Lolita

Lolita is an American 1962 black comedy-psychological drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick based on the eponymous 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. The black-and-white film follows a middle-aged literature lecturer who writes as "Humbert Humbert" and has hebephilia. He is sexually infatuated with young, adolescent Dolores Haze (whom he calls "Lolita"). It stars James Mason as Humbert, Shelley Winters as Mrs. Haze, Peter Sellers as Quilty, and Sue Lyon as Dolores "Lolita" Haze. The novel was considered "unfilmable" when Kubrick acquired the rights around the time of its U.S. publication. Owing to restrictions imposed by the Motion Picture Production Code (1934–68), the film toned down the most provocative aspects, sometimes leaving much to the audience's imagination. Sue Lyon was 14 at the time of filming and played a 14-year-old, whereas the Lolita of Nabokov's novel is just 12 years old when Humbert Humbert first meets her. Lolita polarized contemporary critics with its theme of child sexual abuse but was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 35th Academy Awards. Years after its release, Kubrick expressed doubt that he would have attempted to make the film had he fully understood how severe the censorship limitations on it would be. Regardless, the film has since received critical acclaim. In the late 1990's, British director Adrian Lyne again attempted to adapt the novel to the big screen. Plot In a remote mansion, Clare Quilty, drunk and incoherent, plays Frédéric Chopin's Polonaise in A major, Op. 40, No. 1 on the piano before he is shot to death by Humbert "Hum" Humbert, a middle-aged European professor of French literature.