Dorian Grey

Last night I went to see the film adaptation of Dorian Grey. My reactions were largely positive. The film stayed true enough to the book, keeping intact the characters of Henry Wotten and Basil Hallward while using the license of the visual media and the benefit of hindsight to expand upon the implications of the tale. As might be expected, unlike the text the film left little to the imagination as to what terrible depravities Dorian might have got up to. The scenes of debauchery lent the late 1890s quite a 1960s air with young people dancing excitibly to drumming in a respectable drawing room. I tend to think that the demystifying of depravities in texts such as Jekyl and Hyde or Dorian Grey can only be disappointing and banal.

Unless one is going to summon the shadow of the Ripper, what can one say a depraved gentleman has been up to in the East End of London save smoking opium, drinking gin and having sex with the socio-economically deprived?

One thing the film did do particularly well I thought was illustrate the shocking nature of Dorian's failure to age. Having wrought his worst for the time being on the Capital, he decides to go on a lengthy sojourn around the world, there doubtless to engage in further unspeakable actions. Months turn into years and we see Dorian return to a London in which carriages have been replaced by ponderous motor cars, in which young ladies now wear straight unfussy skirts and have a straight, unfussy manner of address. Dorian has returned in the middle of the first world war and the unfussy and staight talking young lady is Sir Henry's daughter who appears to be the same age as Dorian himself. There is a stunned silence as he walks into the drawing room and we see all his old acquaintence very visibly aged while he of course remains the same.

One major objection I did have to the film was that the Portrait made horrible noises which seems entirely wrong.