Al Pacino wanted to capture the essence of this man who fell from grace in Victorian society and whom eventually they tried to silence. He was arrested at the age of 44 for his sexual preferences and the ensuing trial gripped England. Sadly, Wilde was jailed and spent two years in terrible imprisonment from which he never really recovered. Wilde’s conditions of imprisonment were appalling and he wrote under a psedo name of the horrific circumstances including deplorable child imprisonment.

His works include; “The Importance of Being Ernest”, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, and many children’s stories including his poignant, heart wrenching “The Happy Prince and Other Tales”. Wilde’s tragedy “Salome”, was the only work that did not find a publisher. It was censored because of the illustrations accompanying it by Audrey Beardsley and only later did it receive international acclaim after it was translated to German and turned into an opera with music written by Strauss.

This morning Al Pacino the writer/director humbly participated in the press conference:

“I had a vision but I didn’t have a story. What I have tried to do… I wanted to make a collage of stuff that at the end of it you get the idea of what I was doing. I wanted to give the idea of Oscar Wilde that somehow they, (the person and the making of the play Wilde Salome) would interconnect (combine) and it would be revealed at the end of the movie what I was trying to say.”

Pacino’s Salome character in the movie played by Chastain, is the co protagonist. He confesses that he could only make his movie once he had discovered Jessica Chastain, the woman who would embody Pacino’s image of Salome. “Chastain was the perfect person to play Salome”.

“Why it took so long? I didn’t know where I was going with it and documentaries do take a while. There was an entire 5 months period when I did not look at the movie because I didn’t know what to do with it, then 5 weeks latter I finished because then knew where I was going. But I didn’t have a script and a script is essential.”

Bono donated the music for the film Salome. He wrote it about 12 years ago and it came to Pacino’s attention about 4 years ago. It seemed so fitting since Bono is Irish and a great aficionado on Oscar Wilde.