Script vs Film

[vardathemessage]

The script originally has the film open with the line "For Oscar Wilde, posing as a sodomite." which was written on a calling card* from the Marquis of Queensberry, the father of Oscar's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie). It was the symbolic beginning of the end for Oscar.

So using this line to introduce the film serves as both a dedication to Oscar Wilde and a reminder that accusing someone of being gay can change history - as we'll see in our story.

Here is the original, with its misspelling of 'somdomite'. It was used to implicate Wilde at his trial in 1895.

*in the days before telephones, answering machines and voice mail, people left their calling cards, with their name engraved like business cards as evidence of their visit.

Comments

[velvetspur.livejournal.com]

Great info link on the calling cards! As a reader of Wharton and James, I've always been fascinated with how these little bits of social set terror were used to show superiority, disapproval, and even just good social form.

What is interesting is that Oscar's tormentor was actually going against form to write on the card. Those who know would simply bend and fold the cards in certain ways to indicate the nature of the call; friendly, duty, etc.

Subtlety's not his middle name.

[vardathemessage.livejournal.com]

Apparently being an aristocrat is not the same as being a gentleman. The Marquis of Queensberry was "a hotheaded Scotsman who was prone to violence. It could have been because he was punch drunk; Queensberry was a champion pugilist and created rules of boxing still in use today. He tended to settle things by fist and gun. He was well known for abusing his wife and children and had even brawled openly with one son in downtown London. The marquess was an avowed and belligerent atheist who saw nothing wrong with disrupting services by shouting. Once he disrupted the premiere of a play that he felt too pious and in front of the Prince of Wales attempted to whip a cabinet minister because he feared the man was courting his oldest son." More about him and the whole trial of Oscar Wilde at Court TV's fascinating Crime Library.