The Love of Dorian Gray

“The Love of Dorian Gray”
Faces:

Adriana Borgia, Venus Orsini

Dorian Gray

Marco Sforza

Lord Henry Wotton

Sybil Vane (v/o)

Basil Hallward, the artist

Venetian Dignitary

Pater & boys quire

Venetians

People in a village

Places:

Venice

(streets, channels, square, church,
jewelry store, gondolas, bridge,
Palazzo Borgia,
apartment of Dorian and Marco)

Toscana
(village)

Laguna
(“Dorian’s eye” )

The mountain

London
(Sybil’s theater, Dorian’s house)

Literature quotations:

O. Wilde
“The Picture of Dorian Gray”

T.Gautier
“Lagoons”

W. Shakespeare
“Romeo and Juliet”

1. Dorian Gray arrives to Venice, 19th century.

Dorian Gray (v/o): Colors are anthracite, smoky.
Wet air, grey wood.
The motion fast and smooth.
Grey polished gondola.
Venice in a fog.

Dorian’s leg in a boot, his grey trench, folds of wet grey texture of it. The edge of grey wooden gondola with golden decor, approaches wet rose marble pavement.
He arrived. Dorian jumps.

D(v/o): Grey water and grey silhouettes of people.

Голос за кадром:
Just wood, wet air, grey water, and tongues of a fog over city. Silhouettes of people.
Dorian walks along the street.

D.(v/o): I’ve never been in Venice in November.
Beautiful. But unattractive.
City- ghost. Its beauty like a beauty of death.

Sounds of his steps on a marble.
Venetians, looking at him, attracted by Dorian’s beauty.

D.(v/o): Welcome to Venice, Dorian Gray.
At last, you’ve found something, what looks like sounds of your name.

Sybil Vane(v/o), distant sound of her voice from a past:
I want you to know… You are the Beauty itself…. Prince charming.

D.(v/o): Poor Sybil. My cruelty killed her. Poor Sybil.

S.V.(v/o): You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming.

Sounds of distant hauling whistling winds,- quiet, pianissimo, -cover Sibyl’s voice.

Dorian Gray shudders slightly in spite of himself, (v/o):

“Sur une gamme chromatique,
le sein de perles ruisselant,
La Venus de l’Adriatique
Sort de l’eau son corps rose et blanc.
Les domes, sur l’azur des ondes
Suivant la phraze au pur contour,
S’enflent comme des gorges rondes
Que souleve un soupir d’amour.

L’esquif aborde et me depose
Jetant son amarre au pilier,
Devant une facade rose,
Sur le marbre d’un escalier…

(Gautier T.)

2. Dorian sees Marco, dressed like a fisherman.

Marco: Senior is English gentleman, and, maybe, needs help of Italian guide?
I speak English.

D.: Didn’t expect to find a talking-partner in Italy.

M.: Maybe, expected to find here something more interesting?

D.: I’m sure, I’ve already found… I left all trifling conversations at the last dinner I had had in London. I hope, my English valet had not packed them into my luggage.
I’m too tired of them.

M.: But I wish your English valet had packed them into.

D.: Why?

M.: I would be the person, you need, in such a case, I’m sure.

D.: What do you mean?

M.: To carry heaviest suitcases, helping you, senior.

D.: Call me Dorian. Please, continue.

M.: To pack your suitcases in Italian way. All trifling things out, all pleasant in.

D.: Where are you going to keep valuable?

M.: All values need attention. Suitcases are not right place. Values need secret places. Some secret places.

D.: Would you show me some of them?

M.: All of them, senior.

D.: Not bad idea for first hours – to visit some secret places. Tell me your name.

M.: Marco.

D.: Where will we go, Marco?

M.: It depends on what are you looking for, Dorian. What are you looking for?

D.: Vous me poser la question rigoureux.

M.: Consolation? Le gout de vie? Les aventures?

D.: What do you know about what I’m looking for?

M.: Your face tells me everything.

D.: My face tells nothing.

M.: You need a consolation. You want to forget about something.

D.: Never talk like that, senior Marco. You can not know it.

M.: So, we need a search to find out, what makes you feel, senior Dorian.

D.: I wish we could begin right now. First secret place must be my place here, in Venice. I travel incognito, Marco. And I’m looking for calm place, where nobody know who I am, what I have and what I’m looking for.
We need to find cozy caza not very far from Lido.
Follow me, Marco. Now you’ve found out everything.

M.: I know as much as you need. Just as much as YOU need.
But one little question. Une petit question. What is your name for Venice? Dorian?

D.(bows): Simply Dorian.

M.(bows): Simply Marco.

D.: Simply Dorian and Marco in Venice.

M.: Nemo nescitur.

D.: Nemo nescitur.

They go to Lido, the fog disappears; the vision of rose and white city, evening Sun.

3. Summer in Toscana, seven months later.

Laguna. Italian night. Moonlight. Both naked, Marco and Dorian are swimming.
After swimming, getting rest on a bank.

M.: A Moon in a water. People name it…

D.: Don’t tell. Let’s give another name. I want to know nothing, but a moon in a water of lagoon. Quiet waves. Depth. Transparence.

M.: People name it “Tranquillo”.

D.: What do people know, I pray you, Marco.
The name must be exquisite, as well as this moment.

M.: It seems to be an Eye. Like an Eye in a water. But the name must be another.

D.: Marco, you are perfectly right. Round lagoon, and round moon reflection in it.

M.: It’s “Dorian’s eye”. Dorian’s eye. I will be calling it like that. Don’t you mind?

D.: Not at all, Marco…Petrarca. Who are you?

M.: Who are you? Why do you ask me who am I. Better tell me, who are you?

D. (not joking): It seems to me I am you.

M. (joking): How strange. It seems to me the same.
Are you me? Am I you?

“I feel my heart, but I’m so sad,
that Moon is not so big and hard”. - (Nikita Roubtzov’s SMS, 18.01.2004)

Who are we?

D.: Two egoists. Two twins. Ego-alter ego.

M.: I’ll be sleepless all night long.

D.: Too much Moon.

M.: Would you like to tell me, we will be here till the Sunrise?

D.: Exactly what I was going to say. You read my thoughts.

M.: No, I just feel definitely the same. We will stay here till Sunrise.

D.: Awaiting for what…

M.: Awaiting for the Sun.

S.V., reads beautifully, (v/o):

“Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight –
Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight:
It is too rush, to unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say, ‘It lightens’. Sweet, good-night!
This bud of love by summer’s opening breath
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet-…”

(Shakespeare W.)

4. The screen is Sandro Boticelli’s picture “The Birth of Venus”.
Figure of Venus is in a depth of screen, on a big distance.
Then the Sunrise starts, and the figure of Venus in a shell begins to move gradually towards spectators, as if it was counting waves. Rather fast. Sunrise gradually growing too, and fills the screen, covers the vision of a picture.

From the Sunlight - Adriana Borgia went out of a water.
Adriana Borgia looks at camera.
Camera approaches her face, and admire it.
It’s like a vision from the Sunlight.

5. Dorian and Marco, 21st century. Looking at “Birth of Venus”, real picture in a gallery. They don’t speak, their faces express nothing. They’re just looking at it.
It’s like a silent pause before the next.

21st century.

6. The night club, overcrowded. Steel and chrome design, aggressive club music,
light panels on walls: “Temptation”, “Attraction”, “Night”. Plain contrast to the past.

7. Second facility of a club: dark room, with one wall decorated like a contrast to
K. Malevich’s “Black square” – black wall and lightning white square in a midst.
Silhouettes of kissing Adriana and Marco, on a fond of white lightning square.
Camera admires their grace, motions. All is very TENDER.
Words appear on a screen – I LOVE YOU.

8. Through lightning white square, which turns to a huge TVscreen:
Marco and Adriana are on a picnic for two. Having nice time together.
They eat pasta – spaghetti, helping to each other.
Sudden rain.
They are hiding from the sudden rain inside their car. They are kissing TENDERLY. They are making love in a car.

v\o 19th century, Dorian and Marco at the Venetian night place, Decadence, opium, smoking people, overcrowded. Tuxedoes on men. Costumed women.

D.: It seems to be quite oppressive here.

M.: Don’t you like nights filled with emotions?

D.: You suppose they feel something? All these bodies and souls, young or old?
They feel nothing. All their accounts of feelings and emotions are empty now.

M.: The currency of their feelings is in a bank, which is empty now. There is a bankruptcy. There is a bankruptcy of human race.

D.: Look at them. They are penetrated by poisoned air, more boring than a bore. They look like wax dolls from museum, but they are more dead.
They’ve got no pulse. They’ve got no vital energy. I read it in emptiness of their eyes. I read it in their boring faces. In motions of their lazy hands.
Better let’s find the door, Marco. Can not stay here longer.

10. Dorian and Marco outdoor.

D.: Tell me, Marco. I want to know, who is a man of such extraordinary resemblance to me. You remind me something… I had it many years ago in myself – purity.
Pure water, which I had spoiled once, twice…

M.: Do you mean to say I remind you a glass of pure water? Oh. My Lord, it sounds not a complement for Venetian of my age.

D.: How old are you?

M.: I’m twenty three.

D.: I wish I was you, Marco.

M.: It so easy to arrange, mon senior.
Especially here in Venice, where everybody wear masks.

D.: We wear mask everywhere, every time, everybody. Everybody are double- faced,
Sunny binding and monstrous drawback, a dream and a nightmare. Everyone of us.

M.: Depends on place, time and personality.
Dorian, you have got an interesting theory about World and people.
But don’t be so modest.
Why double? Three faces, four faces, there are no limits.

D.: It’s not a theory, it’s an experience. There is a limit.

M.: There are no limits, my senior, remember my words.

D.: Not either. You are very young, Marco. You are very young.
The death is tough limit, for example. Choice is a limit.

M.: Both of us. WE are very young.
And it gives us a right to live not thinking about deadlines and dead points.

D.: Deadline exclamation points.

M.: O, Dorian, you make me feel worried about your health, please, forgive me.
You talk like an oldman. As if you were Roman Pope. As if you were my personal tutor. As if you were million years old.

D.: Once I made wrong choice. Long ago. And I regret it. I did something wrong.
I don’t know, where should I put myself to forget about it.

M.: The most probable place for present moment is a warm camellia bath.

D.: I hear a smell…

M.: Camellias?

D.: No… Lightest perfume. Lightest perfume of a childhood in your words.

M.: My master, you make me an injustice.

D.: You understand it all wrong.
Of course, you are not a child. You are the best person I’ve ever met .

M.: I see you feel better, but, obviously, I hear slightest perfume too. It’s a woman.
What a fresh soft harmony…

D.: Don’t you want to check sensibility of our noses? Let’s find her! What a nice entertainment – to find a woman by her perfume. Perfume trace leads straight ahead. Come on, Marco. I wish to find out, who is she.

M.(recognizing the perfume) : It’s so faint. I doubt we can find the lady.

D.: You neglect your duties, you, silly boy.

M.: I prefer…

D.: How do you think, is she blond, or, brunette, or red? I bet she will be mine.

M.: Brunette.

D.: Will see.

11. Next morning. Dorian and Marco dine, afternoon- time, on the balcony.
They are sitting at the table, as friends, not as a master and servant.

M.: Rose facade, rose marble pavement, terrazzo, balustrades, Venetian windows, lions, what else… Romantically.

D.: The romanticism is a kind of idiotizm, Marco, and this is not romance.
It’s a fairy-tale comes true. It was palazzo Borgia.

M.: Please, try these cantaloupes.
Borgia do not live in Venice at this time of the year.

D.: But somebody lives there now,
and somebody is a girl, and yesterday we saw her.

M.: She is very careful girl. Can see in a darkness. Like a cat.

D.: Yes, she mentioned a pursue. She mentioned us.

M.: Cantaloupes are delicious. Please, try them.

D.: Thank you. Borgia have got only one daughter in a family.
We saw her. It was Borgia.
What was she doing in Venice, alone, at three o’clock,
dead night, on a dark street?
Tell me everything what you know about this family nowadays.

M.: It could be the widow Orsini. In Venice they call her Venus Orsini.
She was married at the age of 15, and became a widow at 17. She has been living independently since that time, and people love her.

D.: For what?

M.: They love her.

D.: Marco, you are fond of eating too much today, and do not answer my question.

M.: I’m sorry, today’s menu makes me feel very far from here.

D.: The menu of a dinner, or the menu of the talk?

M.: Cantaloupes are divine. I’m in cantaloupe field now.

D.: Please, come back. So, the widow Orsini. Nice perfume, eyes of cat, wonderful motions full of grace. Venus Orsini. What else?

M.: Her ancestors are Rodrigo Borgia, the Roman Pope of 15th century, and Guilia la Bella Orsini. Still keeping the tradition.

D.: The Roman Pope Alexander 6?

M.: Yes, very famous, isn’t he?

D.: As well as his children Cesare and Lucrezia.
I guess, the widow Orsini has got a name too. Would you remind me, Marco?
I have never been interested at family Borgia, but now it’s going to be interesting.
If she is Lucrezia, or Chiarina, I will be amused.

A beat, long pause. Marco doesn’t speak. Dorian lifts an eyebrow.

M.: She is not Lucrezia. Venus Orsini’s name is Adriana. Adriana Borgia.

A beat.

M.: Are you going to be amused, signor Dorian?

D.: Adriana? Adriana Borgia…

A beat.

M.: Are you going to be amused?

D.: I’m afraid, I’m not going to be amused.
I’m going to end up a dinner, and I’m going to be… To be.
Please, prepare everything for a visit, Marco.
My cards are in a Russian-leathered little red box. Cantaloupes are wonderful, you are absolutely right. Order for tomorrow, it will be wonderful. It will be wonderful.
Adriana Borgia, the widow Orsini, Venus Venetien (french stress)…
It is like a poetry. French Poetry in Italia.
Please, prepare everything, and let me know, I’ll be upstairs.

12. Dorian Gray leaves the balcony, goes upstairs, to his luxurious gardez-robe room. There is huge mirror, old frame. Dim light through half-open Venetian windows and heavy velvet portieres. Picture of Dorian, painted by Basil Hallward few years ago, at studio, in London. The picture is a SOUL of Dorian Gray.
Disgusting face, beautiful, but with awful cynical expression on it, and aura of shameful sins, immoral life, and mock on lips. Blood on a hand (Sybil Vane’s death).

Dorian looks at the portrait for some time. Then at the mirror, where he can see
his face, the face of angel, the face of a cherub or Greek god.
Dorian observes himself. Then naked shoulders, torso, neck. He worship himself.

13. Marco enters. He can see awful portrait.

M.: O Dio mio!

D.: Marco, why are you here?! Why did you enter with out my permission?!
Don’t look at this. It’s just… It’s just unsuccessful draft of unsuccessful artist.
It’s… No more than illusion. Forget it. Forget it, otherwise, I’ll kill you, I swear.

M.: Who is the man on a picture, Dorian? I’ve never seen such an expression on human’s face. I felt like a Devil himself was looking at me, was beside me.
Get rid of this, Dorian. Why do you keep it? Who is this man on a picture?!

Dorian covers the picture, terrified, scared, stressed.
Sounds of beating heart, which turn into:

The rhythm of new music theme, 21st century. Morning time (during 14, 15, 16, 17)

14. Dorian and Marco are in a sport car, driving along the highway. It’s cool.

15. Adriana and Dorian are kissing PASSIONATELY.
They are in little dark room, black- leathered divan, a lots of people around, overwhelmed dancefloor, shining bar, and Adriana and Dorian are in a state of public solitude, don’t pay attention to environment.

16. Adriana combs her hair.

17. Dorian is dressing up Adriana. From tip-toes to finger-tips.
The dress for costume party, styled as a 15th century dress.
The dress of Maria of Burgundy (Vienna, Hans Maler).
The process “A man dresses up a woman”.

18. Costume ball in Venice, 19th century. The dress of Empress Maria on Adriana.
Adriana is walking through the mobs on a plaza. Marco are waiting for her beside
the Palace gates. They meet and escape.

Marco is luxuriously dressed as a Duke.
Marco is not incognito here, here is true Marco, what actually he is.
Marco is young Duke Sforza, real Italian aristocrat from ancient noble family.

19. The edifice of brown stone, gothic. High Venetian windows are open. Night.
Camera enters slowly inside, through windows.

Jaguar furs on walls, gothic furniture, burning fire place, untouched supper on a table:
Ham of Parma, Cheeses, old bottles of red and white wine. Precious dishes.
Les couvertes - platinum with pearls, diamonds and turquoise. Atlas table- cloth. Nobody are at the table. Marco are taking out the Adriana’s dress from her skin.
The process “A man takes a dress out from a Woman”.
Jaguar furs on a floor, beside the fire- place. Adriana and Marco lays on them. Love.

20. Summer. Lagoon “Dorian’s Eye”. Marco and Dorian are boating.

D.: I’ve never been so happy as I feel now.
Marco, Adriana Borgia has got almost the same face as a girl, which…
which died for me. I was scared. I was in strongest fear, when I saw Adriana’s face.
It’s the same face.

21. Adriana at the piano. Dorian Gray is beside her.
They play a duet: Bach-Marcello, oboe concerto, 2nd part, four hands. Adaptation for piano.
Lagoon “Dorian’s Eye”. Panoramic from the height.
Adriana is bathing.
The face of Adriana.

22. Adriana is among spectators at Portuguese corrida.
Looking at a fight of a bull and torero.

Dorian Gray is in a cabinet. Writing a brief letter to Lord Henry, to London.

“Dear Harry, best friend of mine.
I ask you and Basil to come to Venice, as soon as possible.
I believe, the picture of Duchess Borgia will be Basil’s new chef - d”ouevre.
Definitely, I need you both here. I need you, Harry, to see Adriana,
and I need Basil to paint The Love of Dorian Gray. Come to see.
Her name is Adriana. Adriana! Comme L’Adriatique. Almost the rhyme.
Isn’t it beautiful? It’s like triads in one tonality.
Basil is the only one, who can paint, he is a genius, an Artist, the pride of England.
Adriana Borgia is agree to sit for him. I prayed her. At last she said Yes.

P.S. Harry, be ready to see the face of… I will not tell you. Come to see…
I wish I could tell “US”.

Dorian Gray.”

23. Adriana and Dorian Gray are on a mountain. Looking down to a village.

24. Adriana and Dorian Gray are in Toscana village, the Italian holiday.
Adriana and Dorian are eating berries.
Adriana and Dorian are preparing pizza on an open- air.

Dorian Gray (v/o): I love you. Adriana and Dorian must be always together. The fate.
I love you, my the only one. If you could only know, my love, the cold and the darkness, which surrounds me, when I’m not with you. I can not live with out you. It burns me like a fire. It warms me, like sunshines. I need to see you. I love you.

25. Adriana and Dorian, making her a hair – do.
Dorian and Adriana are making love.

D.(v/o): Adriana Borgia, the Love of Dorian Gray.
If she could only know, how I love her.

26. Adriana Borgia’s song “Jelsomino nel paese di biguardi”.

Dorian and Adriana are sailing, evening time. “Dorian’s Eye”.

D.(v/o): If she could only know, how I love her.

27. Near granite bridge and granite embankment. Gondola.
Adriana and Dorian, both standing.

D.: I can not live with out you. Adriana. I love you. You are so pure and beautiful.
Even the perfume of your skin is pure. I need to see you every minute of my life. Each line. Each motion. I need to hear your answer. Why are you silent?
You are like this granite over us, why don’t you talk to me, Adriana? I love you.
I can not live with out you.

Adriana frowns, doesn’t answer.

D.: It was foolish of me, and yet I couldn’t help it. It seemed to me, there was something between us, how do you think, Adriana?

(A beat)

I fell in love with you at first sight. But you don’t love me.

A.B.: All illusions and deceptions.

Adriana’s voice is so close to Sybil Vane’s voice, that Dorian trembles.

A.B.: I did, I loved you. I did. I though it was love, but it was not.
There were all illusions and deceptions.

D.: But not for me. You are the only truth of my life. The only truth, which I’ve found again. Once I lost one. But again I’ve found. It is you.

A.B.: I’m not for you, Dorian. If you had lost your truth once, it will never be back to you again. I’m not yours.

D. to a gondolier: To Palazzo Borgia.

28. 21st century. Adriana and Dorian are in a car, on their way to Adriana’s house.

D.: I want you to be my wife. You are the only love of mine, Adriana.
Do you hear the rhyme? Even our name are so close: Adriana and Dorian.
Where could we find another? It’s the only one. It’s a Harmony and Perfection.

A.: No, Dorian, no.

D.: Please, don’t answer now. Don’t be cruel to me. Once I was cruel to someone,
And now I’m scared of the pain. I don’t want to feel the pain. It will be double.
Before you tell me your decision,
please, remember, you are the only truth of my life.
You had made me understood what love really is.
My love. You have made me feel it.

A.: If I say you “Yes”, what will be?

D.: Will be Dorian and Adriana. Adriana and Dorian.

29. 19th century. Dorian Gray, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward.

L.H.: She is heartless woman.

D.: She is the only woman, Henry.

B.: Are you talking about Duchess Borgia?

L.H.: Dorian proposed her. She will give an answer tomorrow.

B.: I’m afraid of her. I see Sybil Vane, although Sybil Vane is dead.

D.: Adriana is not Sybil. She is different.

B.: Sybil Vane is always in front of my eyes. Her image pursues me. I can not set myself free of it, it is stronger than me.

D.: Stop, Basil. Don’t remind me. Adriana is Adriana. She was created for me!

B.: No, Dorian, you are wrong. Not Adriana, but Sybil Vane was created for you.
Sybil Vane was your second part. And Sybil Vane is dead.

D.: Sometimes, you make me hate you, Basil.

B.: Adriana is stronger, than you. She will hurt you, as well as you did to…

S.V.(v/o):Don’t be cruel to me.

L.H.: to Sybil Vane? Poor little girl. But was Dorian guilty or was not, nothing’s change now. Dorian loves a Duchess. If Duchess will refuse Dorian… We will go to London, and will forget about Venus Orsini. And nothing’s more.

30. Morning- time. Lagoon “Dorian’s eye”. Basil paints Adriana’s portrait.
Adriana is like a girl from Ancient Rome in her transparent white dress, and hair-do.
Dorian, Henry and Marco are watching.

Different expressions on faces. Gradations of a Love, which a man feels to a woman.

Worship, idolatry feelings, one-sided love……………………Dorian Gray.
Passion, desire……………………………………………………….Lord Henry.
Delight, shared mutual love, adoration, happiness, purity ………Marco.
Admire, artistic, esthetic pleasure of an Artist………………………..Basil.

Adriana’s dress is roman toga, with soft picturesque folds. She thinks about Marco.

B.: Marco is a poet.
Dorian told me, Marco christened this beautiful place as a ”Dorian’s Eye”.
What a find! And what a splendid name of the picture. Duchess in lagoon.
Adriana Borgia in “Dorian’s Eye”.
Marco, please. Would you compose something for us.
One of your beautiful impromptus.

M.: Better I will tell you, what I feel now.
I wish I was happiest person of a times.
I wish I could see everyday, what I love, be with my love always.
To give happiness and to receive it again, from the person I love, and always be loved by this person. I wish I was an Emperor, I feel myself like a Caesar.
I wish I was there, in ancient Rome. I feel myself there, looking at all this beauty.
And I would change the run of a History. Otherwise, there’s no sense to be a man. You are Caesar. If you are not, you are lost.

31. Marco sings a song “O Sole mio” . Adriana joins him. They sings together.

32. Marco and Adriana, 21st century.
Golden walls with Japanese pictures, Venetian lace and silver vases and bawls, with black roses.

33. Crossing the street, 21st century.
Hand in hand.
Head to head.
Hairs white and black.

Marco and Adriana.

34. Marco and Adriana are in a jewelry - Cartier. Rings.

M.: Quatre seasons.

35. Venice, 19th century. (Adapted quotations from O.Wilde).

Dorian Gray and Adriana Borgia. White marble staircase in Palazzo Borgia.

D.: Don’t be cruel to me, Adriana. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.

A.: No. You used to stir my imagination, Dorian.

Dorian Gray is pale - he hears his own cruel words, told by him to Sybil Vane
many years ago in London.
Now Adriana repeats them with mystical precision, to him.

D.(v/o): She repeats definitely those words, once I told to Sybil Vane in London,
many years ago. Such a mythical precision. Word by word. Sentence by sentence.
Those words, which killed Sybil. How did Adriana know them?!
She couldn’t know. She couldn’t know it. But she tells them: word by word. Sentence by sentence!

A.: You used to stir my imagination. I loved you, because you were marvelous, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance
To the shadows of my dreams and imagination, the shadows of Art.

D.: Stop it!

A.: It seemed to me I loved. But I don’t. You used to stir my imaginations.
Now you don’t even stir my curiosity.

D.: Stop it.

A.: You have killed my love. It seemed to me you had genius and intellect, but you have thrown it all away.

D.: Stop it, I don’t want to listen to you.

A.: … Why, once… you don’t know what you were to me once.
You have spoiled the romance of my life.
You are shallow and stupid. How mad I was. I can’t bear to think of it.

Dorian comes to her, looks in her eyes. She thrusts back.
He put his hand upon her arm.

A.: Don’t touch me. Leave me. You simply produce no effect.
You have disappoint me. How mad I was. I wish I had never laid eyes upon you.
I don’t want to be unkind, but I can’t see you again.”
You have disappoint me.

Dorian leaves Palazzo Borgia.
Sounds of hauling whistling winds in his ears, in his brain.

36. S.V (v/o).: Sybil looks at Dorian. Where he goes to he hardly knows. Wandering through dimly-lit streets, past gaunt black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter are calling after him.

Awful picture of law classes of Venice.

37. Later. Sunny day, Dorian’s apartment. Dorian looks as if nothing had happened, nothing had occurred. Having breakfast.

M.: Dorian, my dear Dorian, you must congratulate me! I’m engaged to be married.

Dorian’s eyes flashed.
D.(v/o): Marco tells me the same I was telling to Lord Henry, when I was going to marry Sybil Vane. It’s impossible. I’m going crazy. I’m going mad. I’m loosing myself.

D.: Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always
from the nobles motives.

M.: Are you serious?

D.: Quiet serious. I should be miserable, if I thought I should even be more serious than I am at the present moment.

D.(v/o): Exactly what answered Harry to me that day. I wish I had never told anything to Harry. Harry destroys everything. I wish I had never met him.

M.: I don’t think you are talking about me. I have never been so happy.
Of course, it is sudden. All really delightful things are. And yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my life. My dreams come true, Dorian.

D.: I hope the girl is good, Marco.

M.: Oh, she is better than good.
Dorian. Our wedding will be very modest for some reasons.
But I hope you will not refuse to be in a church with me, my friend?

D.: Of course, Marco. I will be. I’m glad to see you happy.
Women create Love in our natures. Women give to men the very gold of their lives.

M.: This is quite true, Dorian. Do you know what are Love and Happiness?

D.: I know what pleasure is. It’s to adore someone.
And a ring for your bride? We must choose a present for your bride. She must be
Loveliest Creature, as soon as she is your bride.

Who is she?

M.: She is a bride of Marco. Marco Sforza.

D.: Sforza? Marco Sforza?! The Duke?

M.: I’m incognito here, Dorian. As well as you. But, definitely, I am Marco Sforza.
Please, help me to choose something for her.
It must be a ring, looking like my bride. Looking like Sforza.

D.: Please, describe her. Her character. Her face. Tell me, and we will find the most beautiful ring for her.

38. Adriana Borgia walks along the balustrade.
M (v/o): It’s and angel, and the ring must be black. Like her hair.
And the stone and a metal. The stone must be black like her eyes.

D.: She has got black eyes?

M.: Yes. Like black diamonds.

39. Dorian and Marco are in Venetian jewelry store, choosing a ring.
Dorian pours wine to glasses. To Marco:
For future Duchess. And for you. I’m glad to meet you, Duke Sforza.

M.: I’m glad to meet you too, Mister Dorian Gray, Lord Kelso’s grandson.

Dorian and Marco are busy with precious stones.

D.: I must take up study of jewels, it is a World of immortal brilliance and colors, which never bleed. It’s like a face of a man, who asked for immortal youth, and received it. Precious stones are like immortality. Material eternal youth.

M.: You are so fond of your good-lookings, Dorian. But what is youth, if there are neither idea, nor sense in a life you live, while you are young and beautiful?

D.: What do you mean to say?

M.: I mean… I mean to say, that man has harmed himself, asking for eternal youth. Youth is not a whole life. Does a man need eternal youth, if he doesn’t know, how to use it? Why? Sake what? Rose face with out wrinkles? It is not a subject for a man.
Real man thinks about his business of life and his family – wonderful wife, beautiful and clever, and children, which will make him an honor; as well as he is working to make himself an honor, to become stronger than his ancestors, to become more rich than his parents. He makes himself an honor living life like that.

I don’t understand, what is there in a youth, if it limits a field of a life?
Youth is just a kind of a limit. Youth better be transcended. There are so many interesting things after it. Stones, more precious, than those shadows of hesitations and fears, which fill the youth.

I’m young, but I know, that there is a girl I love so much. If I would ask for eternal youth, what would I get, how do you think? Only loneliness with out her, because she would change and die, but I wouldn’t. Only loneliness, whistling and hauling like winds, only loneliness without any hope to return my love from the past.
Eternal youth doesn’t cost an eternal happiness.

D.: Eternal youth doesn’t cost eternal happiness.

M.: Why? Youth is no more than a jolly time, mixed with suffer, despair and disappointments. But Marco has got love, and there is nothing better than real love. You know, love is a value, which is much more expensive than gold or youth.
I prefer to change with my love, to know all gradations of feelings and different ages, not only youth. I don’t want a loneliness, Dorian. It seems to be so awful.
I believe that man you told me about, was very lonely. Where were those people he loved? He limited his personal happiness and warmth of his days and nights.

(A beat)

D.: When Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander 6, visited Lois 12 of France, his hourse was loaded with golden leaves, according to Brantome, and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light. Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and twenty one diamonds. The ducal of Charles Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with pear-shaped pearls, and studded with sapphires.
How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration!

M.: You suppose we cannot afford it the same luxury to ourselves?

D.: Just a costume party.

M.: Not bad idea, Dorian.

D.: As I heard, you love ancient époques? My friend. Before you will become a husband, I will arrange a bachelor costume party for us. Somewhere in Napoli.
Or… Better not… Somewhere in Pompeii.

M.: Costume party in Pompeii?
Journey through centuries and centuries, to the time, when Pompeii was alive.
When there were voices and sounds of boiling parties for young bachelors of times before Christum Natum.

D.: We will be August and Julius.

40. Midnight, Pompeii, 19th century. Bachelors costume party. Young men are costumed like Romans before Christum Natum. Torches, lanterns and
stars on black sky. Seems to be a past came back, and spectators can see, how ancient Romans entertained themselves thousands of years ago.

Dorian and Marco are costumed as Emperors August Octavian and Julius Caesar.
They are the center of a party.
One hundred handsome young people are having supper a- la ancient Romans.

Marco and Dorian are walking along the street of Pompeii - the dawn.
The beauty of young dignitaries and the beauty of ancient city.
Dead volcano in a background.

41. Adriana Borgia’s morning in Napoli. Background is a gulf.
She washes up her face, mops her skin, drinks coffee.
Sunshine on black metal and black diamond of a ring.

The first smile on Adriana’s face.

42. Church in Venice. Morning. The light on white marble of walls and floors.

43. Dorian and Marco are eating oysters. Sun shining. They are sitting on an edge of marble pavement opposite the church.

D.: I suspected you were not a fisherman or something of that kind.
You are something more than mere good-looks.

M.: Please, tell me. I’d like to listen to compliments before my getting there
(points at the church). Complements improve a color of a face.

D. laughs.

M.: Some more wine… Trinitatum Robur, as you know. Three are the strength.
For good- looks, strength and nobility.

D. and M. are drinking wine.

D.: So, what does young Duke Sforza think about a girl?

M.: Girl’s Trinitatum Robur?

D.: Definitely yes. A ton avis?

M.: Just right after you.

Marco takes another oyster, swallows and chews.

D.: Bon appetite.

M.: Bon appetite?!

D.: No, I don’t mean a girl must have big appetites.
Better small appetites. A girl must be slim.

M.: I’m fully agree.

D.: Girl must be clever.

M.: I agree.

D.: She must have a story nobody knows about.

M.: A story?

D.: Yes. Girl, which had got a story possess a charm.
She must have a story, to be feminin absolu, that’s what I mean.

M.: Dorian, you are wonderful speaker. You know every clue to every subject.
Sometimes I suspect you are not twenty three. You are elder. Approximately…
The weight of your knowledge of life is for about thirty six.

D.: What a precision.

M.: You told me eyes could not lie.

D.: You’ve made me a complement.

M.: You deserves complements.

D.: As well as you. For us!

M.: For us!

Drink wine the second time.

D.: Now I’m ready to listen to your theory and practice about three virtues of a girl.

M.: Oh, she is tender. Dolce.

(A beat)

M.: She is most beautiful.

D.: That is a rather commonplace debut. And a third?

M.: Fire, Earth, Water, Air and Ether in one.

D.: You’ve found such a marvel?

M.: Yes, and less than an hour I will be her husband. I am happy man.
The marvel will be my marvel. Tender, most beautiful, and mine and not mine simultaneously. She is somewhere far, but here. Close beside me, but unapproachable. Close here, but unattainable.

D.: It’s nice, but how could it be? My imagination’s perplexed.

M.: In actuality it is like that…
When you possess her, and it seems to you that she is a virgin, every time.

D.: And after she is sleeping, but you can not sleep at all, because there is such a beauty is beside you?

M.: Yes, definitely what I was going to say.
And this beauty belongs to you. But you can not even touch her with out her permission. There is something inside and around…Her presence.

And she opens her eyes, and you feel happiness, because her first glance is yours.
Because, when everything is like that – you are the first, whom she sees on her new day. Her first glance is yours. She is inside and around. And it’s so tender, that tears fill your eyes. Dorian, I love her, and I’m too sentimental.

D.: Let it go, Marco.

M.: No, I don’t want to let it go. I will die with out.

D.: And you want to live?

M.: Very much.

D.: I want you be happy, dear friend of mine. Marco, I wish you happiness.

M.: Happiness inside and around.

D.: Happiness inside and around.

They drink their third glasses, finish a breakfast, stand up and go to church.

44. Inside the church.

The wedding. Secret marriage.

Adriana enters.
Marco is beside the altar.

Pater, quire, Venetian dignitary from Borgia’s side.

Dorian Gray looks at them;

and all is like behind transparent waves and whirls of hot air around burning fire.

Marco kissing Adriana.
Venetian dignitary embraces Marco, and kisses Adriana’s forehead.

Camera shows Dorian Gray’s face. It’s indescribable. He does not control it now.
Expression of his face is like burning fire.

S.V.(v/o), distant echo the from past: You look more like Prince.

L.H.(v/o), distant: miss Sybil knows, how to pay compliments”.

D.(v/o), distant echo from the past: You quite incorrigible, Harry, but I don’t mind. It is impossible to be angry with you. When you see Sybil Vane you will feel that the man who could wrong her would be a beast, a beast with out a heart. I can not understand, how anyone can wish to shame things he loves. I regret all that you have taught me, Harry. I become different from what you have known me to be.
I’m changed, and the mere touch of Sybil Vane’s hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, poisonous theories.

D.(v/o): Adriana, don’t!

A.(v/o): No, Dorian, no. I do not love you.
You are nothing for me. Leave me. I can not to see you again.
One would have said that there is a touch of cruelty in your mouth.

L.H.(v/o): I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you.
But you should not say the greatest romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will always be in love with love. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up. Love and art are both simply forms of imitation.

D., aloud: Harry, you were terribly wrong.

Venetian dignitary comes to Dorian Gray: What’s happening to you, mister Gray?

(A beat)

D.G.: Many years ago I had a bride, her name was Sybil Vane.
I was cruel to her, I refused my love and Sybil died.
And nothing can fill the emptiness of my life, since the day when she died.
I killed her by my cruel words. I have murdered Sybil Vane. Murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife.

(A beat):

V.d.: This is awful, what you have told me. A girl had died!

D.: Sybil could save my life. It appeared to be she was the only sense of my life, she was the only joy of my life, and I lost it. She could save me from me myself, her love made my days. She could prevent me from cynical paradoxes of people, which do not know What is love, and what is a miracle it is - to love and to be loved by the person you are in love with. Sybil could save me from all these wrong confusions.
Sybil could save my life!

V.d.: But what was the reason of your tragedy?

D.: I didn’t understand her, although the explanation was like a confession of innocence, purity and love.

V.d.: She was in love with you too much, I suppose.

D.: She explained it all to me. But her explanation seemed to me a fars.
I couldn’t forgive her for unpleasant feelings, which once, just once I felt - she was playing badly one evening at the theater, because love had overwhelmed her.
I didn’t know that day, that that day I refused My life. I’m like a parrot now. A parrot, repeating Lord Henry Wotton’s cynical thoughts and statements.

S.V.(v/o): Dorian, Dorian, don’t leave me! I’m so sorry I didn’t act well. I was thinking of you all the time. It came so suddenly across me, my love to you.”

D(v/o): My God, how little you can know about love, if you say it mars your art! With out your art you are nothing. What are you now? A third-rate actress with pretty face.
I loved you , because you were marvelous, you had genius and intellect, you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity.

S.V.,: Dorian, Dorian, before I knew you , acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theater that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came, and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. Tonight, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. Tonight, for the first time, I became conscious that painted Romeo was hideous, and old, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that scenery was vulgar, and that words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what was I wanted to say.

D.(v/o): But you were playing Juliet so beautifully, when I saw you at the theater for the first time. Shakespeare’s words sounded like music of yours, you were singing, not speaking. Your intonations made my heart thrill. Tears filled my eyes, Sybil!

S.V.(v/o): Because I was telling it to you, Dorian. I saw you through that painted false figure of Romeo, I saw you, my beautiful love. I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be.

D.: I was stupid not forgiving her for that. She was genius and so beautiful, one of the loveliest creatures in a World. And World would have worshiped her.

V.d.: You had made a mistake.

Dorian Gray shows no remorse, but his is ready to burst with tears.
He covers his face with his hands.
Fade in darkness.

45. Adriana and Marco together. Eternal Rome – the city of Caesars.
Dressed like ancient Romans, with luxurious simplicity and sophistication.
Night time. Forum. Adriana and Marco are carrying torches, walking in a city.

46. Gondola. Adriana and Marco together. Laughing. First laugh of Adriana.
Marco makes her laugh.

47. Adriana and Marco at home. Love scene.
Golden walls with Japanese pictures, vases with white roses, their love nest we saw before, as a 21st century arrangement.
But here is 19th century.
The same, but with light deferences, emphasizing the atmosphere of 19th century.

Candles, not lamps.
Feathers and ink-pots.
Paper, not notebooks and mobiles.

48. Adriana and Marco are playing chess: “after- sex”.

49. Adriana is sleeping, Marco is not sleeping, but looking at her.

50. 21st century. Dorian Gray is making himself an injection – the needle, drugs,
common disgust, in short. Wounds himself. Goes to his car.

51. Dorian is driving fast and turns over – the car crush.

52. The car is left on a highway. Empty.

53. Red blooded Sunset. The highway. Dorian’s walking along the highway.
Stormed and alarmed.

54. Camera as Dorian’s eyes.

The motion growing faster and faster, the speed increasing:

The surface of a road.
The marble pavement.
The chain of gondolas, swinging, connecting to sides of a channel.
The chain of gondolas – another angle: Dorian is crossing the channel, using this gondolas chain as a improvised bridge.
Opening doors of gondolas, clasping.

55. Opening doors of Palazzo Borgia.
Adriana Borgia’s portrait in a hall.
Marble staircase. Dorian’s goes upstairs.
Opening doors to Adriana’s bed-room.
Adriana, arranging flowers in a vase.

56. Silence. Deaf Silence.
(A beat)

57. Dorian Gray (camera) approaches Adriana. Close to her face.
She looks at Dorian warmly at first, but seconds later her eyes becomes cold.
(A beat)

58. Dorian’s fingers caress her cheek. Carefully touches.
The smell of a danger in these touches.
Adriana feels that something goes wrong.
(A beat)

59. Fear of Adriana. She shudders, tremble beats her.
Fear in Adriana’s eyes.
Fear is everywhere.

Drums. Drums rhythm. Aloud from sounds of Adriana’s tremble. *

60. Adriana: Dorian. I didn’t send you an invitation.
D.: Adriana. I don’t need invitations.

Drums **

Dorian: I need You.

61. Adriana: I did Not send you an invitation.

Drums ***

62. Dorian Gray beats Adriana.

Drums ************************** the drum music starts – AWFUL VIOLENCE.

63. Dorian leaves her on a bed. She’s unconscious.
Open eyes are looking up to the ceiling.
She SEEMS TO BE dead. Blood on her legs. She IS dead.

THE CAMERA SHOWS HER FROM THE CEILING:
Wide- open dead empty black eyes, looking at the camera.

Final soundtrack starts
During the music:

HER DEAD EYES, LOOKING AT THE CAMERA, BECOME ALIVE.

Girl’s face, looking at the camera, become alive.