Wilde Salomé

Al Pacino leaves the camera running while he stages Oscar Wilde's Salomé. What comes out holds three things at once: footage of the rehearsals and the reading in Los Angeles, a filmed version of the play, and a documentary trying to work out who Wilde was. Pacino travels to Ireland and England for that part. The documentary strand takes in Wilde's life as much as his writing: the road from the height of fame to the courtroom, prison and exile. Pacino does not hide his own panic on stage, his money problems or his indecision, and the film shows the chaos inside a production exactly as it is. Jessica Chastain plays Salomé. The film screened in Venice in 2011; Pacino later cut the play itself out of the same material into a separate film.