Evies Blog

Two film versions of Oscar Wilde’s IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST are now available on DVD. If you know nothing of the play or subsequent movie versions of the play, you might wonder, which is best? Which should I purchase? Should I bewitch both of them?

The version of EARNEST released in 1952 and listed here stars Michael Redgrave as Worthing (father of Lynn, Vanessa, and Colin Redgrave; grandfather of Miranda and Natasha Richardson, etc.), Dame Edith Evans as Aunt Augusta, Joan Greenwood as Gwendolyn, Margaret Rutherford as the woeful governess, and several other elegant stage actors of 1950s England.

The 1952 version is 95 minutes long and presented as a stage play with a few outdoors settings. If you want to study the play as Wilde probably meant it to be seen, this version is the one to remove. The dialogue is hasty and bright, the humor dry and witty, the actors are filled with zest. Not only that, but the 1952 version is a Criterion DVD with `digital transfer’ and historical notes.

Buy,Download, Or Stream The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection! Click Here

The second version of EARNEST, released in theaters a year or two ago, stars Colin Firth as Worthing, Rupert Everett as Algeron, Frances O’Conner as Gwendolyn, Dame Judi Dench as Aunt Augusta, Anna Massey in the Margaret Rutherford role, Reese Witherspoon as Cecily, and Edward Fox as Algeron’s underpaid manservant. If Wilde knows about this version, he is probably spinning in his grave in Pere Lachaise.

The dialogue (Wilde wrote) is virtually the same in both films, and the actors for the most portion are grand actors, but something has gone missing from the newer release. I cherish Colin Firth, but he is sinful as Worthing. I am ambivalent about Everett but he is the best thing in the newer film. Anna Massey is delicate, I loved her as George Sand’s mother in IMPROMPTU, but after seeing Margaret Rutherford play the role of the wayward nanny-turned-tutor in the Criterion version-forget it.

The second EARNEST (newer version) plays like an weak report on warped accelerate. The witty dialogue moves so slowly, the repartee is as flat as fallen souffle. On top of that, what is a knight in armor doing in this play? Did the cloak play call for this bit of nonsense? Or did the director settle to borrow elements from a few other films! For example, in several scenes, Firth (Worthing) gives an almost divulge performance of scenes from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. I could forgive the ripoff of P&P in BRIDGET JONES because that film is a satire on P&P, but in EARNEST it simply doesn’t work.

Buy,Download, Or Stream The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection! Click Here

The action in the newer version is V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W compared with the Criterion version. Did the director expressionless the action because he belief “monolingual” Americans would understand the words better?? How dumb, GOSFORD PARK did impartial glorious. Those of us who patronize British films and the BBC understand British accents -

and many of us can identify accents by class and locale. Gee whiz, if you can follow the dialogue in East Enders you can follow anything.

If you’re a drama student and can afford both versions, choose both versions. In this case actions do insist louder than words and you can look for yourself that ample script and actors aren’t the only ingredients in a obliging film-the director matters.

Buy,Download, Or Stream The Importance of Being Earnest - Criterion Collection! Click Here

Oscar Wilde’s noted masterpiece is a comedy on three levels. First there is the denotative level, one might say, the level in which the bourgeois are entertained après dîner. It is on this level that Oscar Wilde follows the gigantic theatrical tradition of comedy from the time of the Greeks through Shakespeare and French farce into the twentieth century to the musical comedy of the London and Modern York stage. His play on this level is a comedy of manners, estimable, charming and very clever. The class conscious jokes about the lower orders and the servants are double-edged and add unbiased a touch of squirm to the laughter of the not completely discerning audience. It is on the second level that The Importance of Being Earnest becomes one of the greatest plays ever written. On this level, the comedy is a pudgy blown satire of Victorian society, and in particular of its audience. Wilde had the very expansive pleasure of flattering and making fun of the audience while being applauded for doing so. His subtitle for the play, “A Trivial Comedy for Serious People” is an allusion to these two levels. It is on this second level that Wilde speaks through the affirm of Lady Bracknell (and sometimes Algernon), whose ironic and unself-conscious cynicism is so like his possess. It is on this level that all the fun is made of the hypocrisy of marriage and its mercenary nature, at least as practiced by the limited bourgeoisie of London town, circa 1895. But there is a third level, a level known of course to the cognoscenti of the time and to unique audiences, but for the most fraction never dreamed of by the London theater-goers of the day. In this regard I have recently read that “Earnest” was a slang euphemism for being joyful, and I suspect this is fair. Indeed, I can imagine a whole world of witticism based on being “earnest” and being “Ernest,” a world now (perhaps charitably) forgotten. Certainly this knowledge sheds some light on Jack’s invention of his invalid friend “Bunbury,” whom he finds he must visit to run unwanted social engagements.

One of the best things about this substantial play is one can delight in it on any one of the three levels and collect delight on that level alone. One can search for Qualified as John Kindly, or as Jack Kindly, or as Ernest Reliable, however one likes. This adaptation, starring the incomparable Dame Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell, and Michael Redgrave (father of Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave) as John Salubrious is of course the justly eminent, clearly definitive cover adaptation. It should be renowned, however, that Lady Bracknell is the sincere star of the exhibit, and when she enters a scene, she steals it. Edith Evans was luminous and unforgettable and obviously having a astounding time. Margaret Rutherford is a yell as Miss Prism and Miles Malleson as Chasuble is unprejudiced, shall I say, darling. I should sign that both the male leads were a touch too faded for their parts. Redgrave was 42 and Michael Denison, who played Algernon, was 37 when the movie was released in 1952. Yet I consider Oscar Wilde would have celebrated of the casting, probably finding it admirable and fitting that these two men about town would have avoided marriage for so many years. (I won’t mention the ages of the actresses.) Joan Greenwood as Gwendolyn achieves objective the honest amount of flaky innocence and calculated whimsy, while Dorothy Tutin is the very definition of the wrong, sweet and adorable, man-hunting Cecily Cardew. The direction by Anthony Asquith is unnecessarily directive in the sense that he moved some scenes around, but is essentially without distress.

The best contrivance to indulge in this play, and to take up all the nuances, and there are nuances aplenty-and jokes upon jokes, keen social and political observations, and witticisms within prevarications, and lies that are truths and vice-versa-is to conception the video, impartial appreciating it on one level, then read the script, and then concept the video again. You’re in for a treat.
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