The Trials of Oscar Wilde

Director: Ken Hughes

Overview

This compelling drama details the scandal that led to the humiliation and imprisonment of author Oscar Wilde. Accused of sodomy by the father of his lover, Wilde sues for libel but instead finds himself facing prison after a conviction of gross indecency.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/09/2015
UPC:	0644827126927
Original Release:	0000
Language:	English
Sales rank:	30,747

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Peter Finch	Oscar Wilde
Lionel Jeffries	John Sholto Douglas, Marquis of Queensberry
John Fraser	Lord Alfred Douglas
Yvonne Mitchell	Constance Wilde
Nigel Patrick	Edward Clarke
Sonia Dresdel	Lady Wilde
Maxine Audley	Ada Leverson
Emrys Jones	Robbie Ross
James Mason	Sir Edward Carson
James Booth	Alfred Wood
Paul Rogers	Frank Harris
Ian Fleming	Arthur
Laurence Naismith	Prince of Wales
Naomi Chance	Lily Langtry
Meredith Edwards	Auctioneer
Anthony Newlands	First Clerk of Arraigns
Michael Goodliffe	Charles Gill
Liam Gaffney	Willie Wilde
Ronald Cardew	Lord Sonning
Derek Aylward	Lord Percy Douglas
Campbell Singer	Insector
A.J. Brown	Justice Collins
Charles Carson	Justice Charles
David Ensor	Justice Wills
Gladys Henson	Landlady
Cicely Paget-Bowman	Lady Queensberry
Victor Kendall	Actor
Lloyd Lamble	Charles Humphries
Robert Percival	Second Clerk of Arraigns
Victor Brooks	Constable
Alfred Burke	Reporter
Edward Evans	Sydney
John Welsh	Cafe Royal Manager
Howard Lang	Court Usher
Ron Goodwin	Composer

Technical Credits

Ken Hughes

Albert R. Broccoli	Producer
Harold Huth	Producer
Irving Allen	Producer
Jim Groom	Sound Effects
Ken Hughes	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Preface: Why Buy this Book? 1. How Do People Make Sense of Digitizing Cultures? The Culture-Technology Matrix Does Technology Make Us More than We Make Technology?
• Components of Digital Culture Analysis
• Is There a Virtual World/Real World Divide?
• Terminal Confusion?
• What’s in a Name? New Media/Cyber/Digital Culture/Etc. Studies 2. How is the Digital World Made? The Dreamers/Workers/Users Production Cycle The Internet’s Weird History
• From Dreamers to Reality: Producing Digital Stuff
• Producing through Consuming? Prosumers and Interactive Identity
• Clean Rooms and/or ‘Dark Satanic Mills’? Toxic Production, E-Waste and Environmental Justice 3. Who Are We Online? Digital Masquerade, Privacy, Anonymity, Community and Cyborg dis/Embodiment Is Life Online a Masquerade?
• Has the Net Killed Privacy?
• Are We Becoming Posthuman Cyborgs?
• Anonymity, Disinhibition and Trolls, Oh My!
• Are Virtual Communities for Real?
• How Much Online Life Is Good for Us?
• Hegemony, Cultural Imperialism and/or Digital Diversity? 4. Is Everybody Equal Online? Digitizing Gender, Ethnicity and Dis/Ability The Default Subject Position
• Is the Internet a Guy? Engendering Cyberspaces
• Is the Internet Color Blind? E-racializations
• Who Is Dis/Abled by Cyberspaces? Enabling and Disabling Technologies 5. Digitizing Desire? Sexploration and/or Sexploitation Real Virtual Sex Education
• Digital Diddling: Varieties of Cybersex
• The "Mainstreaming" of Porn
• Digitized Sex Trafficking
• How Queer are Cyberspaces? Alternative Sexualities 6. Does the Internet Have a Political Bias? E-Democracy, Networked Authoritarianism and Online Activism Citizen Cyborgs? E-Voting, Online Politicking, and Participatory Democracy
• Can Social Media Overthrow Governments?
• Netroots Activism or Just Slacktivism?
• Hacking, Wiki-Leaking, and Cyberterrorism
• Digitizing the Arts of Protest 7. Are Digital Games Making Us Violent and Sex-crazed, or Will They Save the World? Virtual Play, Real Impact What’s in a Game? Playing Theories
• What Do Games Teach?
• Do Games Make Players Violent?
• Digitized ‘Militainment’?
• Gender Games, Race Games
• Can Games Save the World? 8. Are Kids Getting Dumber as Their Phones Get Smarter? E-Learning, ‘Edutainment’ and the Future of Knowledge Sharing ‘Is Our Children Learning’ Digitally?
• What is Technology Doing in the Classroom?
• Is Knowledge a Commodity or a Human Right? MOOCs, Information Feudalism and Scholarly Publishing 9. Who in the World is Online? Digital Inclusions and Exclusions The World Wide Web Isn’t
• Who Needs the Internet?
• From Digital Divides to Technologies for Social Inclusion
• Should Everyone and Everything Be Online?
• Why Digitizing Matters 10. Conclusion: Hype, Hope, and Possible Digitized Futures

Editorial Reviews

A sterling performance from Peter Finch infuses The Trials of Oscar Wilde with a radiant glow, despite some concessions to the mores of the time in which it was filmed that may strike modern viewers as both odd and rather dishonest. In 1960, simply making an English film about Wilde was tempting fate, as any real discussion of his homosexuality and its consequences would have been banned by the national censor. Thus, Trials has to skirt the issue quite a bit, hinting as far as it can and opting for ambiguity when things threaten to get a bit dicey. Today's audiences will find this a bit coy in places, a bit baffling in others, and may feel that the filmmakers are simply trying to whitewash the facts. Certainly, in this treatment, Wilde comes off as a bit more noble and "above it all" than the facts indicate. However, this has the dramatic benefit of making his fall from grace more tragic. It also allows Finch to turn in a performance that captures all of the wit and mischief of Wilde, while at the same time creating a portrait that is more muscular and masculine than that which is usually credited to the man. Finch does a superb job of capturing the many sides of Wilde, and of anchoring the film with his presence and his manner. James Mason, who should be equally good as the lawyer who undoes Wilde, should be Finch's match; yet Mason seems to be operating at less than his full powers, turning in a performance that is good, yet less than it should be. Lionel Jeffries engages in some marvelous scenery chewing, and John Fraser quite looks the part of Lord Alfred Douglas. Ken Hughes' direction is solid, always leading the viewer exactly where he needs to go. The Trials of Oscar Wilde may be a bit dated, but it's still quite powerful -- and Finch is often mesmerizing.

"This is it: the book on meanings digital that we are waiting to use. Share it with students, friends, colleagues, family, and neighbors. It speaks both in depth but also in conversation, with that touch for communication uniquely T. V. Reed’s. Reed’s care for details that matter is crucial for collectives of all kinds, especially when drawn properly as glimpses of bigger pictures always only just emerging, working with and toward sustainability."
—Katie King, University of Maryland, College Park, author of Networked Reenactments: Stories Transdisciplinary Knowledges Tell

"T. V. Reed’s Digitized Lives makes an important contribution to today's increasingly mediated society and culture, in which nearly every aspect of our everyday lives is touched by digital technology. This clear-eyed demystification of digital cultures’ benefits and threats functions as an indispensable guidebook for understanding the Internet today and its status as one of the most powerful communication tools of our modern age."
—Anna Everett, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Digitized Lives approaches a wide range of complex questions about digital media in our lives and does so with a thoughtfulness and curiosity that will keep readers engrossed page after page. Tracing the enormous impacts that digital media have on an array of topics — such as identity, equality, access, material culture, e-waste, sex, politics, games, and education — T. V. Reed’s provocative book will start meaningful conversations, intercede in important debates, and point us in new directions as digital technology continues to become a central character in our everyday lives."
—Jason Farman, University of Maryland, College Park

"The subjects Reed brings up should lead readers to think about and discuss the new "digitized lives" on which we embarked just a few decades ago. This readable text and its companion website, Digital Cultures <http://www.culturalpolitics.net/digital_cultures>, will be valuable for anyone interested in communication and the impact of the Internet… Summing Up: Recommended. All Readers." —C. L. Clements, Richland College, in CHOICE

From the Publisher