Something Wilde

>> Oscar Wilde's downfall, revisited

by MATTHEW HAYS

Oscar Wilde's life has become a multi-purpose historical landmark. His work, full of acerbic proddings at the facade and hypocrisy of Victorian-era British morality, is seen as a forebear of camp. His semi-open life as a practicing homosexual was certainly daring, and precedent-setting for a celebrity of his popularity. His eventual trial, in which he was sentenced to a brutal two-year jail term, made him a gay martyr; a one-man ACT UP float in a gay parade before his time. The trial was also a precursor to the now commonplace celebrity sex scandal.

Wilde's life begs dramatic interpretation. Perhaps it's the encroaching end of the gay '90s, but this past year has been marked by Wilde fever: the staging of two plays, a book by Wilde's only grandchild and a biopic starring British comic Stephen Fry.

Though Wilde's life has been depicted cinematically before, nothing comes close to the latest, Wilde. Done on a mere $10 million (U.S.)--an amazingly skimpy budget for a period piece--the film is an unbelievably moving, beautifully acted portrait of Wilde, his charms and his devastating downfall.

Fry is brilliant in the title role. The actor, who himself came out of the closet years ago, has professed to feel a kinship with the Irish scribe, bringing unending pathos to the choice part. In his and director Brian Gilbert's vision, Wilde was an entirely sympathetic man who fell head over heels for Bosie (Jude Law), a difficult, spoiled, troubled and gorgeous young man. Gilbert's casting is keen; Fry and Law are surrounded by Vanessa Redgrave (as Wilde's mother), Jennifer Ehle (Wilde's wife) and Tom Wilkinson as Bosie's father and Wilde's arch-enemy, the Marquess of Queensberry--and all are nothing short of superb.

Julian Mitchell also deserves heaps of praise for his elegiac, layered screenplay. Mitchell employs Richard Ellmann's definitive biography (titled simply Oscar Wilde) as a narrative backbone, but interweaves readings of Wilde's fairy tales, wrenching melancholy stories that Wilde wrote for his children. The stories serve to highlight Wilde's genius, as well as reflecting the sorrow and longing in his own life.

Controversy has already arisen over this film. Wilde's sole grandchild Merlin Holland has denounced the film as "gay obsessed." Quoted in Time magazine last month, Holland blasted Wilde as "a film which at best leaves people unfamiliar with Wilde with an impression of him as a man who jumped in and out of bed with young men."

Trouble with this attack is, from all the biographical accounts I've read, Wilde was indeed a man who thoroughly enjoyed the attentions of young men. And his life was ruined by a scandal involving his homosexuality (this isn't really open to argument--it's a clearly recorded fact). It seems odd that Wilde's own grandson would challenge a film which is so completely empathetic to Wilde's plight, a film which bids to set the record straight.

Historians and ancestors can bicker forever about the validity of a filmmaker's vision. One detail can ruin the whole thing for some of those anal English and history majors (or even a vaguely homophobic relative). Bypass the academic arguments, and decide for yourself: for its execution alone, Wilde demands to be seen.

Wilde opens this Friday, June 5