If that doesn't confuse you enough, let me try it again. My focus is on the novel by Oscar Wilde, "The picture of Dorian Gray." Not the picture, "The Portrait of Dorian Gray." You may well wonder why Hollywood took the precaution of changing that one word in the title, while still keeping the basic theme of the novel, to produce that blockbuster of a movie, which to this day is well known,and oft referred to in literature and movies. The truth is, they were so interested in making a horror flick, they punctured the very life veins of the artistic bent, and let it bleed dry, preserving only the hollow shell of the visual sins of the canvas and oil for which the title stood. All the beauty, the passion of the artist in pursuit of his craft, and the ideal of the subject for which he sought and finally found in Dorian, was snipped away along with the way Basil, the aforementioned artist, describes in glowing prose, the physical perfection of his subject to his friend Lord Henry, in the very first chapter of the novel. If you have seen the movie...and who has not, who is not severely under socialized?...then you will recall that Dorian Gray is played by a man who is the matinee idol type of his time...tall, dark and handsome. Yet, in the book, he is described quite differently. He is an Adonis...he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair....something in his face that made one trust him at once...the candor of youth was there, as well as all youth's passionate purity. This in no way indicates what passed for Dorian in the film. Whoever cast that pasty faced man with his slick black hair,and that snide sneer on his thin mouth was reading something else into the dialog, or the screen writer just hacked the novel to pieces, possibly to avoid any confusion over the intent of two, and then three gentlemen discussing one of their company's virtues of physical beauty. My question is, why? Men can see, can they not? If a human being of either gender sees another whose looks are exceptionally aesthetically pleasing, isn't it normal to remark upon it? I have always been that way, as was my entire family. I didn't matter if the person being remarked about was of the same or opposite gender, a beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, and a handsome man is a handsome man, irregardless of who is making the observation. I often will say, "Now, that is a beautiful woman." When I see one, in person, or a picture, or on a screen, just as readily as I would seeing an Adonis,and making mention of my admiration of his good looks. Simply because I have the ability to discern physical perfection means nothing beyond that.However, to those who made this original film, it must have been a huge red flag, indicating that there was more intended by this text of the novel than simple appreciation of a figure of a person who struck an artist as the embodiment of loveliness. So rather than produce a class A piece of art, the film makers opted to do a B picture, which for all time shall be thought of as just another movie through which you will wade, just to see the ultimate shocking ending, of a terrible, horrible, ugly portrait, which then turns back into the original picture, while the subject lays dead in front of it, having taken on the grossness of it's owner.
As a writer, it is most disturbing that this fine, noble work has been reduced to just another horror flick, which at the mention of it's name, will cause feelings of revulsion, without a single thought of reading the actual original novel, and thereby, removing it's contribution to historical classical novels from future generations.
OUI?
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