The recently concluded 70th Berlin Film Festival has once again brought British actor Jeremy Irons, who chairs the jury, into the spotlight.
Like most British male actors, he gives an ascetic, rigorous and gentlemanly look. 1 meter 89 height, just the right muscles, the age is still straight, really elegant to old.
But he was never a good card, and his mind and soul were very uninhibited. As an actor, his favorite and best work is to portray characters who are emotionally complex, depressing, and elusive.
Irons once described his preference for character selection this way: "People like to think about things in black and white. But of course, we're all gray. "He was passionate about the emotion of stepping on a tightrope and not being recognized by the world, and was willing to play the man who indulged in it."
In Reversal of Fate, he is suspected of killing his wealthy wife, Klaus von Bloe;
In "Lover of Fire", he is Steven who has an unrequited relationship with his son's girlfriend;
In "Butterfly King", he is a diplomat Garima who has been in love with Chinese singers for twenty years;
In Lolita, he is humbert, a sensitive and stubborn pedophile professor;
Even dubbing the animation works, he played the big villain Scar in "The Lion King".
"Lolita, the fire of my life, the fire of my desires. My sin, my soul". Among Irons's many works, the most popular and controversial is undoubtedly this "Lolita", also known as "A Tree of Pear Blossoms Pressing Begonias".
The film is based on the novel of the same name by the famous American writer Vladimir Nabokov, which tells the emotional entanglement between Humbert, a middle-aged man, and Lolita, a 14-year-old girl. Hunbert, played by Irons, is a French professor at a university, and the death of his first girlfriend as a teenager has planted the seeds of sin in his heart - his love can only be for girls aged 12-14.
By chance, Humbert became a tenant of charlotte, a single mother. Deeply in love with Charlotte's 14-year-old daughter Lolita, he accepted Charlotte's offer of love and became Lolita's stepfather. When Charlotte learned the truth of the matter, she was furious and rushed out of the house and died in an accident. Humbert, who was given custody of Lolita, used various schemes to make her willingly become his lover.
Two years later, Lolita, tired of Humbert's control and infatuation, chose to flee, and Humbert gave up after frantically searching for Lolita. Three years later, Humbert unexpectedly received a letter from Lolita saying that she was married and pregnant and needed financial assistance. Humbert gave Lolita all his money and learned from her that it was Quiddi who had taken her. Humbert asks Lolita to return to him, but Lolita refuses, heartbroken and shoots Quiddi, eventually dying in prison.
Such a pedophile character naturally suffered a lot of criticism and resistance. But Irons' lonely eyes and on the verge of collapse greatly weaken the irony of the original. In particular, Humbert's inner monologue: "I looked at her, looked and looked, once like a flower demon, now only dead leaves are left to return home." Pale, bloated,, with someone else's flesh and bones in her belly, but I love her. She can fade, she can wither, she can do anything, but I just have to look at her, and all the tenderness comes to my heart. ”
Such a controversial and repulsive character, under irons' interpretation, has become a sincere and crazy, even heart-wrenching tragic character.
It can be said that Jeremy Irons made these fringe images three-dimensional, and these roles also made him, making Irons a benchmark in the history of cinema.