Shelley Winters @100: Lolita (1962)
Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 5:00PM We're celebrating the centennial of Shelley Winters each night for a few more days. Here's Eric Blume...
Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film adaptation of Lolita lands right in the middle of Shelley Winters’ two Oscar wins (The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue). Her balls-out performance in the first hour of this movie contains some true humdinger acting. She comes to the table to play and win here.
Obviously, especially when viewed within the context of today’s sensibilities, Lolita is a problematic picture. That's especially true since Kubrick plays each scene with his sympathies clearly in line with our leading man, Humbert Humbert (played, superbly, by James Mason), and actively against Winters, who plays mom of young Lolita, and who falls in love with HH...
Here’s the thing: Lolita is the tale of a middle-aged man who falls in love with a 14-year-old girl while finding revolting the mother figure his own age. This narrative is of course beyond creepy, and was back when Nabokov originally wrote the book. But Kubrick’s choice for us to sympathize with our male lead actually pays great dividends: it’s more disturbing to watch when the director wants you to lock into this casual monster. Kubrick finds a streak of wicked black comedy for this piece, such as the look of abstract terror on Mason’s face when Winters tells him she’s sending Lolita away to camp, and he will be left alone with her. It’s spectacular, macabre drawing-room comedy tailor-made to make you feel super uncomfortable.
There’s an awful and magnificent scene when Mason reads a letter from Winters, where she claims her undying love for him and begs him to stay with her. Mason layers on a fit of the cruelest laughter imaginable as he reads it, cackling over her florid prose with escalating giggles that show his near-sociopathic but genteel superiority. He’s able to humiliate Winters without her even being in the scene. It’s very sophisticated storytelling, mercilessly executed by Kubrick and Mason, with no apologies.
The downside of this, of course, is that our Shelley has to work double-time to explain her character to us and gain some respect…and she SHOWS UP. Yes, Winters’ Charlotte Haze comes pulled from Shelley’s turned-harridan-too-soon bag of tricks, but this is no lazy contribution. Kubrick may not be very interested in Charlotte’s complexity, but Winters builds a full and rich character here, initially leaning heavily on her character’s desire to live a “European” lifestyle, which is part of her trigger for falling so quickly and hard for Mason, who to her is the definition of suave culture, outlining one of the sweet ironies of the piece since, of course, he is actually the definition of an animal.
But Winters moves from her long opening scene (where she is, in turn, breathy, pushy, needy, smart, and unrelievedly horny) through an arc that finds her unravel to a woman full of rage and pity. She throws herself fully and embarrassingly into an awkward seduction scene where she tries to show HH “the new dance moves”…Winters shows us that she never thought she’d get one more chance with a man, and that this is her last one. Simultaneously, in just a few small scenes with Sue Lyon as Lolita, she has the courage to commit to the anger and resentment of not being able to connect to this petulant teen. In her final scenes, Winters finally makes the connection on why she is really threatened by Lolita, seeing her become a woman before she needs to become one. And her big moment, when she reads HH’s diary and how he truly feels about her, her heartbreak bursts through Kubrick’s limited view of her. You see a woman who has been trying to do the best for everyone realize the world’s myopic view of her. She transforms into a child herself, with no choice but to simply run away. And on top of that, she finds comedy in the character's obnoxiousness and need to be over-the-top!
Evidently Kubrick didn’t enjoy working with Winters, whom he found “difficult”, and while we’ll never know the true dynamic there, all we’re left with is the final product, and ultimately they were an inspired match. While his focus lay elsewhere, Winters knew how to bring Charlotte Haze to full life, and their evident clashes together give the character verve and dimension, and in the big moments, he got out of her way. Winters’ gutsy, careful work here is really worth a revisit.
Thank you for attending TFE's Shelley Winters Centennial!
Nathaniel on The Starlet in A Double Life (1947)
Eric on The Pro in Lolita (1962)
Nathaniel on The Champ in A Patch of Blue (1965)
Claudio on The Actor's Actor Bloody Mama (1970)
Baby Clyde on The Old Crone Pete's Dragon (1977)
Glenn Dunks on The Memoirist "Shelley II" (1989)
Reader Comments (15)
I don't think Kubrick is sympathetic to Mason's character at all, it's just a very smart narrative. The story is told from the point of view of Humbert, who truly believes he's the victim in the situation - which makes the movie even better for me, quiet ironic, almost making fun of Humbert.
It's a smart choice, much like Rohmer did in "La Collectionneuse", or - in literary terms - like Machado de Assis' Dom Casmurro. Great filmmaking.
It is an amazing film and Winters is great in this. She deserves way more credit and praise for her work as an actress as I really enjoyed watching her in A Place in the Sun. I'm still waiting for a Criterion release of Lolita but in a double-package for Kubrick's film and the 1997 Adrian Lyne version which I think is very underrated.
I don't know if I agree with this: "Mason... is the definition of suave culture [to Charlotte], outlining one of the sweet ironies of the piece since, of course, he is actually the definition of an animal." "Suave" culture is hardly the opposite of predatory, ethics-free culture, and Humbert isn't really an animal, he's an ultra-civilized human being--just like those libertines in SALÒ. It's just that "civilization" is hardly a moral institution. Of course, the more desperate Humbert becomes and the more he humiliates himself in his quest for Lolita, the more that suave sensibility falls away to reveal something pathetic. I guess there is an irony there after all.
Nicely written piece. I don't love Lolita but both James Mason and Shelley Winters make it so much better than it would have been without them.
Charlotte Haze is a difficult character to make work and it really speaks to the depth of Shelley's talent that she did it so well. Part of it is her willingness or lack of vanity to both make a fool of herself onscreen and to look less than closeup ready even at this point when she was still an attractive woman.
Lolita is one literature I have not dipped in yet: Kubrick's film version and Nabokov's novel or Schedrin's opera.
But in a New York Times interview, writer Edmund White has this to say about Humbert Humbert:
"Nabokov’s job in the book is to make you like the monstrous Humbert Humbert. In the 1960s readers were too swinging to see how evil he was and now readers are too prudish to see how charming he can be."
More than anything now, I want to at least get on with Nabokov's novel and see/read for myself.
Best thing of the movie, as far as I'm concerned.
i love winters in this - her tour of the house at the beginning is one of the greatest character intros of all time
To understand the "Humbert-Quilty-Lolita" triangle it really helped me to read an earlier Nabokov novel "Laughter in the Dark", which in some ways prefigures Lolita with a toxic triangle serving as a kind or rough outline of the themes he would explore later.
And never forget that in the novel, Lolita is only 12 which makes the relationship with Humbert that much more shocking, especially the fact that she does the seducing. Making her a couple of years older is still controversial, but it's not nearly the same as a pre-pubescent Lolita.
And although all the acting is good, it's Shelley Winters and Peter Sellers who really surpass themselves.
An uncomfortable movie, but it’s pretty great. I think Mason and Sellers are outstanding. Winters is good, but for reasons related to matters you discuss, I think she’s more effective or compelling in some parts of this more than others.
How did Mason not win the Oscar for this all respect to Peck and O'Toole,Is Winters Lead or Supporting?
Dan Humphrey - That sentence also confused me. Humbert is most definitely a part of suave culture, but suavity itself is a facade. Glad someone articulated it better than I could have.
I haven’t seen this in a long time but I remember loving Mason and Winters’ performances. I wish I could say the same about Sellers. I think he’s brilliant in Strangelove but Kubrick needed to rein him in a bit here.
"Lolita" is my favorite novel of all time but far from my favorite Kubrick. Mason is too old and stodgy as Humbert (who is only 37 in the novel), and Lyon is too bratty and not intelligent enough. They don't connect for me on any level. But the parts that undoubtedly work are Sellers as Clare Quilty and Winters as Charlotte. She plays the desperate wannabe-manipulator housewife with perfect Nabokovian archness and abandon, especially her moaning about how lonesome she is and her pretensions towards sophistication.
@ken s
"especially the fact that she does the seducing"
She does NOT do the seducing, in the book or in the film. This is Humbert's justification, and it's a lie.
From one Sue to another, I'd like to praise Sue Lyon for being not just good but great in Lolita (and Night of the Iguana) but never being appreciated for more than her youth and looks.
It's a shame Winters opted for a Lead campaign here - surely, she would've edged out Knight or Ritter for a nom down in Supporting.