Belated comments on "Wilde": I finally saw this movie
and can now only recall with disdain some of the adverse comments
several cretinous British critics had made about Stephen Fry
(about a year ago). They claimed they couldn't recognise any
Oscar Wilde in Fry's performance.Not only was I convinced that Fry did a bravura job, but I
thought he captured perfectly what I have always considered to be
the spirit and essence of Oscar Wilde: the uncanny mixture of
levity and nobility, the coexistence of frivolity and dignity.
Wilde the aesthete & raconteur & mannerist, the
intellectual celebrator of the light and the bon vivant, never
lapsed as one might expect into the complacency & decadence
of the fin-de-siècle. Underneath all his witticisms and
ultra-polished manners, there was a core of profound earnestness.
A refutation of Allan Bloom.
I think this aspect of Wilde was crystallised for me in Fry's
confrontation with Queensbury. He had earlier worked his charm on
the thug, but when his house is invaded by the Marquess bent on
his destruction, Fry displays genuine fright and thus genuine
courage. Almost trembling, he seems to draw from his well-spring
of earnestness to proclaim: "You are the least tender father
in all of London".
