Movie : Dorian Gray

Would you like to stay young forever?...

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This post is about Dorian Gray, the central figure in Oscar Wilde's 1890 literature "The Picture of Dorian Gray", and its 2009 film adaptation simply titled "Dorian Gray". As I have never read the actual Wilde's literature, much of the storyline in this post came from my perspective and reading after watching the DVD of the 2009 film a few days ago. Dorian Gray was a young man, with charming good looks and youthfulness that everybody desired. He was innocent, he was good...until he met the cynic Lord Henry, who took quite an interest to the young Gray. Befriending Lord Henry, Gray was enthralled with his world views and looked up upon him. Henry preached his views and philosophy to Gray, yet his views and philosophy in life were laced with his fanciness to hedonism and slowly corrupted Gray's mind. Both men were friends with Basil, a fine artist who were inspired by Gray's beauty and painted his portrait. In a way, he was also fond of Gray. The painting became the central object of the story as Gray realized his good features and slowly succumb to the idea of conquering all life's pleasure by using his charm and exploring his senses. He broke a lot of hearts, he became heartless himself and cared for nothing except for his pleasures. Although being reminded by Basil not to believe Henry's words, Gray was already embracing the ideas and constantly motivated by Henry to use all his qualities to the maximum. The story took a different turn when Gray looked upon Basil's painting of him and saw that after every sin he committed, his painting changed. Gray in the painting became deformed and aged gradually after committing each hideous act, while Gray himself didn't change, hurt or age a little bit. Earlier on, in what I thought as a scene of playful remarks between Henry and Gray, they discussed the idea of bartering one's soul to the devil in exchange of something. And Gray said that he would agree to change it with eternal youth. Thereupon, the story reflected a Faustian theme. Gray hid the painting as the changes escalated. As Basil encounter him for the painting, Gray killed him and threw him into the river. Now that he thought himself as untouchable and invincible, he went away and travel the world, using his curse to seek pleasure. 25 years passed (18 in the literature), he came back to London, tired of his conquest. He reconnected with Henry and the others. Looking the same as he was 25 years ago, many were surprised to see him, including Henry. However, Gray now was tired of his life, he wanted to change. He wanted to be a good man. But he looked at his painting and it was still the same hideous thing. He wanted to be free from this curse. He fell in love with Henry's daughter (a vicar's daughter in the literature) and wanted to marry her. But his terrible past came to haunt him. The hearts he had broken, the souls he had killed, including Basil's and the girl who committed suicide because of him, all came upon him and torturing him. He blamed it all on Henry, he blamed it on the painting. In the tragic end, Gray died in the effort to redeem himself. In order to kill the curse, he stabbed the painting. In the literature, he was found dead stabbed in the heart. In the film version, he died in a blast while stabbing on the painting. The painting survived the fire, and changed its form back to its original look.

            I think this is one example of life trying to imitate art. The Faustian theme aside, this is a tragic example when a man is devoted to pleasure and when morality is degraded as a hindrance to happiness. Lord Henry relishes the kind of life he preached to Gray, yet he didn't live that life. Gray took everything Henry said like in a textbook and unable to control himself.
            One quote that I like in the film, from Basil, "Some things are more precious because they don't last". The other cynical quotes from Henry, which I didn't mean to like but I found it rather interesting and couldn't help chuckled at some. A rather entertaining story, with an interesting plot, although I thought it diversed from the original literature to a certain extent (anyway, which adaptations do not..?), it was a good watch. The end.