Do....whatever you want. Dorian Gray.


posted by sooyup on

No comments

If you haven't seen the original movie, this is the remake, 2009, of the 1945 movie "The Picture of Dorian Gray" is based on the novel by Oscar Wilde (1890).

The 1945 movie is pretty well done.  In some ways the earlier classics really do catch a bit more of the drama than today's movies, but movies being cultural events based on a knowledge of the time period and events depicted, might find a lot of people "out of the loop" on a lot of the nuances - such as the young lady who loses her virginity to a bet and a dare and then commits suicide.

In the 1890's a world existed where phrenology was not yet entirely dead, and it was still said that the mark of a man or his character could be seen in the features of his face - indeed this is true today though we don't say it now.   Dorian, a kind, innocent and naive young man, is corrupted by a "friend" older than him and then finds a way to escape the effects and consequences of his sins and live eternally yet miserably in his ill-maintained youth and seeks to be free of himself - yet finds the only way to truly be free is to suffer the consequences of his actions rather than spending his existence running from them while hanging on to only his youth and looks.

At any rate, the 2009 movie is well done, though rated R because it does try to capture the sensuality and orgiastic abandon with which Dorian lives his life, free from all consequences on his outward appearance, but not on his life or those around him.

My favorite quote?  As he speaks to his housekeeper about living his life in pleasure seeking and his youthful looks: "I assure you, pleasure is very different from happiness....some things are more precious because they don't last."

Youth is wasted on the young they say - and growing old and having the marks of a life lived?   Carries its own rewards.


Leave a Reply

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...