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ivyficIn between the power outages last night, I watched Wilde. Given the cast, I thought it would be a brilliant biopic on Oscar Wilde. And...it's not. Jude Law is a perfect Bosie--he seems to have made a career out of playing the object of desire for repressed gay men. But Stephen Fry (who I adore) is a little too on-the-nose for Wilde.
Once he has the hair and the costume, he's a dead ringer for Wilde. And I know he personally loves Wilde. He's made himself into a sort of modern-day Oscar Wilde, famous as a personality and for a variety of different types of writing, acting, and presenting. But here's the main problem with this movie. Everyone involved adored Oscar Wilde. All of them are terribly sympathetic to the tragedy of his later life. And they all believed, as the producer says in a featurette, that Oscar Wilde was a genuinely nice man.
And I...don't believe that. Fry and Wilde both have wit, but Wilde's wit had a bite to it that Fry's doesn't. Wilde could be terribly cutting. In the movie, as in real life, we see Wilde throw over his first male lover, Robbie Ross, brilliantly played by Michael Sheen, for the next young thing that comes along. Ross remains, clearly, in love with Wilde, and stays his supporter, even when Wilde comes to cry on his shoulder about Bosie. In real life, Ross even paid for Wilde's tombstone. In the movie, Ross gives Wilde a free pass for how he has treated him. The problem is, so does the movie generally.
The movie tends to take this attitude of he was an artist, he was a sensitive man, and he was the victim of his pure love for Bosie. This is a stance that is familiar to me. Because this is how Wilde portrays himself in De Profundis, the letter he ostensibly wrote to Bosie while in Reading Gaol that seems more meant as an attempt to make history remember himself and Bosie the way he wants. In De Profundis, Wilde is the victim of Bosie's manipulations, helpless before his destructive cruelty.
And I'm sorry, but for a relationship in which Wilde was a half a generation older and a well-known public figure (who had no problem attracting a bevy of beautiful young followers), I have a hard time seeing him as a battered housewife. To me, it's always felt like Wilde was a bit in love with the idea of himself as a martyr. He was a celebrity far before he'd written anything of note--this is a man who was in love with himself and with his own voice. His writing is all about how aesthetics trump morality. I don't think this was just a really nice guy who loved everyone and had the wrong sexuality for his time. You don't get to be Oscar Wilde if that's the case, but that's how the movie portrays him.
What I'm saying is De Profundis is biased. Really, really biased. Incredibly biased. It's the sort of scathing break-up letter I wish I had the balls and skill to write to someone who had hurt me. But, like all good rants, it gains its effect by manipulating the truth to cast blame in one direction only.
Wilde, because it was made by people deeply sympathetic to the position Wilde was in because of who he loved at the time he lived, sees him mostly as a victim in his own life. It shows his alienation from his family, but more like something he suffered than something he did. I just don't think Fry is capable of the dynamic range as a dramatic actor to show a Wilde who was both as caring and as cruel as he was.
The movie also seems to shy away from really saying definitively why Wilde was so obsessed with Bosie. In the interviews, everyone involved says it is a great mystery, why Wilde stayed in this relationship, and we can never really know. And they float a number of theories. Which is fine for a work of non-fiction. But to work as a dramatic piece, since Wilde immolated himself on this love, if we don't really understand what he got out of it, it's hard to be behind him.
I also have to say, for all the beautiful young men in the movie, the sex scenes were kind of uncomfortable. Partly because I see Fry as an avuncular figure, and he was (as was Wilde) a good deal older than his lovers. But he was also apparently very uncomfortable filming the scenes--he was apparently worried that his straight costars would be uncomfortable doing the scenes with him, since he is gay. They weren't. But Fry's discomfort comes through loud and clear.
I doubt there'll be another biopic of Wilde with as much rigorous attention to detail (I took a course on Oscar Wilde in college and have read the biography that inspired the movie, so can see that they did their research liek woah) or with as perfect a cast in the near future, but with all it had going for it, Wilde still fell pretty short for me.
Of note, this movie has Orlando Bloom's very first on-screen appearance! It's about five seconds long and he's a rentboy. Now that's what I call typecasting.
Once he has the hair and the costume, he's a dead ringer for Wilde. And I know he personally loves Wilde. He's made himself into a sort of modern-day Oscar Wilde, famous as a personality and for a variety of different types of writing, acting, and presenting. But here's the main problem with this movie. Everyone involved adored Oscar Wilde. All of them are terribly sympathetic to the tragedy of his later life. And they all believed, as the producer says in a featurette, that Oscar Wilde was a genuinely nice man.
And I...don't believe that. Fry and Wilde both have wit, but Wilde's wit had a bite to it that Fry's doesn't. Wilde could be terribly cutting. In the movie, as in real life, we see Wilde throw over his first male lover, Robbie Ross, brilliantly played by Michael Sheen, for the next young thing that comes along. Ross remains, clearly, in love with Wilde, and stays his supporter, even when Wilde comes to cry on his shoulder about Bosie. In real life, Ross even paid for Wilde's tombstone. In the movie, Ross gives Wilde a free pass for how he has treated him. The problem is, so does the movie generally.
The movie tends to take this attitude of he was an artist, he was a sensitive man, and he was the victim of his pure love for Bosie. This is a stance that is familiar to me. Because this is how Wilde portrays himself in De Profundis, the letter he ostensibly wrote to Bosie while in Reading Gaol that seems more meant as an attempt to make history remember himself and Bosie the way he wants. In De Profundis, Wilde is the victim of Bosie's manipulations, helpless before his destructive cruelty.
And I'm sorry, but for a relationship in which Wilde was a half a generation older and a well-known public figure (who had no problem attracting a bevy of beautiful young followers), I have a hard time seeing him as a battered housewife. To me, it's always felt like Wilde was a bit in love with the idea of himself as a martyr. He was a celebrity far before he'd written anything of note--this is a man who was in love with himself and with his own voice. His writing is all about how aesthetics trump morality. I don't think this was just a really nice guy who loved everyone and had the wrong sexuality for his time. You don't get to be Oscar Wilde if that's the case, but that's how the movie portrays him.
What I'm saying is De Profundis is biased. Really, really biased. Incredibly biased. It's the sort of scathing break-up letter I wish I had the balls and skill to write to someone who had hurt me. But, like all good rants, it gains its effect by manipulating the truth to cast blame in one direction only.
Wilde, because it was made by people deeply sympathetic to the position Wilde was in because of who he loved at the time he lived, sees him mostly as a victim in his own life. It shows his alienation from his family, but more like something he suffered than something he did. I just don't think Fry is capable of the dynamic range as a dramatic actor to show a Wilde who was both as caring and as cruel as he was.
The movie also seems to shy away from really saying definitively why Wilde was so obsessed with Bosie. In the interviews, everyone involved says it is a great mystery, why Wilde stayed in this relationship, and we can never really know. And they float a number of theories. Which is fine for a work of non-fiction. But to work as a dramatic piece, since Wilde immolated himself on this love, if we don't really understand what he got out of it, it's hard to be behind him.
I also have to say, for all the beautiful young men in the movie, the sex scenes were kind of uncomfortable. Partly because I see Fry as an avuncular figure, and he was (as was Wilde) a good deal older than his lovers. But he was also apparently very uncomfortable filming the scenes--he was apparently worried that his straight costars would be uncomfortable doing the scenes with him, since he is gay. They weren't. But Fry's discomfort comes through loud and clear.
I doubt there'll be another biopic of Wilde with as much rigorous attention to detail (I took a course on Oscar Wilde in college and have read the biography that inspired the movie, so can see that they did their research liek woah) or with as perfect a cast in the near future, but with all it had going for it, Wilde still fell pretty short for me.
Of note, this movie has Orlando Bloom's very first on-screen appearance! It's about five seconds long and he's a rentboy. Now that's what I call typecasting.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 06:04 pm (UTC)What was the biography? Was it worth checking out?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 06:20 pm (UTC)It is good if you want an absolutely thorough accounting of his life. I don't remember a lot of it, to be honest, though.
Have you read much Wilde? Cause I'd tell you to go read De Profundis and Critic as Artist if you haven't.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 06:25 pm (UTC)The biography sounds like it could be a repeat of the Alexander Hamilton fiasco, but I'll look into it. After all, now that I'm done with Game of Thrones, I'll need some new twenty-pound books to carry around.
(That Rob Chernow book? Easily 700 pages, and Hamilton wasn't even in America by, like, page 200. AND DID YOU KNOW THAT AARON BURR KILLS HIM? 'Cause if not, they book so helpfully parallels Hamilton's life with Burr's just so you can realize that his whole life is actually just a prequel to his being killed later. THEN WHY DO I HAVE TO READ 700 PAGES OF IT?!)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 06:59 pm (UTC)I just remembered being like OH GOD NOT ANOTHER LETTER I DON'T NEED TO KNOW THIS MUCH but then I was trying to get it read by a deadline for a class, which is likely to suck the joy out of things.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-14 08:26 pm (UTC)I'm more inclined to believe that he had SUCH A HUGE EGO he thought he was untouchable and could get away with saying anything he wanted. I don't think it was bravery that led him to speak of the love that dare not speak its name, but unbridled egotism.
I can see how if you view him as the pioneer of the gay rights movement, you wouldn't want to see him that way... I just think it makes a weaker movie.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 07:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-15 12:34 pm (UTC)