The Difference Between the Movie and Book of the Picture of Dorian Gray Essay Example
The Picture of Dorian Gray is an American horror-drama film centered on Dorian Gray, a handsome wealthy young man living in the nineteenth century in London. Even though Dorian is a very intelligent person, he often finds himself easily manipulated and this fault will ultimately lead him to failure. Dorian has his picture painted by a friend named Basil, and when Dorian meets his friend Lord Henry Wotton, his life will soon collapse.
Dorian begins to believe that youth and beauty will bring him everything he desires, so he makes a wish that the portrait will age, and he will stay forever young and handsome. The picture begins to show Dorian’s truths portraying him as a demon-like creature, and eventually he will come to realize all the terrible sins he created over fourteen years. After Dorian realized
...he is the result of numerous deaths, he retreats to his old school room to stab the picture in the heart.
This relieves him of all his sins and the picture and he switches back, finally showing Dorian’s age. Through out the movie The Picture of Dorian Gray, filmed in 1945 by Albert Lewin, we the audience sees vast amounts of similarities compared to the book written in 1890 by Oscar Wilde. Clearly, the story relates through the plot and gives an accurate representation of what the book would portray, but what stands out the most is the miniscule amount of differences the director decided to change.
To start, in Wilde’s version, Sybil Vane is a Shakespearean actress whom Dorian observes playing Juliet, rather than a ball room dancer. This little change has an impact on Dorian causing them to alter
his motive for break up with her. In the novel, her acting has become worse due to her heart falling in love with Dorian. In the film, she reacts poorly to his confessions of sensual temptations, which ultimately destroys her trust in him. Also, the movie never brings up the concept of the magical Egyptian who grants Dorian his wish to stay eternally young.
I found this very interesting because they leave a sense of realism out of the story, which would give a feeling of realism for his wishes to come true. I noticed they used a line during the movie, when he was reading the poem about cats to Sybil mentioning “An old Irish man named Dorian Gray. ” I thought this was an interesting technique to mention the original author during the film. Another difference portrayed in this movie comes toward the end of the movie.
When Henry is giving his final speech to Dorian, he mentions the oul being, “Non material, but corruptible. ” He claims to have heard this from a street preacher, when in the book he actually heard this directly from the preacher. Finally, the last difference I saw between the film and the movie was during Dorian’s marriage before his death he sees a parson’s daughter, while in the play he witnesses Gladys, Basil’s daughter, who used to have a crush on Dorian when she was younger. After seeing the similarities and differences throughout the book and movie, I realized I personally enjoyed the movie better.
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