The Picture of Dorian Grey – Oscar Wilde

‘Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book focuses on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigour while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world.’

At the beginning of the book, Dorian Gray exists as something of an ideal and is the character of youth and beauty.

Dorian is extremely vain and becomes certain that his youth and physical attractiveness is his own attributes and that he is nothing without them which worries him as he feels that he is nothing without them.

Also after a brief conversation with Lord Henry, Dorian curses his fate and pledges his soul as he can't bare to be without these attributes and would rather the painting to age and sin instead of him as he cant imagine the burden of ageing or sinning.

An important part of the book is when he falls for a girl called Sibyl which tests his commitment to his philosophy: his love of the young girl nearly leads him to dispense with Lord Henry's teaching's.

However his love turns out to be as shallow as he is as he breaks her heart which results in her taking her own life.

After he finds out about Sibyl's death he realizes the first change in the painting while he stays youthful.

This Dorian's sin's grow over the years and his likeness in Basil's portrait grows more hideous.

Sibyl Vane - A poor, beautiful young girl who falls for Dorian. 

My original idea was to use Dorian Gray as my character as I found the different sides to him intriguing as the painting shows quite a dark side to Dorian which I would like to portray as well as the youthful and innocent side to him. I wasn't quite sure how I would do that but it just seemed like an interesting route to follow.

However after some thought I feel that although it would be good to push myself further and explore newer things I'm not sure id be able to pull off this idea as it would include prosthetic's which is something I haven't ever really tried or explored. As this timed assessment would be about continuity I need to ensure I am able to pull it off both time which I'm not sure I would be able to do if I kept with Dorian being my character.

After looking at the other main character in this novel I felt that Dorian's first love Sibyl could be an interesting archetype to explore as she killed herself after getting her heart broken by Dorian. She drowned herself and in the film Dorian finds out about her death as someone brings him the dress Dorian gave her covered in dirt as if she'd drowned herself. 

I felt that this would be a good part of the film to use as it s quite significant as he realise's the first changes to the painting done by Basil and also goes into a downhill spiral.

The Introduction to the Project - Gothic Horror - Victorian Beauty Ideal

Initially when we got the brief I didn't really know anything about victorian women so had to do a bit of research to see what kind of hairstyles they would go for as I felt that the makeup would be quite minimalistic as a lot of the women were very reserved.

At the start, the Victorian era was about modesty and natural beauty. Women of higher class practiced control with their makeup. 

Although many still used powder to tone down shine and give the skin a lustrous glow, it was used sparingly. Even eye shadows and lipsticks were very pale in tone and carefully applied. 

Bold colours and heavy makeup application was initially considered taboo and was used only by prostitutes. The use of cosmetics actually became controversial with many religions banning them as immoral or labelling them as “the tools of the devil”. 

Hair in the Victorian era was quite reserved. 

It was often pulled back off of the face and placed in a knot, bun, plaits, or even curls.

Long, gentle curls were used to accent the face at the sides or even in the back. 

Smaller baby curls sometimes accented the forehead as well. It wasn’t uncommon for women to slick back or oil their hair to assure a smooth style. 

Even men took on a more modest stance, wearing their hair far shorter than any period prior. 

Curls were acceptable even in men’s hairstyles as was the use of oil to smooth out a difficult coif. 

In contrast, however, Victorian men often sported a moustache or beard and sometimes allowed their sideburns to grow.

After looking at a number of different portrait's and images of victorian women and hairstyles its evident that a lot of the hairstyles include middle partings with curls to compliment the face. Also a lot of the hairstyle have the ears slightly out which just shows how things change as hairstyles now never really include the ears being out unless the hair has been slicked back.

Also with some of the hairstyles they plait the front section of the hair and almost wrap then under/around the ears to almost get people to look at them. The back of the hair is also a lot of the time curled and pinned back but often quite low which looks quite elegant

Within this movie clip the hairstyles are very similar as middle partings were very common. A lot of the women would stick with the same makeup and hair and pale skin as wearing too much makeup was something only prostitutes would be seen wearing makeup. Also wearing makeup was frowned upon around this time.

References

• Miss Wilton (2016) Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/19603157@N03/2190167519/in/photostream (Accessed: 14 February 2016