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What Oscar Wilde himself would have thought about adapting his plays into movies or indeed what he would have thought about movies in general is something to titillate the imagination.
Oscar Wilde reserved some of his most scornful shafts for his American cousins who failed to treat him with the deference he thought was his due when he condescended to visit that country in 1883. His famous remark to the customs officials on debarking at New York "I’ve nothing to declare except my genius" set him off on a wrong foot and his outrageous sartorial get-up, flowing locks, knee-length breeches and silk stockings with a cornflower or a lily ostentatiously tucked into his coat lapel aroused derisive hoots wherever he went. Indeed, it was precisely this reaction that D’oyle Carte, his manager, was counting on for he was using Wilde as a sort of "trailer" for his forthcoming production in America of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience. The central character of this play was Bunthrope, a super aesthetic poet whose masquerades and antics drove London "wilde." New York found the pretensions of the original Oscar as outrageous as that of Bunthorope. In Boston, the student body turned up ‘en masse’ in exaggerated versions of Wilde’s costume. At a party later, a nettled Wilde told his host, "You Americans are philistines who’ve invaded the sacred temple of Art" and the host riposted, "And you’re striving to drive us forth with the jaw bone of an ass." At the same party, a rather silly young woman confided to Wilde. "I never travel without my diary." "Quite the right thing to do," said Wilde approvingly, "one must always have something sensational to read on the train." Not the one to waste choice lines, Wilde later incorporated this dialogue in The Importance of Being Earnest. Upon his return following his disastrous tour, Wilde insisted, "America was really discovered by a dozen people before Columbus, but it was always successfully hushed up" and followed it up with two other oft-quoted allies — "Democracy means bludgeoning of the people for the people by the people" and "when good Americans die they go to Paris. When bad Americans die, they go to America." As an instance of American "justice", Wilde cited the trial of an alleged horse-thief in an American western town. The jury deliberated for over four hours and returned with a verdict of "guilty." "Correct, but tardy," announced the Judge, "what took you boys so long? We strung up the prisoner an hour ago." Wilde’s celebrated feud with artist J.M Whistler was somewhat synthetic. In between bouts, they were frequent companions; their verbal blasts were sounded with one eye on publicity. The most celebrated quote is: "Whistler, I wish had said that" by Oscar Wilde to which Whistler replied, "You will, Oscar, you will." The flood of diaries and autobiographies by military bigwigs following World War II brings to mind Wilde’s post-script to a report by a notoriously inefficient British General during the Boer War. "We returned without wasting a single bullet or a soldier", he boasted "Nor a minute" added Wilde. A writer excused a hack work he had turned out by explaining lamely, "After all, a person has to live". "In your case" snapped Wilde, "I entirely fail to see the reason. Wilde’s brilliant literary career was shattered in 1895 when the Marquess of Queensberry accused him of having an improper relationship with his son Lord Alfred Douglas. Wild recklessly sued Queensberry, but the charges were proved true and Wilde was sentenced to three years imprisonment in the Reading Gaol. Upon his release, he went to France. He was broken in spirit and health by his incarceration and poverty stricken and his Parisian landlord took pity on him and allowed him to stay rent free. "My great tragedy," he mourned, "is that I put my genius into my life and only my talent into my works." He was deserted by his former friends and sycophants, including Douglas. When he lay dying, evidently in a coma, a lone friend appeared at his bedside. "Who on earth is going to put up the money for the poor devil’s funeral?" the landlord wondered and the friend could offer no suggestion. Wilde’s eyes flickered for a moment and he said feebly, "Gentlemen, I’m afraid I’m dying beyond my means." Some exit line, that.
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