Once again Ottinger borrows and bends a famous literary character for her own unusual purposes, turning away from a “straight” adaptation of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray to offer a fantasia on the theme of the media as surveillance. Ottinger’s Dorian Gray – played by the model Veruschka in drag – matches wits with none other than Dr. Mabuse, who has transformed from Fritz Lang’s underworld kingpin into an ambitious media tycoon, played by the incomparable Delphine Seyrig. Using her media network not just to control information but also to create it, Seyring’s Mabuse offers a technocratic, yet equally ruthless, variation of Lang’s criminal network.