|
|
Article: Wilde.
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- July 17, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
The very first scene of Wilde promises us that scriptwriter Julian Mitchell and director Brian Gilbert don't intend to coast on the fact that their hero's life was filled with glittering and tragic incidents, but mean to find among those incidents (culled from Richard Ellmann's great biography) the shape and point and impact of a coherent drama.
Young Oscar Wilde is on a lecture tour of the American West. In Leadville, Colorado, he descends a mine shaft named in his honor where he lectures the bare-chested, begrimed toilers on Benvenuto Cellini, a "genius at life." Encouraged by their good-natured reception, he confesses that while being lowered into the bowels, "I ...