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As Dorian's portraitist observed in The Picture of Dorian Gray,
while hardly anyone in the House of Commons was worth painting, many "would
be the better for a little white-washing".
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This is the treatment House member Sir Robert Chiltern (Jeremy Northam),
worshipped by his wife Gertrude (Cate Blanchett) as an ideal husband, seems
to need when blackmailer Mrs. Cheveley (Julianne Moore) proposes to tell
the newspapers how he founded his fortune by selling a Cabinet secret to a
stock market speculator.
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This is exciting stuff, promising to grip the audience as Oscar Wilde works
through a variation on his frequent theme of the real truths which lie
beneath the masks of public appearances.
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But in Oliver Parker's (much shortened) adaptation, the "feet of clay" which
Oscar has Sir Robert tell Gertrude everyone has, seem to have turned to
lead, weighing down the cast as they labour under Parker's direction, the
whole effect further slowed down by the editing's numerous late cuts.
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While the role of Lady Markby is the biggest casualty in Parker's cuts, his
screen treatment makes some sense in opening up the play to set dialogue
against some of the off-screen events Oscar refers to -- characters don't just
talk about riding in Hyde Park or going to a party featuring Hungarian
musicians, they deliver their dialogue in those settings; and Sir Robert's
crucial House of Commons speech -- will he give in to blackmail or
not? -- benefits from Parker's invention.
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Some of his choices make less sense, as when two characters make an
unmotivated cross to reverse their positions in a two-shot; or, when a
character leaves a room, we get an unmotivated overhead shot of the action.
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Other additions are for the benefit of Oscariana fans: at the home of
Lord Goring (Rupert Everett), Mrs. Cheveley notices a copy of The Yellow
Book, with an Aubrey Beardsley cover; Vicomte de Nanjac is played
by Nickolas Grace, who played Oscar Wilde in Ken Russell's Salome's Last
Dance; characters attend a performance of The Importance of Being
Earnest, where the author's famous speech to the audience is
delivered by actor Michael Culkin, looking amazingly like Oscar; and Parker
imports various Wildean observations from other sources.
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Parker also chooses to set An Ideal Husband in 1895, a momentous
year for Oscar, with the premiere of that play in January, followed by the
premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest in February, and, the
next month, Oscar's fatal decision to sue the Marquess of Queensberry for
criminal libel.
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Although The Importance of Being Earnest, like a number of Alan
Ayckbourne's plays, seems pretty well actor-proof, it appears from Parker's
version that An Ideal Husband needs greater care with casting if
Oscar's characters are to come alive and their concerns absorb the audience.
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The experience of John Wood, as Goring's father, the Earl of Caversham, and
Peter Vaughan, as Goring's manservant Phipps, ensures that they truly give
support in these supporting roles. The casting of the main roles, naturally
with an eye to the box-office, produces problems of characterisation and
pace which are compounded, not only by the direction and editing, but by the
emphasis on historical exactitude in the costumes. The burden of enacting a
"classic" in an historical milieu seems to have sapped the energy of all the
leads, who generally move carefully -- at the director's behest, of
course -- but the women, especially, in their foreign finery.
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The array of 1890s styles, colours, and fabrics provided by costume designer
Caroline Harris is impressive, but the detail, which "atomises" the viewer's
attention (as Roland Barthes once warned) ultimately distracts from what's
going on in the story. If the director had chosen a more stylised
impression of the period, this greater freedom may have transmitted itself
to Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, and Minnie Driver, and shown up in more
vital performances.
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But here, as Barthes would lament, they don't seem able to transcend their
"veristic costume". As Oscar himself observed on this topic: "costumes, of
course, they are to the designer; but dresses they should be to those that
wear them"; and the female leads seem distant from, rather than at home in,
the costume that encloses them.
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And distance -- from their characters -- also affects Jeremy Northam as
Chiltern, and Rupert Everett as Goring. Northam gives little hint of the
qualities which make Chiltern such an idol to his wife; Everett, with most
of the best lines, settles for Goring's affectation of superficiality
without suggesting his real depths.
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A little bit of Oscar is better than none at all; but in the year which
marks the centenary of the publication of An Ideal Husband, what we
need is a production which conveys something of its initial impact. This
would be a tall order for a second recent film version of the play, which
director William Cartlidge sets in the 1990s, and which we have yet to see
here.
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Details
An Ideal Husband, by 20th Century Fox 1999.
Director: Oliver Parker.
Screenplay: Oliver Parker, based on the play by Oscar Wilde.
Cinematography: David Johnson.
Production Design: Michael Howells.
Costume Design: Caroline Harris.
Editing: Guy Bensley.
Cast: Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Jeremy Northam, Cate Blanchett, Minnie Driver, John Wood, Peter Vaughan.
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Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Shane Lewis. "All Have Feet of Clay: 'An Ideal Husband'." M/C Reviews 24 Oct. 99.
[your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/husband.html>.
Chicago style:
Shane Lewis, "All Have Feet of Clay: 'An Ideal Husband'," M/C Reviews 24 Oct. 99,
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/husband.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Shane Lewis. (1999) All Have Feet of Clay: 'An Ideal Husband'. M/C Reviews 24 Oct. 99.
<http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/screen/husband.html> ([your date of access]).
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![[image]](http://www.miramax.com/ows-img/idealhusband_mp.gif)