It’s too easy to say that the age of Botox and Photoshop has breathed new life into ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. The fact is, Oscar Wilde wrote a timeless fable that will always bear reinterpretation. In 2002, Will Self faithfully, masterfully - and druggily - updated it in ‘Dorian’. Last year, Matthew Bourne brought it back as dance, finally revealing serial murder as Gray’s dark secret. (Feeling hasty, it was the only clumsy touch in the ballet.) And in a cinema near you, you can currently find Oliver Parker’s new film version. Called ‘Dorian Gray’, it’s a costume drama, which – if the critics are on the money – will be in the Blockbusters bargain bin by Christmas.
But what’s this? Into my hot little hand is pressed a DVD by my old friend Duncan Roy, one-time London bad boy, now reformed and busily making low-budget, high-art films in Hollywood. And the title? ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’. Actually, it might better have been called ‘The Reflection of Dorian Gray’, since Duncan takes huge liberties with the plot and draws on many of Wilde’s other works for the script. Oh yes, and he transfers the action to the contemporary art scene in New York, turns Dorian blatantly, rather than implicitly, bisexual – and contrary to Wilde’s original, leaves very, very little to the imagination.
Duncan’s work is strong meat, and won’t be to everyone’s taste, but there’s much to recommend it. The portrait, for a start. Even the classic 1945 movie muffed this one, but Duncan has created a real work of art at the heart of the piece, and one that transforms with just as much effect as it did in prose. Then there’s the fine acting, the classy locations, the claustrophobic intensity. You can tell that Duncan has been in crack dens, kissed rent boys, watched his friends die from Aids. Like Wilde, his art has an integrity born of experience. And perhaps that’s why so many high rollers have lent a hand - with an uptown apartment here, a downtown warehouse there and, in Tracey Emin’s case, some impressive neon installations.
The other day, I told Colin Firth – who plays Henry Wotton in Parker’s effort - about this upstart endeavour, and he was typically gracious. ‘Who knows?’ he said, ‘It may be the David that beats our Goliath.’ And maybe he’s right. After all, Goliath was a Philistine…
