Kubrick’s Double: Lolita’s Hidden Heart of Jewishness

Drawing on material gleaned from the Kubrick Archives in London, this article argues that Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel Lolita allows us the possibility, albeit not the certainty, of reading Jewishness into his film. Although, on the surface, Kubrick’s Lolita seemingly distances itself from active concern with questions or representations of Jewishness, its traces are not entirely scrubbed away. The focus of this article is the character Clare Quilty, particularly in terms of Kubrick’s choice of casting for the role, and Peter Sellers’s performance of it.