the monomania of a sensitive and brilliant man (though I suppose in Pale Fire this is yet more complicated). This is not some kind of serious critique of Nabokov, but I do find that he tries to confound the reader with excess information so as not to concentrate on the basic buildings blocks of the story, which, when you're dealing with multiple interesting characters, I appreciate, gets extremely complicated.
Kubrick, meanwhile, I find has a real interest in the gradual monomania of brilliant men (or self-annointed brilliant men, and/or thought-enabled machines), but he does have a knack of making their character progressions rather matter-of-fact and linear, which to me make them seem predestined in their telling, and thus sometimes they more seem abstractions than real. In some films, he gets away with it through a fantasy element, however. I haven't really thought about the failings of Kubrick, so that thought is pretty much unfinished and probably not entirely correct either.
I do love both the film and book, though. The book more.
Ok, I do realise that it's not really the point of either of them to really concentrate on the plot, which is secondary to the context in the novel and subtext in the film (is that too wanky to say?), but it's one thing that does get glossed over.
Similarly, both the film and book seem to portray the weaknesses of each of their creators - I find Nabokov to only really be interested in drawing one strong character through which he tells his story, leaving the characterisations of his supporting players appear relatively arbitrary. I suppose this is due to the three books of Nabokov's that I have now read - Pnin, Lolita and Pale Fire, all of which deal, to some extent with the monomania of a sensitive and brilliant man (though I suppose in Pale Fire this is yet more complicated). This is not some kind of serious critique of Nabokov, but I do find that he tries to confound the reader with excess information so as not to concentrate on the basic buildings blocks of the story, which, when you're dealing with multiple interesting characters, I appreciate, gets extremely complicated.
Kubrick, meanwhile, I find has a real interest in the gradual monomania of brilliant men (or self-annointed brilliant men, and/or thought-enabled machines), but he does have a knack of making their character progressions rather matter-of-fact and linear, which to me make them seem predestined in their telling, and thus sometimes they more seem abstractions than real. In some films, he gets away with it through a fantasy element, however. I haven't really thought about the failings of Kubrick, so that thought is pretty much unfinished and probably not entirely correct either.
I do love both the film and book, though. The book more.
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