For eons, film comedy was bound to the vaudeville tradition which defined the “cinema of attractions” and more resistant than most genres to the pull towards classical narrative. The films of Buster Keaton, who began as a child star in vaudeville, traced the transitions in screen comedy throughout the silent era. Keaton began as a second fiddle with Fatty Arbuckle’s comic troupe, reflecting the ensemble-based comedy style associated with early slapstick films, but gradually gaining greater screen time. Keaton’s solo shorts, such as The Playhouse, required only the most minimal plot frame with most of the pleasure coming from spectacular sequences of virtuoso performance, stunts or gags.
another individual. Ultimately this is done with the intent of rationalising his experience. [xxxxxxx] Although Humbert gains some integration, even in his own psyche, the centrality he establishes at the beginning crumples as he grows more obsessive, thus falling into the trap of madness due to his existence in isolation –
I am ready to yank you out of Beardsley and lock you up you know where, but this must stop. I am ready to take you away the same time it takes to pack a suitcase.
Humbert’s forceful, almost violent language emphasises the power dynamic: there is, by very virtue of its nature, a lack of equality in the relationship. However, linguistically this is reinforced, meaning that it continuously pivots around Humbert’s needs, belying the presence of megalomania in his behaviour. Lolita’s escape therefore results in a scene, as can be gathered from her name being the title, to actively fantasise and abuse her distorts Humbert’s ability, thus effectively distorting his “Humberland” and forcing him into his “new solitude”.
Lolita leaves him on 4th of July Independence Day
Defiled lolita like defiling america
‘And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night – every night, every night – the moment I feigned sleep.’ (175-176)
‘The disappointment I must now register (as I gently grade my story into an expression of the continuous risk and dread that ran through my bliss) should in no wise reflect on the lyrical, epic, tragic but never Arcadian American wilds. they are beautiful, heartrendingly beautiful, those wilds, with a quality of wide-eyed, unsung, innocent surrender that my lacquered, toy-bright Swiss villages and exhaustively lauded Alps no longer possess.’ (168)
