Talk:Lolita (1997 film)

Links

I've removed a great number of links that seemed to be superfluous, according to both my own taste and what's written here. -- Hoary June 28, 2005 04:45 (UTC)

"Remake"

The film was described in the article as a "remake" of Kubrick's Lolita. Nothing I know about it suggests to me that Schiff and Lyne set out to remake the earlier film, and they did not remake it. Thus I've removed mention of "remake". -- Hoary June 28, 2005 04:45 (UTC) Text amended accordingly and Stephen Sciff's comments included. -- Ajarn, Septembern 30, 2005 and October 7, 2005.

POV

awful article. flagged with POV until someone fixes all the rubbish like "doesn't make the same mistakes as Kubrick" and describing actors/actresses as "excellent" without critical qualification. --81.154.236.221 19:24, 29 September 2005 (UTC) Text amended accordingly. Ajarn 30 September and 7 October 2005.

I've taken a crack at fixing it a bit. I gutted paragraphs that were original research or covered in the Lolita (1962 film) article, and organized it a bit. This is still a poor article and needs work, though. --Misterwindupbird 08:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

My edits

Hoary, rather than just reverting my edits because they removed material, could you please look at the substance of my edits and let me know what you disagreed with, or add the required text into that version? I noticed that most of the article was simply a comparison of this film with the 1962 version, but the comparisons I removed were really comparisons between the 1962 film and the novel. Those are dealt with quite well in the Lolita (1962 film) article, so I don't see why they should be covered (poorly) here, too. The other things I removed were purely subjective opinions on the performances or original research. I know I was bold, so I don't blame you for being taken off-guard, but I spent a fair bit of effort trying to clean it up. I hope we can work together on this. --Misterwindupbird 09:06, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Since no answer seems to be forthcoming, I reworked my version and made the changes. If you (or anyone else) feels this new version is a degradation, this is the place to talk about it. I still think it's a poor article, but hopefully getting a little better. --Misterwindupbird 21:37, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Fine. I'm not happy with the article now, and wasn't happy with it the way it was before either. I might have got the wrong impression of your edit, and described it rather harshly. (And sorry that I failed to notice the penultimate message till today.) First, I completely agree with you that this article is not the place for any comparison between the novel and the earlier film. I'd go beyond this and say that I see no reason for a comparison between this film and the earlier one: after all, as far as I know, nobody has seriously suggested that the newer one is a remake of the old one. So I'd be inclined to delete two thirds of what's now under the heading "Differences from the 1962 film", and put what's left under a different title.

What has gone is stuff such as:

Jeremy Irons portrays Humbert as the definitive European intellectual, only really at ease in the ordered, cloistered world of academia. But, after he becomes smitten with his "nymphet", he is a man whose obsession bristles beneath his timorous demeanor. His performance is understated but with every move and gesture he evokes sympathy for the character.

Now, I don't think this is much good. At one level, and to take one example, even if we grant that European academia of the time was an "ordered, cloistered world" (very dubious!), my (possibly defective) memory doesn't tell me that anything about Irons/Humbert's only really being at ease there. Rather, he's irritated by noises, etc. -- as are many people. At another level, one might say that this is a good or bad effort at the kind of writing that's intrinsically PoV. Still, one could claim that it's but two or three steps away from "Critics such as Moses M. Mammon and Beatrice B. Bountiful have praised Irons's portrayal of Humbert as blah blah blah" which (if sourced) might be worth something. -- Hoary 08:33, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we're pretty much in a agreement, Hoary. I wouldn't mind the article's inclusion of the characterization of the performances if they read as something other than the editor's own review of the film. I also wouldn't mind seeing the few valid comments in "Differences from the 1962 film" rolled into a single paragraph in the opening section. I agree that this version is still not great, but I felt the old version was downright embarrassing, and such a mess that a serious cleanup/salvage job was needed to kick off what will hopefully become a decent version. --Misterwindupbird 17:31, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I finally got around to fixing it up as discussed above, after noticing someone mistakenly labelled the film as a remake. --Misterwindupbird 19:17, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

"box-office bomb"

The article seems to suggest that reviews were bad and that the audience stayed away in droves (pardon the cliche). Certainly some reviews were bad but on balance I thought they were pretty good, and that rather than staying away the public was hardly invited. But this is all from hazy memory. Even if it's true, the film may well have lost a lot of money; but if it's true then "box-office bomb" is an odd characterization. Sources? -- Hoary 06:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Box office bomb normally refers just to financial results, not critical or popular reception. Given that it cost $62 million and took in $1, it seems a reasonable characterization to me. --Misterwindupbird 08:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

To me (no expert!) the phrase suggests a failure at the box office. (I can't look it up now, as I don't have a good, big, new dictionary at hand. As for the WP article, a template warns that this is a mess.) If "box office bomb" really is commonly used just to refer to financial results, it's a cliché gone stale. Could we just say that the film was a commercial failure (or similar), or, better, that it cost $62 million and took in $1 million? -- Hoary 11:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Hoary, I'm not sure I understand what your problem is with the phrase. Stale cliche or no, my impression had been that a box office bomb was just a movie that lost a great deal of money, regardless of the reasons. Though I'm certainly no expert, either. --Misterwindupbird 19:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Simply, it's that to me the phrase suggests that the film bombed in the box office, in turn meaning that ticket sales were very poor in terms of what was expected. For this film, ticket sales were no doubt very poor in terms of what had been expected before the backers (?) started to shop the film around to potential distributors, or before distributors started to shop it around to potential outlets, or both -- but I don't think there was an Ishtar-like wave of people telling people that the movie stank and they should save their money, leading to empty seats. But look, whatever we think of accuracy and suitability of the phrase "box-office bomb", the fact that it took in $1M for an outlay of $62M is a lot more precise -- if you're sure of it. -- Hoary 06:07, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Poster of the film?

I think the article needs a poster of the film, or maybe atleast one picture, anyone agree??? Jackp 04:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC) 04:37, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Sure, go ahead. --Misterwindupbird 20:10, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• I'm unsure on posting pictures Jackp 04:28, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Flag for cleanup

I really think this article needs clean up. It honestly doesn't tell you what the movie is even about. Just my opinion.

$62 million dollars to make?!

You know that The System is broken when a relatively simple drama costs $62 million dollars to make; I mean, this film has no special effects, no huge and/or elaborate sets, and the actors aren't A-Listers (the cast is very small, in fact). So why in the hell would a smallish film such as this cost so much money to produce; are you people sure that this film cost so much to make? If it did, this is ridiculous, if not downright criminal when people are still starving around the world; no wonder Hollywood has such a bad reputation for wastefulness, pointlessness, and greed. --152.163.100.9 03:55, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Hahahaha! You're pulling my leg, right? Your criticism seemed sensible at first, but the last sentence gave it away. Nobody quoting the starving children in Africa when criticising excess costs can be serious.

Regardless, I agree. The sums some films cost is downright ridiculous. But hey, that's how the market works. You should see what kind of production costs rather simplistic software can have. -- — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 21:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Jeremy Irons is one of the finest actors ever to work, and very much A-list, you bloody clown! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.68.7 (talk) 02:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Unreliable narrator

This article affirms that Humbert is an unreliable narrator. Is there any evidence of this in Nabokov's comments and interviews ? Otherwise it seems a POV to me. I can't remember anything in the novel that would confirm he would have been fundamentally dishonest, especially since he is self-deprecating, admits he ruined her life and don't try to dodge his culpability throughout the novel. There is even an entire chapter dedicated to her suffering and how he ruined her life (chapter 32 of the 2nd part of the book)... This is really a confession not a trick to gain sympathy from a jury And anyway his memoir is supposed to be published decades after their death with changed names. What would be the point of lying to his readers ? 82.241.221.24 15:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, unless that opinion is attributed to Nabokov himself then I don't think it should be listed here. Ospinad 19:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Lolita1997.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 07:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Missing source citations throughout

Templated; updated templates; no source for "The film was produced on a budget of just over USD$6.2 million." Needs to be better integrated into the text and also documented with a reliable verifiable source citation. --NYScholar (talk) 23:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Something wrong with this sentence?

From the end of the plot section:

"He dies in November 1950, the death of Lo on Christmas Day in childbirth."

Something wrong with this sentence? Wanderer57 (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Lolita: the book of the film By Stephen Schiff, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov

Lolita: the book of the film By Stephen Schiff, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ISBN:1557833540 would be a good reference to use to expand the article. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Incredible that it is not mentioned already. Is it censored because Nabokov was a Russian? -- Alexey Topol (talk) 09:29, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Pedophilia category

I have a doubt about the film categorization on "films about pedophilia", if Im not wrong the eponimous Lolita in the film is a teenager, so if pedophilia is define as sexual atraction toward pre-pubescent children, then is not the case. If anything should be in "films about ephebophilia". --Dereck Camacho (talk) 08:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Like if seems that no one objects then I'll change the category to one that suits better. --Dereck Camacho (talk) 23:27, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Ephebophilia is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. What we are talking about here is Hebephilia. Hebephilia is the sexual preference for early adolescent children (those roughly ages 11 to 14). Some evidence suggests that Hebephilia is a distinct and discernable erotic age preference. Lolita, the character in the novel of Vladimir Nabokov, is a 12-yo girl, not a 17-yo girl as depicted in this movie of 1997. -- Alexey Topol (talk) 09:26, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Choice of a 17-yo actress to play a 12-yo character

Isn't that a bit odd? I don't think this does the novel any justice. Why didn't they chose a 12-yo actress instead? -- Alexey Topol (talk) 09:23, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Why would you hire an actual 12 year old? Isn't that kind of weird? 45.15.227.26 (talk) 08:11, 28 July 2023 (UTC)