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(kagan, 1993:70) Spartacus Is Therefore Of Little Use To The Film Student Who ...

(Kagan, 1993:70)
Spartacus is therefore of little use to the film student who wishes to understand the generic composition of the directors' films or the analyst who is looking for examples of Kubrick as a cinematic auteur. It is, however, a movie that deserves attention because without its continuing cultural success in the USA and Europe, the subsequent part of Kubrick's illustrious career might never have been able to come to fruition.
When Stanley Kubrick began making Lolita (1962), the director had shed his skin from the film-maker who was previously trying to establish his name in the immensely competitive world of the Hollywood movie industry. He was now much more able to express total control over the entire movie making process whilst paying due attention to the ideals of the auteur. There was also a significant development in Kubrick's personal life - as the 1950's made way for the 1960's - as the director first embarked upon his selfimposed exile from the United States. Kubrick would not leave his home in the South East of England again for the remaining four decades of his life, citing his extreme fear of flying for his perceived tendency to live a reclusive lifestyle (Lobrutto, 1999). It would be naïve to presume that this geographical move did not in some way affect the film-making of Stanley Kubrick. For instance, the UK at the time was known as a country that shot the majority of its movies in studios (mostly in London's Pinewood Studios) and this would have greatly appealed to Kubrick. Likewise, the lack of industry attention he would be subjected to whilst living a life of such relative obscurity in an industry beset by huge egos and an increasingly out-of-control mass media apparatus.
In the event, Lolita was noticeable for the way in which the plot was subjected to a strong element of Kubrickesque directorial traits including a brooding meditation on the tragedy of desire in the human condition. The film was based upon the infamous novel by Vladimir Nabokov who also wrote the screenplay to the movie. The film, like the novel, was therefore fraught with potential battles over concerns pertaining to censorship over the portrayal of the young Lolita who resides at the centre of the story, which posed a direct challenge to the discernibly conservative social and sexual mores of the early 1960's. Yet rather than trigger a fight with producers MGM, Kubrick (as well as Nabokov) was much more open to the idea of reaching a creative compromise whereby the film would be able to be screened to as wide an audience as possible while still retaining the artistic independence afforded by adapting such a complex, high brow novel. Thus, Lolita is a luminous example of how Kubrick was able to take on a wide range of diverse films of differing genres whilst maintaining the aura of an auteur.


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