BY PROF. EDWIN JAHIEL
WILDE (UK, 1997) *** 1/3 Directed by Brian Gilbert. Written by Julian Mitchell, from the book "Oscar Wilde" by Richard Ellmann. Photography, Martin Fuhrer. Editing, Michael Bradsell. Production design, Maria Djurkovic. Music, Debbie Wiseman; Produced by Marc Samuelson & Peter Samuelson. Cast: Stephen Fry (Oscar Wilde), Jude Law (Lord Alfred Douglas), Vanessa Redgrave (Lady Speranza Wilde),Jennifer Ehle (Constance Wilde), Gemma Jones (Lady Queensberry), Judy Parfitt (Lady Mount-Temple), Michael Sheen (Robert Ross), Zoe Wanamaker (Ada Leverson), Tom Wilkinson (The Marquess of Queensberry). A Sony Classics release. 116 minutes. R (sex, full rear male nudity)
Because I take for granted that Oscar Wilde the writer, the man and his wit are familiar to the film's potential public, I will not go into a general intro. Wilde's homosexuality (a crime under English law until the late 1960s), his famous affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, and the ensuing trials that finished off poor Oscar, have made him a "cause celebre" --if I am not mistaken, the first of that nature in modern history. Understandably,all this has made of Wilde a patron saint of gay artists.
Among the many cinema genres, few can be as difficult and as vulnerable to criticism as the biographical picture. Biopics are compromises. To relate a life -- or part of one -- and remain faithful to history in two hours of film is an impossibility, one that is even nastier than screen adaptations of major novels. Condensations, simplifications, selected episodes are unavoidable.
A case in point is the set of biopics directed by William Dieterle in the 1930s and early 1940s. They were all reverent works on major figures: Louis Pasteur (with Paul Muni, Oscared), Florence Nightingale, Emile Zola (Best Picture 1937, also with Muni), Juarez (with Muni), Reuter (with E.G.Robinson), Dr. Erlich (Robinson) Well-made, using major actors in both main and supporting roles, these works were big popular hits in their time. But today, with audiences and critics, movies in that style would get a much more cautious reception. Even the sacrosanct epic "Napoleon" (1927, by Abel Gance) might be --but is not-- faulted for historical inaccuracies.
Dieterle and his likes represented the old school of biopics. After a transition period (e.g. Wilson, The Desert Fox, Viva Zapata) came the new school, in which no two of the better films followed the same strategy. Creative and unconventional treatments days were given so such masterful works as --and I cite a few pell-mell --Raging Bull, Van Gogh, Chaplin, Joe Hill, Lenny, Lawrence of Arabia, Malcolm X, Tous les Matins du Monde, Vincent and Theo, Stevie, Camille Claudel, Rosa Luxemburg, Hanussen, An Angel at My Table, Ed Wood...
Although Wilde, was not an easy item to tackle, it acquits itself honorably. There must have been good rapport between director and writer. Brian Gilbert, who made the funny, witty Vice Versa, the underrated Not Without My Daughter, then Tom and Viv, opted here for a Masterpiece Theatre/Ivory-Merchant style, unrevolutionary but fitting the subject. Versatile novelist-playwright Julian Mitchell is the author of many scenarios, including those of Arabesque, Another Country, Vincent and Theo, August (the directorial debut of Anthony Hopkins)-- not to mention nine episodes of that civilized delight, the Inspector Morse TV series.
Mitchell had already worked on another gay theme I know of, in his prize-winning stage-play Another Country which is about 1930s students public-school students for whom homosexuality was trendy. Years later, as in the notorious Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean case, several government officials were found spying for the Soviet Union. A very good film was made of this. It starred Rupert Everett. The script was by Mitchell.
For the current movie --the third about Wilde-- Mitchell based his scenario on the admirable biography by Richard Ellmann. The great scholar and critic finished this long labor of love as he was dying of Lou Gehrig' s disease.He died in March 1987. The book appeared in early 1988. There is no way for a film script to reconstruct a 680-page volume. The scenario wisely opted for selective choices and inspirations. It is faithful to Ellmann's belief that Wilde was as original and major a writer, and a cultural influence, as he was a man who invented his own public persona, as wit, esthete, dandy, poseur, society lion and, among much else, a sly critic of the middle and upper classes of England, the very people who were the butt of Wilde's plays yet applauded them.
The film does not go into Wilde's Irish and English past and upbringing. It plunges right away into an already established Oscar who marries Constance. His wife, in older parlance "gave him two boys".
Robert Ross, a younger houseguest, reveals to Wilde that he (Oscar) is really a homosexual. A relationship starts between the two. It is followed by others, culminates in the love affair between Wilde and handsome, some 20 years younger Lord Alfred Douglas ("Bosie").
It's a bizarre affair. Oscar's love is steadfast, while the capricious, self-spoiled Bosie blows hot and cold, introduces Oscar to lower class people, often insults, hurts, exploits, taunts him and is despicable. He flaunts their couple in public,also taunts his father. The latter, played by Tom Wilkinson --who has a very different role in The Full Monty-- is here the wealthy Marquess of Queensberry, a crude, rude, violent sportsman whom Bosie hates. (He is the same Lord Queensberry after whom the basic codes for boxing were named, although another sportsman wrote them).
Delightful is the movie's inclusion of some aspects of Wilde's enormously growing fame as a playwright, plus much Wildean humor, wit, and the expected Wildean thoughts and epigrams. But concurrently as well as exponentially, we see the sadness of the man's public and private life, the unavoidable troubles and scandals. The tragedy, latent throughout the writer's life, now springs out of the closet. It becomes all the more painful to watch since Wilde is a most likable fellow, generous to a fault, and never really inflicting harm or hurt on others.
Actor Stephen Fry is an uncanny match for Wilde. He even looks like him, though taller, less rotund, and with a face not so soft as in the photographs of Wilde. Fry, also a writer and a wit, temperamental, unpredictable, rather sweet, openly gay, is a rare case of perfect casting. Superior too is the casting of Lord Alfred Douglas and that of Robert Ross. Robbie remains through thick and thin Oscar's true friend and helper, and the voice of reason.
Because we know how everything comes out, the earlier and/or some lighter scenes are made suspenseful as we wait for the axe to fall. And we wish that the so-smart Oscar had not been so dumb as to be prodded by Bosie into initiating that terrible libel suit against Queensberry. If there was a time when "don't ask, don't tell" was the best possible advice, it was in Victorian days.
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