Works about Oscar Wilde
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THE HAPPY PRINCE (2018)
Overview A biographical drama film about Oscar Wilde, written and directed by Rupert Everett in his directorial debut. It stars Everett alongside Colin Firth, Colin Morgan, Emily Watson, Edwin Thomas, and Tom Wilkinson.
The Story Behind the Film Everett was partly inspired to make the film because other Oscar Wilde movies stop at the point of his imprisonment and conviction, conveniently avoiding what happened after. He felt there was more to explain to people about Wilde — specifically what society did to him not only in the punishment, but in the aftermath, which was a "pretend liberty" that was in fact another kind of imprisonment.
Everett was uniquely qualified for the role. He had played Lord Alfred Goring in the 1999 film An Ideal Husband, and also played Wilde himself in the 2012 revival of David Hare's play The Judas Kiss, for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor.
Plot Set in 1897, Oscar Wilde has just been released from prison after serving his sentence for gross indecency. Separated from his wife and children, he arrives in Dieppe, where old friends Reggie Turner and Robert Ross await him. Now incapable of writing, Oscar takes refuge in Paris, where he lives off his wits and the charity of his old supporters. He finds Bosie, who recently received a large inheritance on the death of his father, but Bosie angrily refuses to help him. Meanwhile, Wilde begins to show strange symptoms he attributes to mussel poisoning, suspecting it may be syphilis. He meets two poor brothers with whom he shares misery, and his illness worsens — he receives a painful surgical operation to treat an abscess in his ear, leading to post-operative infections. With his last strength, Oscar asks for Catholic last rites, and dies surrounded by the few friends he has left.
Cast
- Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde
- Colin Firth as Reggie Turner
- Emily Watson as Constance (Wilde's wife)
- Colin Morgan as Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas
- Edwin Thomas as Robbie Ross
- Tom Wilkinson as Father Dunne
- Anna Chancellor as Mrs. Arbuthnott
- John Standing as Dr. Tucker
- Béatrice Dalle (supporting role)
- Ronald Pickup (supporting role)
Production Principal photography began in mid-September 2016 in Bavaria, Germany, with additional filming in France, Belgium, and Italy. BBC Films and Lionsgate UK were among the co-producers, with Lionsgate also handling UK distribution. Due to budgetary problems, Colin Firth agreed to forego his fee.
The film's score was composed by Gabriel Yared, and the cinematography was handled by John Conroy, who favored autumnal, darkened shades lending the film an elegiac tone throughout.
Title & Structure The film's title alludes to Wilde's own children's story The Happy Prince, which Wilde would read aloud to his children. The film is set within the frame of this celebrated moral fairy tale, laced throughout with Wilde's ironic observations and iconic wit, and draws heavily on quotes from De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
Release It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and was also shown at the 2018 BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival. It was released in Italy on 12 April 2018, in the United Kingdom on 15 June 2018, and in the United States on 10 October 2018.
Critical Reception On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 72% based on 139 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The critical consensus reads: "A passion project for writer, director, and star Rupert Everett, The Happy Prince pays effective tribute to Oscar Wilde with a poignant look at his tragic final days." On IMDB it holds a 6.3/10.
Critics were near-unanimous in praising Everett's performance while being more divided on his direction. Everett's performance was described as "nothing short of astonishing and full of nuances that paint Wilde as both magnificent and grotesque," while Variety noted the film "chronicles Wilde's destitute final years in France as a tangle of memory streams, boozy vignettes and flashbacks within flashbacks, but sometimes loses sight of the man behind the aesthete."
Awards At the 9th Magritte Awards (Belgium's top film honors), it received a nomination for Best Foreign Film.
Where to Watch The film is available to stream on Netflix and is also available on Apple TV and Amazon. It is rated R and runs 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Watch film for free: https://ww8.123moviesfree.net/movie/the-happy-prince-26462/
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WILDE (1997)
Overview
Wilde is a 1997 British biographical romantic drama film directed by Brian Gilbert. The screenplay, written by Julian Mitchell, is based on Richard Ellmann's 1987 biography of Oscar Wilde. It stars Stephen Fry in the title role, with Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle, Gemma Jones, Judy Parfitt, Michael Sheen, Zoë Wanamaker, and Tom Wilkinson in supporting roles.
(Note: the film was actually released in 1997, not 1995.)
Plot Summary
In 1883, Irish-born Oscar Wilde returns to London from a year-long lecture tour of the US and Canada. He meets and marries Constance Lloyd. A few years later, his wit, flamboyance, and creative genius are widely renowned and his literary career has achieved notoriety with the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray. He and Constance have two sons whom they both love very much. Then one evening, Robert Ross, a young Canadian houseguest, seduces Wilde, forcing him to confront the homosexual feelings that have gripped him since childhood. In 1892, on the opening night of his acclaimed play Lady Windermere's Fan, he meets Lord Alfred Douglas — a cocky, dashing, and smart young aristocrat nicknamed Bosie — and begins the passionate, stormy relationship that ultimately consumes and destroys him. Bosie's father, the cantankerous and violent Marquess of Queensberry, libels Wilde, who on Bosie's urging takes him to court.
Wilde was naive about how much leeway he'd be given because of his fame. The Marquess was able to produce in court "rent boys" from a male brothel, who testified that the Marquess was correct in describing Wilde as a sodomite. Wilde was the dandy as superstar; in the years before mass media, he wrote bestsellers and long-running plays, and went on enormously popular lecture tours — but he actually believed he could charm an English courtroom out of a sentence for sodomy.
A recurring narrative device throughout the film sees Wilde reading to his sons from his children's story "The Selfish Giant," grounding his humanity and tenderness against the turbulence of his public downfall.
Cast
- Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde
- Jude Law as Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas
- Jennifer Ehle as Constance Wilde
- Vanessa Redgrave as Lady Wilde (Oscar's mother)
- Michael Sheen as Robert Ross
- Tom Wilkinson as the Marquess of Queensberry
- Gemma Jones as Lady Queensberry
- Judy Parfitt as Lady Mount-Temple
- Zoë Wanamaker as Ada Leverson
Additionally, Orlando Bloom made his film debut in this movie, with a brief appearance as a rent boy.
Stephen Fry as Wilde
The film has the good fortune to star Stephen Fry, a British author, actor, and comedian who looks a lot like Wilde and has many of the same attributes: he is very tall, he is somewhat plump, he is gay, he is funny, and he makes his conversation into an art. The film requires him to show many conflicting aspects of Wilde's life: how he loved his wife and children, how his homosexuality was oriented not so much toward the physical as toward the idealistic, and how he was so successful for so long in charming everyone in his life that he actually believed he could charm an English courtroom out of a sentence for sodomy.
Fry, a gay man who himself struggled to keep his homosexuality secret, brings a depth and an honesty to Wilde that breathes life into his character. His wit soars, but there is beneath it a complex sadness — that in being himself, he is also condemning himself.
In the DVD commentary, Fry admitted he was nervous about the love scenes with his heterosexual co-stars, but said that Jude Law, Michael Sheen, and Ioan Gruffudd were quick to put him at ease.
Jude Law as Bosie
Jude Law is equally good as ornery, demanding lover Bosie. The desire he inspires — visible in Wilde's eyes — makes the whole thing totally believable. In previous portrayals of this relationship on screen, it was difficult to understand why Wilde would go to war for someone like Bosie, but Law makes the most incomprehensible action become totally understandable. This was widely considered the role that launched Jude Law's career internationally.
The Wilde–Bosie Relationship
It is this passionate and stormy relationship which consumed and ultimately destroyed Wilde. Bosie liked to flirt and flaunt. There is a scene in a restaurant where the two men smoke, smile, and hold hands while all of London seems to look on. Bosie did that to shock. Wilde did it because he was a genuinely sweet man who believed in expressing his feelings. Bosie was, if Wilde had only realized it, more interested in his fame than his body.
Production & Filming Locations
Scenes were filmed at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire; Lulworth Cove, Studland Bay, and Swanage Pier in Dorset; Houghton Lodge in Hampshire; Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire; Magdalen College in Oxford; Lincoln's Inn in Holborn; and Somerset House in the Strand. Brothers Marc and Peter Samuelson produced the film in association with Dove International, NDF International, Pony Canyon, Pandora Film, Capitol Films, and BBC Films.
Premiere & Release
The film premiered at the 54th Venice International Film Festival on 1 September 1997, and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 17 October 1997 by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.
Critical Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 50 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The website's consensus reads: "Wilde can't hope to communicate the entirety of its subject's fascinating life or outsize talent, but Stephen Fry's stellar performance offers abundant compensation." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.
Notable individual reviews include Roger Ebert calling it a film that says what can be said about Oscar Wilde: that he was a funny and gifted idealist in a society that valued hypocrisy above honesty — because he could make people laugh, he thought they always would. The New York Times' Janet Maslin praised Fry, writing that he "looks uncannily like Wilde and presents a mixture of superciliousness and vulnerability" and that his "warmly sympathetic performance finds the gentleness beneath the wit."
Awards & Nominations
- Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Stephen Fry, nominated)
- BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jennifer Ehle and Zoë Wanamaker, both nominated)
- Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer (Jude Law, nominated)
- Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Technical/Artistic Achievement (Maria Djurkovic, nominated)
Where to Watch
Wilde is available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Google Play Movies, and YouTube. It is rated R and runs approximately 1 hour and 57 minutes.
Wtach Online for free https://m.ok.ru/video/872654309965
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SALOME'S LAST DANCE (1988)
Overview
Salome's Last Dance is a 1988 British film written and directed by Ken Russell. Although most of the action is a verbatim performance of Oscar Wilde's 1891 play Salomé, which is itself based on a story from the New Testament, there is also a framing narrative written by Russell.
The Premise & Framing Story
Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas arrive late on Guy Fawkes Day in 1892 at their friend Alfred Taylor's brothel, where they are treated to a surprise staging of Wilde's play Salomé, public performances of which have just been banned in England by the Lord Chamberlain's office. In the play, all the roles are performed by prostitutes or their clients, and each person present (except Wilde) plays two roles — one in the brothel and one in the play.
As Salome performs her Dance of the Seven Veils in exchange for the ruin of John the Baptist, life begins to imitate art and the story becomes a mirror of the life of its author.
Plot — The Inner Play
King Herod begs his young stepdaughter Salome to dance for him, promising to give her anything she desires, much to the irritation of her mother, Herodias. Salome demands the head of John the Baptist, who is imprisoned below the palace. After his execution, she is given his severed head on a platter, and in her obsession, kisses his dead lips — an act so disturbing to Herod that he orders her killed.
Plot — The Outer Frame
After the performance, Wilde, Alfred, and Herodias' actress Lady Alice discuss the performance when a policeman arrives to arrest Wilde and Alfred for several acts of indecency. It is implied that Bosie has tipped off the police, jealous of Wilde's tryst with one of the actors in the play. It is then revealed that the young servant playing Salome has actually been murdered at the end of the performance. Lady Alice is taken in as a witness, gleefully stating that the young girl "slipped on a banana skin" as the carriage leaves for the police station.
The Double-Casting Device
A key structural conceit of the film is that the same actors play mirrored roles inside and outside the play. The film parallels Wilde's betrayal by Lord Alfred Douglas (Douglas Hodge) with Salome's betrayal of John the Baptist — also played by Hodge — in the play itself. This draws a direct line between the biblical tragedy and Wilde's real-life downfall.
Cast
- Nickolas Grace as Oscar Wilde
- Glenda Jackson as Herodias / Lady Alice Fitzkensington Windsor
- Stratford Johns as Herod / Alfred Taylor (the brothel owner)
- Imogen Millais-Scott as Salome
- Douglas Hodge as John the Baptist / Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas)
- Denis Lill (supporting role)
- Ken Russell himself appears as a photographer / visiting dignitary
Russell's cameo as a photographer prompted Wilde to remark within the film: "If your acting is as grossly indecent as your photographic studies, Kenneth, we should be in for an outrageous evening."
The Translation
In adapting Wilde's 1893 play, the translation from the original French was done by Vivian Russell, Ken Russell's second wife.
Production & Budget
The film was shot for approximately $800,000 to $1.3 million over a four-week period in London. Ken Russell had been signed by Vestron Pictures to a three-picture deal after the success of Gothic, of which this was the first. Russell later claimed he made the film on a bet that he could not make a movie under $1 million.
The Extraordinary Story of Imogen Millais-Scott
One of the most remarkable behind-the-scenes facts of the film involves its lead actress. Imogen Millais-Scott went blind three weeks before filming after contracting glandular fever, but Russell insisted on still using her. It has been suggested that she was too weak to perform the Dance of the Seven Veils sequence and a body double was used — in fact, a male of similar build performs Salome's dance and at one point flashes male genitalia. Reviews singled Millais-Scott out for praise, noting that her eyes always appear slightly unfocused, which actually made her performance even more surreal and captivating.
Ken Russell's Style & Controversies
Russell is known for his cheerful willingness to involve his actors in embarrassing situations, at whatever cost to their dignity. In Salome's Last Dance there are, for example, three dwarfs dressed as Hassidic Jews sent on stage to mimic behavior, two busty British "Page Three" girls standing in the background of nearly every scene with no visible purpose, and the trickery by which Imogen Millais-Scott as Salome is replaced by a male dancer in one scene so that the character can be revealed as a transvestite.
Themes
More than anything, the film can be read as a story of how men are undone by beauty. Herod is undone by Salome and her mother. The soldier is undone by Salome. Oscar is undone by Bosie. And John the Baptist is spiritually undone by his love of God and then physically undone by Salome. It is that exact male failure and embarrassment with themselves that, in the play, leads to Salome's unnecessary punishment.
Origin of the Idea
The idea started around 1974 when Russell and his then-agent Robert Littman — fortified with a few drinks — called various studios with the idea that Russell could film Lindsay Kemp's drag production of Salome for £120,000. Everyone wanted it until they learned Lindsay was a man in drag. Russell eventually backed out after seeing the play a second time and going cold on it, before reviving the project in the late 1980s through his Vestron Pictures deal.
Critical Reception
Roger Ebert argued that despite the fact the film encompasses almost the entire text of Wilde's play, it seems shapeless and without purpose — that Russell had devised a production without inventing a goal, and that at the end there are some shocks and surprises, some foreshadowing of Wilde's long fall into despair, but they seemed tacked on as a favor to history buffs.
The New York Times called it "a perfumed, comic stunt," but noted that "Russell forces one to attend to — and to discover the odd glory in — the Wilde language, which on the printed page works faster than Valium." The Los Angeles Times called it "languid and tedious." However, many cult film followers and Russell devotees regard it as a deeply unique and rewarding experience. It currently holds a 6.4/10 on IMDB.
Legacy & Availability
Salome's Last Dance is a difficult but surprisingly melancholy and mature take on the methodical literary madness of Oscar Wilde — and it would be nice if fans who crowd around Russell's most salacious work showed the same interest in this film. The DVD went long out of print and was available only from private sellers on Amazon for $200–$400, making it one of the harder Russell films to track down. It is rated R and runs 1 hour and 29 minutes, and is currently available on Apple TV.
watch here for free; https://archive.org/details/salomes-last-dance-1988-dvdrip
Here is the most comprehensive list possible of every medium in which Oscar Wilde has appeared as a character:
FILMS (BIOGRAPHICAL — WILDE AS HIMSELF)
- Oscar Wilde (1960) — Robert Morley as Wilde, directed by Gregory Ratoff
- The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) — Peter Finch as Wilde, directed by Ken Hughes
- Salome's Last Dance (1988) — Nickolas Grace as Wilde, directed by Ken Russell
- Wilde (1997) — Stephen Fry as Wilde, directed by Brian Gilbert
- The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) — Rupert Everett stars; framed with Wilde as a character watching a production of his own play
- The Happy Prince (2018) — Rupert Everett as Wilde, written and directed by Everett
FILMS (WILDE-INSPIRED CHARACTERS)
(Characters directly based on or referencing Wilde)
- Patience (1884 Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, later filmed) — the character Bunthorne is widely understood as a satire of Wilde
- Dorian Gray (2009) — Ben Barnes; though Wilde himself doesn't appear, the film is steeped in his persona
TELEVISION
- Oscar Wilde (BBC, 1960) — early TV dramatization starring Peter Wyngarde as Wilde
- The Canterville Ghost (BBC, 1986) — John Gielgud; Wilde is referenced/framed as author
- The Canterville Ghost (1996) — Patrick Stewart version
- The Canterville Ghost (1997) — Ian Richardson version
- Murdoch Mysteries — Oscar Wilde appears as a character in Seasons 3 and 7, with posters for The Importance of Being Earnest visible throughout later seasons as a recurring background detail.
- Doctor Who — Oscar Wilde was a good friend of the Paternoster Gang and encountered the Doctor on several occasions throughout his lifetime. By the Doctor's tenth incarnation, he was considered an old friend, appearing in comics, prose, and audio stories across the expanded Doctor Who universe.
- The Simpsons — Oscar Wilde's ghost appears in the episode "Father Knows Worst," voiced by Hank Azaria, coming outside Westminster Abbey (humorously incorrect, as his actual tomb is in Paris). He is also mentioned in the episode "Luca$", and in a story told by Homer, Edna Krabappel goes to marry Oscar Wilde who is in town on a book tour.
- Penny Dreadful (Showtime, 2014–2016) — Wilde himself does not appear, but the series draws heavily upon Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray as a central character, played by Reeve Carney.
- Garth & Bev (Australian comedy series) — Wilde appears as a recurring character
- The BBC miniseries on Oscar Wilde (1985) — a full television dramatization of his life
VIDEO GAMES
- The Simpsons: Tapped Out (mobile game) — Oscar Wilde is a playable character in the mobile game The Simpsons: Tapped Out, listed under "More Foreigners."
- Illusion Connect (mobile gacha game) — the gacha game Illusion Connect features a character named Camille who is directly linked to and inspired by Oscar Wilde.
- Various text-adventure and visual novel games feature Wilde as an NPC or historical figure
COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS
- The Simpsons Comics — Wilde appears in the Simpsons comic story It Came from the '70s, and is mentioned in the comic story Wilde at Heart!
- Doctor Who Comics — Wilde appears in the Doctor Who comic stories Bat Attack! and Dead Man's Hand.
- Numerous graphic novel adaptations of The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest feature Wilde as a framing narrator
- Oscar Wilde graphic biography illustrated editions — published by various presses including a notable illustrated biography by Antonio Muñoz Degrain
- The Importance of Being Earnest: A Graphic Novel (various publishers)
WEBCOMICS
- Wilde Life (webcomic by Pascalle Lepas) — a long-running webcomic whose main character is a writer named Oscar Wilde — not the historical figure, but a modern young man named after him who moves to a small Oklahoma town and befriends a ghost named Sylvia, encountering supernatural events. The comic ran for years with a dedicated fanbase.
SONGS (WHERE WILDE IS NAMED OR IS THE DIRECT SUBJECT)
- "Oscar Wilde" — Company of Thieves (2009, from the album Ordinary Riches) — an indie rock song directly titled after and inspired by Wilde, whose album title Ordinary Riches also came from Wilde's essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism.
- "Oscar Wilde Gets Out" — Elton John (from The Diving Board, 2013) — inspired by The Ballad of Reading Gaol, this was the first track Elton recorded for the album after Bernie Taupin gave him the lyrics.
- "Dark Entries" — Bauhaus (1980) — directly tells the story of Dorian Gray, the title character of Wilde's only novel.
- "Resist" — Rush — the line "I can resist everything except temptation" is a direct paraphrase of a Wilde quote from Lady Windermere's Fan.
- "The Ocean" — U2 — Dorian Gray is directly mentioned in the lyrics: "A picture in grey. Dorian Gray. Just me by the sea."
- "So Light is Her Footfall" — Air — inspired by Wilde
- "Broken Love Song" — Pete Doherty — quotes a stanza from The Ballad of Reading Gaol on his solo album Grace/Wastelands.
- "We Love You" — The Rolling Stones — the promotional film for this song was based on the film The Trials of Oscar Wilde, with Mick Jagger as Wilde and Marianne Faithfull as Bosie.
- "Nachtigall Und Rose" — Saltatio Mortis (2011) — a German medieval metal retelling of Wilde's fairy tale The Nightingale and the Rose.
- "Salome" — Stormwitch (2004) — directly inspired by Wilde's eroticized interpretation of the Salomé story from his 1891 play.
- "True Friends" — Bring Me the Horizon — the chorus line comes directly from an Oscar Wilde quote.
- "Nothing to Say" — Peter Brötzmann (1996) — a jazz suite explicitly dedicated to Oscar Wilde by German avant-garde saxophonist Peter Brötzmann.
STAGE MUSICALS (WHERE WILDE APPEARS AS A CHARACTER)
- Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (1997 play by Moisés Kaufman) — Wilde as central character
- The Judas Kiss (David Hare play, 1998; revived 2012 with Rupert Everett) — Wilde as protagonist
- Oscar Wilde: A Life in Quotes — one-man stage show
- Earnest: The Musical — musical adaptation featuring Wilde as narrator/character
- Salomé — numerous stage productions casting Wilde as framing presence
NOTABLE OMISSIONS / NOTES
Oscar Wilde does not appear to have been a character in any major mainstream commercial video game to date outside of The Simpsons: Tapped Out and gacha games. His works and characters (Dorian Gray in particular) appear far more frequently than Wilde himself as a playable or named character in games.
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