Salomé and Wilde Salomé with Al Pacino, Curzon Mayfair and Richmond

Oscar Wilde’s play Salome  is equally erotic and exotic, a sensuously poetic monument to the decadence of the fin de siècle that shatters the conventions of drama. With luxurious staging and dense symbolism, it is difficult to stage without compromising the author’s vision. Al Pacino, Oscar winning actor and director, tried and succeeded. 

Pacino first saw the play in 1998, with Stephen Berkoff as Herod. For two decades, he wrestled with the text before finally taking the role of Herod in his own production. Jessica Chastain, before her career-defining roles in Zero Dark Thirty and The Tree of Life, stared as the title character, while Roxanne Hart played Herod’s wife Herodias. 

The film Salomé (2013), shown here for the first time, is a recording of Pacino’s extraordinary production. Wilde Salomé (2011), which won the Glory to the Filmmaker! and Queer Lion awards when screened at the Venice Film Festival, documents the pleasures and pitfalls of the process. After the screening, there will be a live video link to a Q&A with Pacino and Stephen Fry, who played Wilde in the titular 1997 film. This is a unique chance to gain insight not only into Wilde’s work, but into Pacino’s too.