Wilde Salomé
***
Dir: Al Pacino. With: Al Pacino, Jessica
Chastain, Kevin Anderson. 95 mins. Cert: 15.
The documentary
accompanying Salomé sets
about its task with a recognisably protean energy we might call Pacinoid.
Historical biography is peppered with snapshots of the inherent craziness of
simultaneously staging a play, filming the play, and then making a making-of of
the filming; dramatisations of Wilde’s final days of freedom, featuring Jack
Huston as Bosie and Pacino in a dead-badger wig as Oscar, jostle with literary
powwows (Stoppard on Bosie: “He was a shit”) and – Bono warning – the thoughts
of Bono. Too much chaos ultimately prevails, but the rehearsal sequences at
least forsake vapid luvvieisms for close, instructive study of how to pull the
best out of actors and text alike. As in 1996’s Looking for Richard, Pacino makes a funny, inquisitive,
self-mocking guide, whether dragging camels through the desert or pointing
finger guns at Scarface-quoting
students: we may now be able to forgive him those godawful broadband adverts.
Wilde Salomé screens with Salomé, and a Pacino-Stephen Fry Q&A, in selected cinemas this Sunday.
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