If you're looking for emotional roller-coasters, for characters and stories that pull you into a world of their own, Stanley Kubrick is not your man. His movies are detached, distant - even chilly. I've never seen one that didn't leave me cold. Oh... he deserves considerable respect for visual artistry and dark comedy. "Lolita" is his blackest, and is his masterpiece. There's not a single character in it that's anything more than a cartoon, but it works here. It's almost startlingly funny, although his satire of early '60s American mores is tired in retrospect. James Mason is perfect as the chronically frustrated Humbert Humbert, forever anguishing in pedophilic dilemma. Peter Sellars almost steals the show as his nemesis; it's a role impossible to imagine being handled by anyone else.
The closest Kubrick ever came to emotional content was "The Shining" - also the closest he ever came to making a crowd-pleaser.
The closest Kubrick ever came to emotional content was "The Shining" - also the closest he ever came to making a crowd-pleaser.