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DVD Review by John Demetry
Who's Afraid of Oscar Wilde? The Criterion Collection has just released
Anthony Asquith's 1952 film adaptation of Wilde's The Importance of Being
Earnest on DVD. It makes a valuable addition to any DVD collection; it
invites repeated enjoyment.
Criterion should be commended for its perfect timing. Oliver Parker's 2002 film remakes Wilde's play into an abomination - one of the most hurtful movie experiences I've ever known. In the 1952 Earnest, each line of dialogue gets funnier - produces vibrations. There's very little music in the 2002 film, which only gets increasingly sinister. It is Parker's insidious project with the 2002 film to destroy culture, history, art, and humanity. The Criterion DVD restores those values so integral to Wilde's visionary perspective on identity. To suggest the import of the 1952 Earnest as both cultural object and entertainment, let me relay a friend's reminiscence concerning the movie:
After Jack (in the guise of Ernest) proposes to her, Gwendolyn exclaims: "What wonderfully blue eyes you have, Ernest! They are quite, quite blue. I hope you will always look at me just like that, especially when there are other people present." Only cinema could put us in the eternal presence of Redgrave's brilliant blues. Redgrave and the rest of the players assembled for the 1952 Earnest must be the dream cast for Wilde's play. This needed to be preserved - like a valise in a bell jar. Especially in the face of the 2002 film's "some-of-my-best-friends-are-homos" cast. In addition to his baby blues, Redgrave delivers each line with a sparkling enunciation - bouncing from the offensive to the defensive, from wooer to warrior. That kindles the incredible chemistry he shares with sultry Joan Greenwood as Gwendolyn, purring some of Wilde's finest dialogue. You have got to hear the way she pronounces "cake" when her feelings have been hurt! That moment occurs during the cultivated catfight between Gwendolyn and Cecily (Dorothy Tutin). Cecily is Jack's ward and the fiancé of Algernon - also pretending to be Jack's imaginary brother Ernest. As Algernon, Michael Denison might be plucked from the gallery of Hitchock homos - a significant pop archetype. Denison's perverse sophisticate melts before Tutin - all wide-eyed hedonism in her film debut. She is very fond of being looked at, and it is a joy to look at her. Cecily and Gwendolyn believe they are both engaged to the same Ernest. (Hilarity ensues.) Sample dialogue: Gwendolyn: Do you allude to me, Miss Cardew, as an entanglement? You are presumptuous. On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure. Cecily: Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. Gwendolyn: I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different. Tea is served! Note the way class satire and themes of social performance are so effortlessly intertwined into dialogue that any actor would kill to deliver. (The 2002 cast kills Wilde in the process.) Few could give readings as pleasurably - and yes, morally - as Asquith's 1952 cast. The pleasure of performance is Wilde's morality; artifice is his road to truth. "That is what fiction means." Asquith knows it - instinctively.
Rupert Everett and Judi Dench in the 2002 version of Earnest
The interaction of this foursome - made sensual by Asquith's color-coded costumes and flirtatious two-shots - suggests ways of living (and loving) that are still radical. As Lady Bracknell, Dame Edith Evans is the ideal antagonist and obstacle - a delicious, eyes-rolling, trumpet-throated satirical portrait. She doesn't go to the camera - like a spectator with binoculars at a play, the camera comes to her! In the new film, boring Judi Dench - with her climactic shit-faced grin, capitulating to cynicism - can't carry Dame Evans' jockstrap! The 2002 film merely trades in sitcom sarcasm. Following a "gay scare" joke, Parker turns the final revelation of Jack's history - that Ernest is his real name - into a lie. "It's only a movie," right? No way! Parker's alteration in the 2002 film represents a calculated, reactionary assault on the freedom promised by Wilde's dream of a gay avant-garde and on a century of Queer activism and art. With the curtain's fall at the end of the 1952 film - completing Wilde's perfect geometry - director Asquith restores that freedom to the spectator. Asquith - unlike Parker and those who acclaim his film in 2002 - understands that the importance of being earnest is vital. There is good reason for some to be afraid of Oscar Wilde. Check out the Criterion DVD to find out why. |
