Out Takes

25 Jun 2016

Wild(e) for Oscar

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This week on OUT TAKES we plunged into the decadent world of Wildean representation and looked at the fertile ground that Oscar Wilde’s work has furnished for film makers all over the world.

We took as our starting point Brendan Fletcher’s haunting new film, THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE, which features as the centre piece of a new exhibition at ACMI: Del Kathryn Barton – The Nightingale and the Rose. It breathes vivid new life into one of Wilde’s most ironic short stories, and boasts an exciting cast of local talent.

We also look at the breadth of films to re-imagine THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY – some well, and some not so well. The Faustian pact at the heart of Wilde’s classic, and its mediations on beauty, aestheticism, art and decadence, have furnished inspiration for numerous films and tv series – but how many actually do justice to the gothic (and homoerotic) undertones of Wilde’s classic? And what about the films that re-imagine Wilde’s life and the trial that led to his imprisonment? We look at the body of Wilde biopics that pay homage to the playwright’s life. From THE TRIAL OF OSCAR WILDE (1960) to WILDE (1997) these are films that strongly evoke life in Victorian England when same sex acts of intimacy were outlawed, and male desire taboo.

Essential viewing: THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (Dir. Albert Lewin, 1945).

Hungry for more: OSCAR WILDE’S THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE (Dir. Brendan Fletcher, 2016).