Directed by Stanley Kubrick
It is these opening credits that many say contain some of the most overtly-erotic, idealizing images of the entire film - designed to set the tone of the film. After a fade-in on satiny drapes, a young girl's bare left foot and leg are ceremoniously offered up and a man takes it in his hand. The word 'Lolita' appears superimposed along the top of the foot. The cushioning left hand of a subservient, enslaved man cradles her foot and his right hand lovingly and devotedly paints her toenails with dark nail varnish (perhaps this is to suggest his corruption of her to mislead the audience) - at intervals, he wedges cotton tufts between her toes he does this again lovingly but it also appears fetishistic.
It is a close up the whole way through witch means that the audience doesn't yet know whose hand or who foot this is which allows the audience to ask questions of it. The first thing we notice about the hand of the man is that he wears a wedding ring leading us to question if he is painting his wife's toenails so carefully and delicately and if not then whose?
In black and white I believe you get a more concentrated vision of the use of light and shadow and in this opening sequence the light is both shining directly onto the foot and from the leg that we cannot see and the hand seems to be in more darkness.
The song is slow and romantic and ties nicely with the pace of the man movements on screen. The mix of note makes the song come across both happy and sad and so perhaps childlike and innocent.
Removed from context this scene conveys obsession and devotion, subjugation and tenderness, dream and nightmare. It is the only physical intimation of Humbert’s sexual enslavement by the 'nymphet'.
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