Nabokov's Cinematic Afterlife: The Pleasures and Risks of Adaptation

245 Pages·2010·1.58 MB·English

by  Ewa Mazierska

Nabokov’s Cinematic Afterlife
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Nabokov’s
Cinematic Afterlife
E M
WA AZIERSKA
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Mazierska, Ewa.
Nabokov’s cinematic afterlife / Ewa Mazierska.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4543-1
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
¡. Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899–1977—Film
adaptations. 2. Motion pictures and literature. I. Title.
PG3476.N3Z7375 20¡1
791.43'75—dc22 2010041977
British Library cataloguing data are available
©20¡1Ewa Mazierska. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, i ncluding photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without p ermission in writing from the publisher.
Front Cover: John Moulder-Brown as Frank, David Niven as Dreyer
and Gina Lollobrigida as Martha in the 1972 King, Queen, Knave,
directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
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Acknowledgments
This book would not be possible without the help of many colleagues
and friends, to whom I wish to express my gratitude. Agnès Edel-Roy, Petra
Hanáková, Lars Kristensen, Robert Murphy, Will Norman, El∞bieta Ostrowska,
Jonathan Owen, Derek Schilling and Michael Witt read the whole or parts
of this manuscript, and provided insightful comments. Eva Näripea helped
me familiarize myself with Estonian cinema and obtained a wealth of infor-
mation about one of the films discussed in the book, Affair of Honor by
Valentin Kuik. Adam Wy∞yüski, from the Polish Film Archive, provided me
with much of the secondary material used in this book. Jeff Edmunds (from
Zembla website), Agnès Edel-Roy and Lars Kristensen were also helpful in
locating some of the material which was difficult to find. I am also indebted
to Felix Maschmann for sending me a copy of Mademoiselle O, and to Valentin
Kuik and Jerzy Skolimowski for providing me with valuable information about
the production of their films, and for granting me permission to use stills
from them.
Finally, I am grateful to the School of Journalism, Media and Commu-
nication at the University of Central Lancashire for financing my trip to St.
Petersburg in June 2009, which allowed me to participate in the Fourth Inter-
national Nabokov Conference, meet Nabokov scholars and visit many places
connected with Nabokov’s life.
A preliminary version of Chapter 4 was published in Journal of Adaptation
in Film and Performance, Vol. 3, No. 1. I thank the journal editors (Richard
Hand and Katja Krebs) and the publisher (Intellect) for permission to repro-
duce the essay.
v
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Abbreviations ix
Introduction: Nabokov’s Afterlife in Cinema 1
1. Humbert Between Dignity and Romanticism: Lolita
by Stanley Kubrick (1962) and Adrian Lyne (1997) 13
2. Going Blind in Swinging London: Laughter in the Dark
by Tony Richardson (1969) 51
3. Nabokov, or the Logic of Late Capitalism: King, Queen,
Knave by Jerzy Skolimowski (1972) 70
4. Escape into a Different Person, Escape into a Different
Reality: Despair by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1978) 87
5. Remembrance of Things Unspoken: Mademoiselle O
by Jérôme Foulon (1994) 104
6. Duel in Contemporary Estonia: An Affair of Honor
by Valentin Kuik (1999) 125
7. Nabokov as a Gentle Feminist: The Luzhin Defence
by Marleen Gorris (2000) 143
8. From B-Movie Script to Greek Tragedy: “The Assistant
Producer” by Vladimir Nabokov, and Triple Agent
by Eric Rohmer (2004) 163
9. Vladimir Nabokov and Jean-Luc Godard 181
Appendix: Films Discussed in the Book 211
Chapter Notes 215
Works Cited 219
Index 229
vii
Abbreviations
AH An Affair of Honor
AP The Assistant Producer
BS Bend Sinister
Def The Luzhin Defense
Des Despair
Ench The Enchanter
Gift The Gift
Laugh Laughter in the Dark
LL Lectures on Literature
LRL Lectures on Russian Literature
KQK King, Queen, Knave
Lo Lolita
LoS Lolita: A Screenplay
PoT Problems of Translation: “Onegin” in English
SO Strong Opinions
NWL Dear Bunny, Dear Volodia. The Nabokov-Wilson Letters
SM Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited
viii
Introduction
Nabokov’s Afterlife in Cinema
“An author’s fondest dream is to turn the reader into a spectator; is
this ever attained?”—Vladimir Nabokov, Despair
“A tortured author and a deceived reader, this is the inevitable outcome
of arty paraphrase.”—Vladimir Nabokov, Strong Opinions
“If one of the greatest stylists of modern literature, a man bilingual
from earliest childhood, cannot translate his own poetry, then who
can?”—D. Barton Johnson, “Contrasting Phonoaesthetics, or, Why
Nabokov Gave Up Translating Poetry as Poetry”
“I always advise the copying of a model. It is impossible to copy
exactly; new blood is always infused, and it is by that we can judge
the poet.”—Jean Cocteau, Francis Steegmuller, Cocteau: A Biography
This book is devoted to film adaptations of Nabokov’s prose and the
links between Nabokov’s books and contemporary cinema. The premise of
this study is that they are worth researching because they give us new insights
into specific books and films, and a wider area of the interstice between lit-
erature and cinema. However, before I move to exploring them in detail, it
is worth asking why filmmakers have been interested in Nabokov’s prose.
The Pleasures and Dangers of Adapting Nabokov
There are more than ten films based on Nabokov’s books,1making him
one of the most screened twentieth century writers. One reason for this interest
of cinema in his works is the sheer power of Nabokov’s name, especially in
the 1960s and 1970s, when a large proportion of films based on his books
were made and several projects of high-budget films were discussed, including
an adaptation of Ada.2 In this context it is understandable that Lolita, being
the most popular work by Nabokov, was the first book to make it to the screen
1