films. The mess ups for Dorian Gray are now available online.
We said we would tell you if we heard, saw any news. A source led us to this little tidbit. Well, here it is Gothic horror/thriller fans:OHG EXCLUSIVE! Link but please do not repost.
*SPOILER WARNING*
4 out of 5 shovels as a film
3 1/2 out of 5 shovels as an adaptation
Seeing Dorian Gray for the second time was even more thrilling than the first. Unlike other films, where I would want some distance between viewings, this time I couldn´t wait – and it wasn´t 
disappointing. Quite the contrary: it gave me the leisure of seeing details, like the lusciously filmed costumes, the make up and little gestures and glances, which you might miss first time around.
Again, the opening was stunning, ranging from images of blood and gore, transitioning into views of black carriages, seeming huge and threateningly black as they are filmed from below, clattering over the cobbles of
This time I was more impressed by the direction of Ben Barnes – the scenes of innocence and depravity were lusciously filmed, giving us a view of Victorian Britain that is surely shocking. Some critics felt this to be too tame for our times, but I felt that Oliver Parker depicted this ´underbelly´ gloriously. I liked the way Dorian was at the same time seducer and willing victim. And what I saw clearly this time, were the allusions to works of art. In some of the orgy scenes Dorian falls backwards into a woman´s open arms, his white skin gleaming, reminding us of Michelangelo s Dying Slave; at another time, he seems tortured, his stance reminding of paintings of Saint Sebastian; yet at another stage, he falls into a lolling position, like the dead Christ in Michelangelo s Pieta. These sublimal references are a delight, and, of course, refer to the sublimal homosexual references in both book and film.
The scene I loved the best, which contains a delightful reference, is when Dorian first espies that something has changed in the painting. What is it? He climbs on a chair to have a closer look – all the while pestered by a buzzing fly. Of course flies are associated with death and decay, as are the worms crawling out of the painting (if you watch CSI, you will know what I mean!), but here the reference is a very old one. And very clever, I thought.
As far back as ancient
And again, I appreciated Colin Firth´s acting even more. On second viewing, I saw how he brought increased depth to the role of this shallow man, how just one glance at his small daughter playing conveyed his deep love for her, and later, his anger at Dorian, an anger that brings the whole edifice crumbling down.
The sublety of Colin Firth´s acting is what holds the film together, in my opinion, and is something Oliver Parker acknowledged in the Q&A afterward. The discussion turned on several points, Parker pointing out how impressed he was with Matthew Bourne´s dance interpretation; with the need for traditional structures, like the 3 act play ( and is one of the reason´s for the introduction of the daughter); and how the narrative of a film is so different to that of a book. He spoke of the ´light and shade´of characters, as well as in the photography, particularly of the clash of symbols and trying to get in both the youth angle as well as that of the older adult. He was asked about theuse of CGI, and told us how prohibitively expensive it is, but also how tempting it is to use it, for example, to create whole sets. Parker, though, prefers the ´reality´of place, hence the locations, especially those in the streets of
All in all, it was a most enjoyable experience – and the cinematically astute audience at the National Film Theatre felt it too – they clapped at the end, something I have never experienced in
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ookworm Antics - Wilde's Gray
Young, handsome, and British- Ben Barnes has the world by its tail. As Dorian Gray, he shows the side of beauty and fame most people read about in gossip magazines. Delve with him into the psyche of a lost man.
“I read the book in my teens and I think for a lot of 
people it’s one of the first novels they read on their own. A lot of people read it because teachers think it’s forward thinking, exciting and shocking. Principally for me it’s always going to be the character in the context of the story. Getting this role was one of those massive challenges and it wasn’t going to get any greater than this”.
“I’ve loved playing the darker moments and I’ve really enjoyed playing the 46 year old Dorian. Obviously he looks the same so it’s been an interesting challenge to make him seem older and show the way experiences have affected him. It’s also very interesting to see how the other characters have responded to me on those days because they’ve often been aged in make-up - especially Colin Firth. On the days when I’ve been young and vulnerable he’s been bullying me on set; on the days when he’s made up to look 70 the tables are entirely turned and he feels a little bit vulnerable because he’s balding, so the joke is flipped! It’s very interesting to see people genuinely respond when you’re made up to look very different. Yesterday we filmed the very end and my portrait make-up and I morph into this disgusting, syphilitic, sinful mess of a man. I had three hours plus of prosthetics – even the producer couldn’t recognise me and the ADs couldn’t look me in the eye. It was very interesting to feel like a mutant and how powerful that was. It wasn’t so much the hideousness it was more the lack of responsiveness, the fact that they could only see my eyes, they couldn’t tell if I was smiling!”
“Working with Colin Firth so closely has been great. We filmed Easy Virtue together in 2008 and our characters didn’t really interact that much and it was a relatively unexplored relationship in the context of the story but in this we are the two protagonists. It’s just been a joy from start to finish, he’s just a great, great man, and very funny and very bright and worldly and I can’t praise him highly enough”.
“Olly Parker has half directed and half baby-sat me through this film. I felt a little bit sick at the beginning of every morning and I’d been looking at the script the night before and I’d be thinking ‘I don’t know how to make this believable or real’. But, I’d come in the next day and say to Olly ‘I’ve got a few ideas but basically I don’t know how to make this work, what do I do?’ Because Olly has been an actor it’s been really interesting watching him almost play
it through. Sometimes in the middle of a scene, he’ll come over and give me a note and as he walks off you can see him playing with it… kind of doing it himself, and that’s almost more useful for me. Even when you’re doing something and you’re very passionate about how it feels, that might not be coming through on screen. You have to take the word of the people who are watching the monitor. You’re probably not always the best judge of your own work”.
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Source: Momentum Pictures
“As I see it, there are three primary characters in the story: Basil, Dorian and Henry and there’s a relationship triangle between the three. Both Henry and Basil are infatuated with Dorian in their own way. I suppose the painting is also a character in some way and this is the side of Dorian that’s kept from the world while Dorian becomes more fascinating to the world, either because he repulses people or because he attracts them. Henry wants to mess with Dorian’s beauty, to disrupt it. In my mind he does it initially to tease Basil, to provoke him, but as time goes on, for all sorts of tangled motives, he wants to break it down, he wants to see this phenomenon of beauty tarnished in some way”.
“Henry Wotton is a voyeur, he’s not prepared to get his own hands dirty. He doesn’t want to lose his family, he doesn’t want to pay the price himself and so Dorian is a kind of proxy for all. Either Henry doesn’t have the courage or he’s just not dark enough. I think it’s all just a game for Henry. In the book Henry doesn’t really change – he’s the only character who doesn’t go on one of these journeys of discovery, what we like to call the arc. I think we’ve altered that a little in this story by giving him a daughter - the stakes change and because of this, his character has to change. The fact that he has a daughter makes him vulnerable, he can no longer be flippant because something suddenly matters terribly; it gives Dorian a different kind if power and it gives Henry a different kind of urgency, he’s no longer a voyeur because he’s involved”.
“I’m drawn to characters that are hard to pin down. I’ve played plenty of characters you can pin down according to their ‘Englishness’, but I’m talking about what actually motivates this man (Henry) is very, very hard to put your finger on. There’s a big mystery to him. One could continue to ask the question about why he behaves the way he does, about his continuing fascination with Dorian which provides an opportunity for a cruel game; is there some kind of paternal love there? Some kind of sexual love there? I actually think all of those elements are there. He destroys Dorian completely - it’s Henry who initiates the process of Dorian’s self-destruction by proxy. I think there’s a kind of self-loathing that he projects”.
“In this film I obviously have to play Henry as an older man. One uses one’s imagination when you’re playing older. I’ve had to play an age other than my own in the past. I think it’s how you view the world. If it’s a well-written script and the things that are happening around you are all in place then I think it happens naturally. The minute I’m made up to look a certain way it has a bearing on how I hold myself. As soon as Ben Barnes sees me with a bald wig he wants to help me to my chair and give me some medication and help me change my colostomy bag! He can’t help patronising me when I’m old!”
“When you’re playing older it’s to do with how your eyes see the world, it’s not to do with how many wrinkles you have. There’s no alertness, no sense of being introduced to every new sight. I think Ben is also at some level following that rule.
Young Dorian is someone who’s always a bit surprised, a bit awkward and you feel like the world is always ambushing him; old Dorian is very hard to have an effect on. Olly (Parker) was always saying wisely that Henry holds himself in a certain way that says ‘I’m not old’, but there’s a huge power shift when Dorian comes back from his travels”.
“The older I get, the less I’m inclined I am to do something that I don’t enjoy, it’s as simple as that. I don’t care what masterpiece comes out of it, if I’m not enjoying it it’s not worth it, but Ben Barnes and I had a lot of fun on set. One of the great draws for me was that Ben was doing this. It helps us, and it helps the work. There’s a playfulness between Dorian and Henry and a bit of our own relationship spilled over into that”.
“Olly Parker has proved, like a lot of the best filmmakers that getting some kind of ‘film family’ together is beneficial: your trusted DoP, the team of actors you know - not just because it’s a comfort zone, but also it means you have a shorthand that you’ve developed. There’s an awful lot of territory you have to cover very quickly when you work together in order to find all the intimacy and trust and security that you need. I think being directed by an actor, as Olly is, helps a lot for all the obvious reasons. There’s an understanding. Olly was a good actor and he knows the tricks that actors pull; he knows how you like to hide – he’s got the language for that”.
Source: Momentum Pictures
| Canada | 11 September 2009 | (Toronto Film Festival) |
| Greece | 17 September 2009 | |
| Italy | 23 October 2009 | |
| Australia | 12 November 2009 | |
| Finland | 25 December 2009 |
In a way, I'm almost disappointed the movie did not garner an adult rating. We'll discover if the edits were well worth the time on September 9th when Dorian Gray is released into UK theaters.From the moment the titles and credits opened, the mood of disintegration and renewal was set. As the gleaming white letters of each actor's name emerged, so the black, crackling, splintering, pimpled background slowly disappeared, creating a sense of eeriness - you knew you were in for a neo-Gothic treat.
Dorian Gray is directed by Oliver Parker and produced by Barnaby Thompson, and is an Ealing Studios, Alliance Films and UK Film Council production of a Fragile Film in association with Aramid Entertainment and Prescience. Parker and Thompson have known each other for a long time, collaborating, for instance, on St. Trinian's.
The film did not open gently, like the book, where Basil Hallward, the painter, and Lord Wotton are discussing art and beauty whilst languidly relaxing in the summer garden: it began
with Dorian Gray's introduction, by the painter, Basil, (played admirably by Ben Chaplin), into the society he was to seduce - from pretty girls to ageing dowagers. His pale skin and dark hair and features capture the attention of the crowd, and especially that of the painter's friend, Lord Wotton, who sidles up to Dorian Gray, with a suggestive air and a lewd gleam in his eye as he espies his next innocent and naive victim.
Although Dorian Gray is supposed to be blond and blue eyed (a significant sign of 19th century 'purity', which Oscar Wilde so cleverly lets disintegrate - much as colonialism disintegrates), I felt that Ben Barnes' good looks were compelling, if not overwhelming. There may be a generational gap here - and of course, my impartiality as far as Colin Firth is concerned! But I did feel that Colin Firth, as Lord Wotton, stole the show, and without him, the film would collapse, I believe. Once again, he was so 'immersed' in this plum role, playing totally against type, that he made the Lord both wicked and sly, and you felt, rather than saw, how his internal desires were about lust and lewd perversions of all kinds - yet he was a voyeur, not a participant. Colin's performance holds the film together, and purists may not like the fact that a daughter was introduced for him, but I felt that this was a very good idea for a modern audience - and gave him a chance to show his vulnerability as he and his daughter grew older.
We were given a press pack - although without photos - with an extensive interview by Colin in which he picks up the above point:
"In the book Henry doesn't really change - he's the only character who doesn't go on one of these journeys of discovery, what we like to call the arc. I think we've altered that a little in this story by giving him a daughter - the stakes change and because of this, his character has to change (...) it makes him vulnerable (...)"
So, as Lord Wotton ages - and goodness me, Colin Firth as you have never seen him - his face taking on all the liver spots of age and his hair receding, so his demeanour changes as does the audience's view of him. Colin manages to convey this so subtly, that one doesn't even realise it - I have always said, he is a master of expressing repression!
Of course, the Faustian pact Dorian Gray makes, instigated by Lord Wotton, to remain forever young and beautiful, leads him to crossing every line, and murder and mayhem ensue. It begins with Dorian falling in love with a slight, beautiful red-head (as in the present series of Desperate Romantics) young girl, Sybil Vane, played by Rachel Hurd-Wood, whose suicide as a result of Dorian's rejection, was to haunt him all his life. But as the mayhem ensues, so the fourth protagonist in the film - the painting - plays a key role in teasing the audience. Initially, we see how the painting changes, but thereafter it is kept out of view, and we only hear the groans and moans of old age coming from behind the door in the attic (oh, I love these attics! What dark mysteries loiter there!). The ending is quite spectacular, with the filmmakers using CGI very effectively and scarily.
The exploding baroque interiors, with their scenes of opium filled orgies are quickly edited, filmed from all angles, giving one a real sense of debauchery, with Ben Barnes convincingly fulfilling the object of every woman's lust and fascination. The settings and locations - from these baroque interiors to the neo-classical townscape of
Other locations were interesting for me -
The screenplay was taut - the first for writer, Toby Finlay - but where Oscar Wilde expends time explaining, here we have the wonderful 'show, don't tell', where the camera can tell us in an instant something a writer tells in many pages. And I enjoyed the music, too, scored and arranged by Charlie Mole, whose work ranges from the theme to St Trinian's to the BBC adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank.
So, the male leads were the important roles in the film, with the women playing the foil to their desi
res. But we meet again Emilia Fox (a small role as Lord Wotton's wife) and Caroline Goodall, who appeared in SLOW, as well as classical female actors, like Fiona Shaw (magnificent!). Rebecca Hall, who plays Lord Wotton's daughter, has a face that is not easily forgotten (I saw her on tv in Stephen Poliakoff's Joe's Palace), and she bridged the time span well, appearing as a young suffragette.
It was so obvious that Colin Firth was relishing his role, and I do wish more people would appreciate the subtleties of his performances, like that in Genova. He surely deserves, not only a retrospective of his films, at either the NFT, or on television, but an appropriate award. This performance surely deserves a BAFTA? I like the way he says:
"I'm drawn to characters that are hard to pin down. (...) There's a big mystery to him (Lord Wotton). One could continue to ask the question about why he behaves the way he does, about his continuing fascination with Dorian which provides an opportunity for a cruel game: is there some kind of paternal love there? Some kind of sexual love there? I actually think all of those elements are there. He destroys Dorian completely - it's Henry who initiates the process of Dorian's self-destruction by proxy. I think there's a kind of self-loathing that he projects."
Colin Firth shows himself to be both an intelligent, insightful actor, as well as one who knows how to harness his instincts to project this complex and ambivalent character onto the screen. I found him a joy to watch - yet have never before NOT fancied him so much!
I loved the film, it was great fun, and I can't wait to see it again on the 9/9/09!!! (What is that upside down?) Oh, if only he would be there, at the National Film Theatre!
IN CINEMAS 9.9.09
About 20 films making their world premiere at Venice will travel on to Toronto, where most of the dealmaking for the North American market is made."
January might be an appropriate time for the states since it's usually quiet and the Underworld franchise did well during this lull in blockbuster releases.
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