SALOME'S LAST DANCE

UK, 1988, 89 minutes, Colour.
Glenda Jackson, Stratford Johns, Douglas Hodge, Nikolas Grace, Imogen Millais- Scott.
Directed by Ken Russell.

Salome's Last Dance has Ken Russell as flamboyant as ever within the restraints of a one-set, small cast and low-budget film. Using Oscar Wilde's text for Salome exactly, he has it performed by Alfred Taylor's brothel staff. This allows for sensitivity as well as insensitivity of performance and interpretation. Wilde watches.

The rhetorical and florid poetry may not appeal, nor may the caricature performances (decadent people and acting a story of decadence and brutality) nor may Wilde's own decadence and personal decline. But, for those who stay with it, it is cleverly acted by Stratford Johns (Taylor/Herod), Douglas Hodge (Bosey/Baptist), Nikolas Grace as Wilde and Imogen Millais- Scott who is very good as a maid/Salome. And Glenda Jackson glowers as a Lady Macbeth Herodias with satirical touches on Macbeth as well as reference to Lady Bracknell's handbag. Glenda Jackson had appeared for Russell in Women in Love, The Music Lovers, The Boyfriend. Russell himself appears as a frantic photographer. It is oddball material, but revealing Oscar Wilde.

1. The reputation of Oscar Wilde, his literature, imagination? His personality? Moral reputation? Decline? His aesthetic? Homosexuality? As presented in this film?

2. The work of Ken Russell, his flamboyance, images, subjective interpretation, over the top style?

3. London in the 1890s, the street, the brothel, the theatre room, the stage, decor and colours, the moon and clouds, the costumes and their extravagance? Editing and pace?

4. The text of Salome: operatic, the translation from French to English, the poetic rhythms, the florid rhetorical style? The skill of the renditions by the cast?

5. Russell's idea: Alfred Taylor and his brothel, an atmosphere of London, decadence, the members of the brothel staff, their acting the play for Wilde, its being banned by the Lord Chamberlain, the performers: prostitutes, dwarves, the topless guards? Wilde as audience? The amateur style, the vulgarity, the jokes, the flatulence? Bosey inviting Wilde to the performance? Russell as the photographer? Its culminating in Wilde's and Taylor's arrest?

6. Oscar Wilde: in himself, achievement and reputation, marriage and family, homosexual friends, his love for Bosey, resorting to Taylor's brothel, his relationship with the men in the brothel, the literally golden boy? Homosexual attitudes, love and passion? Requited and unrequited? Betrayal
and violence? His arrest and the subsequent trial and imprisonment, his ill-health and death?

7. Lord Alfred Douglas and his background, Wilde's relationship with Bosey, Bosey in himself, relationship with his father? His performing the role of John the Baptist? Wilde's comment that he could have been Salome and
himself the Baptist?

8. Taylor, his brothel, the invitation, the performance? Hip own arrest? Lady Alice and her presence, actress, being a witness? The maid and her being Salome? The dramatic culmination of her death?

9. The play and its florid poetry, rhetoric, aesthetic, words for music with musical rhythms? How well did the play work?

10. Herod the Tetrarch: obese, decadent, his kingdom, his relationship with Herodias and the divorce, his roving eye, Salome, lust, wanting her to dance, the shock of her request, his fear of the Baptist and yet listening to him, his oath, his consent - and his ultimate order to kill Salome?

11. Salome: her age, wilful, the distraught soldier and his death and her callousness, her fascination with the Baptist, her lust, taunting him, the kiss? The use of the lift for the drama with the Baptist and his imprisonment? Wilful with the Tetrarch, with her mother? Refusing to dance, changing her mind? The sexual ambiguity of the dance? Herod's response? Her attitude towards the Baptist, his head on a dish, her sexual reaction? her death?

12. Herodias and her domineering style, her rationalism, disdain of the prophet, irritation, putting up with the vulgarity, her own vulgarity, eyeing off the soldiers, in the travelling trunk? Her response to her daughter's request?

13. The court: the golden boy and his infatuation with the soldier, his lament? Going to Wilde and with him as audience? The topless women soldiers? The court attendants and their being in drag, the transvestite jokes? The dwarves and the satire on the Jews? With the topless guards?

14. The soldiers and their keeping guard, the comic touches, the contrast between the two, farcical actions, sexual relationship with Herodias?

15. Russell as photographer, his fussing about, looking like Santa Claus?

16. The police, their arrival, the grounds for the arrest, their treatment of Wilde and Taylor, of Lady Alice?

17. The film as a flamboyant exercise, an interpretation of Oscar Wilde? Of Victoriana and decadence? Human nature?