People have asked me how it is possible to make a film out of Lolita when so much of the quality of the book depends on Nabokov's prose style. But to take the prose style as any more than a part of a great book is simply misunderstanding just what a great book is.. The quality is the result of the writer's obsession with his subject, with a theme and a concept and a vision of life and an understanding of character..
The dramatising has to find a style of its own, as it will do if it really grasps the content.
What Kubrick is talking about is action. Nit-pickingly, this could be divided into diegesis (story) and camera-movement (as in Citizen Kane, say), but in any case all action requires psychic content. The style of the film only comes out of psychic richness, or it is mere façade.
Clearly, also, psychic richness requires a physical basis, so a film with a good style is grounded in physicality. Without the physicality, you can't necessarily say anything is there - save a convincing illusion.
Without a physical side of things there can be no coherent sense of the moral or immoral. Lolita is somewhat immoral but, as set-out in HB204, likewise has the moral strength of physical tussles that are felt and produce an affinity of opposites.
Incidentally, Lyon gave a couple of interviews in which it's clear she had no problem with the film; anything else is lies spread by the press. She specifically says at the audition she was asked about her personal routines, which intrigued her. Owing to censorship Kubrick got her to act older than her years, and the scene at the end, where she is a slightly frumpy housewife, is telling since it is love rather than the purely erotic that fells Mason (incidentally, Kalin in the Dumarest saga by pulp writer EC Tubb has that theme, prev.) So, what Lyon said was against the press and nothing against the creative types.
On that note, a story without a physical basis would approach zero in terms of content. The style would be basically banal, and approach the 'neutralising' trend of modern news. The fire-breathing dragon of neutralising-news sterilises the area of fertile, oppositional decadence (HB204).
If modern news has zero content, what I mean to say is the psychic gaiety of youthful renewal is not there. The myths and symbols of this are not there either.
The tough psyche is a quality of irresolvable opposites that are part of the physical foundation of reality. Sun and moon.
Smith's picture captures the fertile areas of psychic renewal. Artemis and Apollo are practically incestuous in their uncomfortable closeness; the symbols and myths that surround them - from Buddha to a Chinese lion - are delineated with the patina of age and luscious growth, ambiguous symmetry and hints of carnal lust. 'No mud, no lotus' (Buddhist saying.)
Where psychic toughness is apparent, the physical opposites are displayed gracefully, as with Japanese Geisha. Toughness is therefore a form of rebellion against neutralising trends, whether sexual as in JK Rowling's case (prev), or generally the fertile area (the Indian small-farmers' victory over Modi's sterile efficiency - see prev.)
Toughness, roughness and physical opposites; the psyche of rebellion. Modern news is 'unbiased', by which it means advancing the scientific (inductive) cause of sterility, as practiced by capital.
The stifling sense of monotony that is modern news can easily be likened to a sorcerous illusion.
From very far away she thought she caught the echoes of a song when the wind blew, and there was something subtly irritating about its simple melody that seemed to seesaw endlessly up and down on two notes. (Jirel Meets Magic, page 85, Jirel of Joiry, Ace)
The news can appear convincing for the precise reason that it's a convincing illusion.
That monotonous music came to her through the quivering lights and reflections, now strongly, now faintly in the distance.
The whole place was a chaos of blaze and confusion. She could not know if the room were small or large, a cavern or a palace hall. Queer reflections danced through the dazzle of it. (page 107)
As has already been suggested, the future awaiting us will be 100% electrical, which means algorithmic (see the expressive algorithm.) This means ones and zeros or the dual-tone note of Jirel Meets Magic.
The illusion contains no spark of youth or of physical revival from degradation. The practically incestuous or morbid fertility of a bayou. Sterility is gained at the cost of psychic toughness; the ability to rebel; to be immoral; to be different and to have the affinity of opposites.
Ranged outside the circle that enclosed the two women sat what was surely the strangest company ever assembled. They were grouped with a queer irregularity which, though meaningless to Jirel, yet gave the impression of definite purpose and design. It had a symmetry so strongly marked that eve though it fell outside the range of her comprehension she could not but feel the rightness of it. (page 112)
Ambiguous symmetry. The stars above.
Modern news has no content from the point of view of the fertile universe of differences and subtle affinities. But it's also hyper-realistic, since it depends on very precise measurements such as for GPS Relativity - see P200 primordial rhythm.
All of that is highly convincing to the ego of acolytes of the mirror of illusions (logical induction), where resides the profane serpent of corrupt rhythm (the DNA merchants, 'clean meat' prev.)
Using the language of myth: the sterilising dragon sells this agenda with news, while the two-tone note of the electrical piper plays.
As a footnote, Dark Knight started the trend for interspersed newsflashes in comicbook yarns. That seems to work when the news is highly selective or, in fact, part of the fantasy itself!
