Director and Screenwriter Oliver Parker, who has worked extensively as an actor, and theatre and film director, has adapted two important stageplays to the big screen: in 1995, Parker directed his adaptation of Othello and was also responsible for the success of the highly acclaimed hit An Ideal Husband, which he adapted and directed from Oscar Wilde's play, and was nominated for two Golden Globes and three BAFTAs.
     "Oscar Wilde must be one of the funniest writers of all time. He was funny a hundred years ago as a modern writer, and he's no less funny now, nor indeed any less modern.
     In fact, I'd call him eternally modern. The freshness of his wit and vision remains breathtaking; and the fact that behind the glittering surface lies an enormous humanity is genuinely inspiring. True to the paradoxes that he is master of, Wilde is never more insightful nor profound than when his touch is at it's lightest.
     So here's a story that is, as Wilde described it, a 'delicate bubble of fancy.' The ad - it seems - is as light as air, no matter that all the while it challenges our prejudices and berates our intolerance, It touches on themes of identity and social injustice without ever breaking sweat.
     What I hope to do is capture the spirit and energy of the original and bring to it a contemporary vision and sensibility. There seems to me to be great opportunities on film to bring out and develop some of the play's latent qualities. It has been a very happy surprise in the making of the film to see how some scenes turned out to be more moving than I'd imagined. This is, I believe, because while film can lend scale to storytelling, it also allows a greater intimacy and insight into its characters' lives.
     As a story of mistaken identity and incredible revelations, its roots in Shakespeare and Restoration Comedy are intentionally clear; but I am particularly intrigued by its specific relationship to A Midsummer Night's Dream. In both stories there are lovers escaping the rigours of the city. In the dream they enter the woods, while here the countryside is a land where anything seems possible, where love, the great transformer, is on the loose.
     In developing this, I wanted to shed a little light on the fears and fantasies of the characters. I enjoy the chance to hint at the hysteria beneath some of these repressed Victorians, to highlight the strange passions that drive the women to insist on a certain Christian name for their loved ones. In fact, I sometimes see this story as a demand for the respect of other people's desires, however lunatic or ridiculous they may be.
     Performances are clearly crucial in a piece such as this. I was keen to assemble a cast that would be undaunted by the language, whose individual charm would bring pathos to scenes that can become brittle. I was after actors whose quick wits would make the insanely witty dialogue seem, well, almost natural.

     Overall, what fuels my enthusiasm for this project is Wilde's great generosity of spirit and his desire to entertain. And what I wish for, is that we can pass some of this pleasure on."

The Importance of Oscar Wilde
     The Importance Of Being Earnest was written at the very height of Oscar Wilde's fame. Since leaving Oxford University and moving to London in 1878, the Dublin-born writer had established himself as a great wit, publishing many plays, essays and poems. Wilde was approaching his 39th birthday when, in 1893, he wrote the play while on vacation.
     The play opened at the St James's Theatre on Valentine's Day, 1895, and was an immediate success. This was tainted, however, by Wilde's decision to pursue a libel case against the Marquis of Queensberry, who had publicly rebuked the writer for his increasingly open homosexual affairs.
     Within months, the tables turned and Wilde himself was in the dock, charged with acts of 'gross indecency'.
     The Importance of Being Earnest rapidly turned from a major success into a major embarrassment. First Wilde's name was removed from the front of the theatre, then on May 8th the production closed entirely. Less than three weeks later, on May 25th, Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years' behind bars.
     He was a broken man, and after such a prolific period, he felt disinclined to write. The works that he did produce in this period were melancholy and moving, with little of his effervescent wit.
     By 1899, his health had started to fail him, and Wilde could see the end was coming. His wits had not deserted him, however, and on October 2911, 1900, after a night out with friends that taxed his rapidly fading strength, he acknowledged that he was not long for this world. "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death," he said. "One or the other of us has to go." A month later, on November 30, the wallpaper emerged victorious.

From Stage to Screen

     More than a century after his death, the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde remains as relevant as ever. No one knows this more than director Oliver Parker, who first brought Wilde to film audiences with his lauded adaptation of An Ideal Husband in 1999: I was incredibly encouraged by the way Wilde's work has such a contemporary feel," he explains. "The humour really hasn't dimmed in any way - a century on and his wit still has the same spark."
      The Importance of Being Earnest began with a conversation between Harvey Weinstein, Oliver Parker and producer Barnaby Thompson at the Los Angeles premiere of An Ideal Husband. The premiere screening audience reaction had been overwhelmingly positive, and the filmmakers immediately pondered their next collaboration. Earnest was the obvious choice. It seemed to be the next logical step," Thompson says, recalling the meeting.
     The Importance of Being Ernest was last brought to the screen in 1952 by director Sir Anthony Asquith. Aware that comparisons could be made with Asquith's memorable adaptation, Parker set out to create a unique visual style.
     "I liked the idea of giving it another airing with a more modern, cinematic approach," explains Parker. It seemed a good opportunity to draw it out into something with more scale and dimension. When adapting the script it was important to me that we remained true to Wilde's writing while presenting it as naturally as possible."
     These minor changes began with the screenplay. Parker remained faithful to the well-known three-act version of Wilde's work, though he also dipped into the little-staged four act version that Wilde originally wrote and later revised. Parker used this version primarily to enhance some of the characters.
     "I've taken some of the dialogue from the four act version to bolster the Chasuble/Prism romance." he explains. 'It's nice to have another angle on the romantic stories that weave through the whole piece."
     "I would say the script is 96 per cent Wilde," Thompson jokes. "Oliver's primary focus was opening it out, making it cinematic and making it visual."
     "As an adapter of the work," says Thompson, "Oliver's incredibly in tune with Oscar Wilde, in the sense of getting into his head and saying, 'Okay, if Wilde was writing this as a script for a movie, how would he express it? What kind of attitude would he have to it?' But to be a good director, there are two more things that you need: one is to know what you want and the other is to know how to get it. Oliver's background as an actor has really helped him to understand how to talk to actors and how to get them to do the things that he wants them to do - but also give them the confidence to go their own way. I think that's something all the actors really respond to,"
     Once on set, Parker found his cast more than fulfilled his expectations. 'It's been a terrific atmosphere," he says. 'It's one of those pieces where you have to work quite hard to get on top of the material because there's a lot of dialogue and it's very precise, but once the discipline is there you can then have a lot of fun with it. I think we all realised that quite early on, and the cast has been incredibly supportive - to me and each other."
      Indeed, the dialogue of The Importance Of Being Earnest is very much concerned with the gap between reality and fantasy, and Parker gives us a glimpse of Wilde's characters' inner lives. The Importance of Being Earnest allows us to see these characters dance awkwardly between their invented and real identities.
     "Wilde is the ultimate dealer in ambiguity. Everything is laced with paradox, and so to find a cinematic equivalent of that is an exciting challenge. One element of the piece that appealed to me was that all the characters are suppressing an active interior life which is something film is well equipped to explore" explains Parker.
     Witherspoon adds: "Oliver's taken some license and I think it really adds to the screenplay. There's something in seeing people's inner desires that really tells you more about their character."
      Rupert Everett, too, was quick to see the implications of these scenes. I like them a lot," he says, "They represent another facet of what Oscar Wilde was writing about, which is the difference between the facade somebody presents and the interior beneath it. For example, Cecily has a fantasy about my character - what she wants me to be like - but that's very different from the person I really am in the movie."
     Despite such modifications, however, Parker stresses that these touches are very much in the spirit of Wilde and his original play. Many people think of Wilde's work as the preserve of a certain class and a certain generation," he says, "but I think he was in love with youth. It feels much more contemporary than it might otherwise have been, especially having someone like Reese, who really does bring to it a terrifically bright, modern girl's consciousness. All of these things subliminally influence the nature of the piece."
     "The Importance of Being Earnest has an enormous universality," Firth observes. "For those who don't know Oscar Wilde, I think this will be a way to reach people who might never have come to see it in the theatre or enjoyed it as a text.
     Perhaps audiences will be rolling in the aisles. Or perhaps they'll be gripped by it and it'll have a mystery and curiosity about it."
     For his part, Parker identifies the film's glorious, irreverent sense of humour as the key to its durability. I think it's genuinely funny," he says, "and that's one of the things people don't expect from a period piece. The dialogue is very sharp, and I think people of any age will enjoy that. But it's got an energy too, and a lot of romance. I'm sure people will be surprised. If they don't come to it with an open mind, I hope they end with one."

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