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| Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) | |||
| Background
The film's title refers to Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), an influential British feminist writer who pioneered the 'stream of consciousness' literary style while examining the psychological and emotional motives of her characters. [Note: Perhaps the 'fear' of VW refers to the film's characters who are suffering marital discord in the emotionally-draining film, and who may have 'known' that she suffered from mental illness and ultimately went insane and committed suicide.] The title is also a parody of Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?, a tune sung in Disney's Three Little Pigs (1933) animated short film. The names of the two major characters, George and Martha, are those of the first US President and his wealthy wife - a marriage of convenience. The searing film exhibited a fine sense of pacing, comic timing, and gripping buildup in a series of emotional climaxes. The film follows the structure of Albee's play, delineated by three acts:
The shocking content - the dramatic portrayal of the destructive, sado-masochistic, and cruel battles in one couple's tempestuous, love-hate relationship during a late night (2 am) to dawn brawling encounter while victimizing another young couple - was thought to be too vitriolic, frank, explicitly blasphemous and foul-mouthed for the film screen. [Note: It was the first American film to use the expletive 'goddamn' and 'bugger'.] The MPAA ratings board gave the film a seal of approval after Warner Bros. appealed and made a few cuts of the most extreme profanity (such as "Screw you"). It was the first film to be released with a "Suggested for Mature Audiences" warning. However, with studio boss Jack Warner's insistence on keeping the integrity of the play, and the teaming of real-life husband and wife mega-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, the film was guaranteed success. The two portrayed an on-screen couple: a sharp-tongued but ineffectual professor (Burton) and his complaining wife (Taylor), in the company of a new professor (Segal) and his mousy wife (Dennis). [Note: The couple had originally been teamed in the mega-flop Cleopatra (1963). Robert Redford rejected the role played by George Segal.] The black-and-white film, masterfully directed by Mike Nichols (in his directorial screen debut), captured probably the greatest performance ever of Elizabeth Taylor's career (she won her second Academy Award as well as Best Actress praises from the New York Film Critics, the Nat'l Board of Review and the British Film Academy). Woolf won five Academy Awards from its thirteen nominations: Best Actress (Elizabeth Taylor), Best Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis), Best B/W Cinematography (Haskell Wexler), Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. The other eight nominations included Best Picture, Best Actor (Richard Burton), Best Supporting Actor (George Segal), Best Director (Mike Nichols), Best Screenplay (Ernest Lehman), Best Sound, Best Original Music Score, and Best Film Editing. [Note: It was the first film to have every credited member of its cast receive an acting nomination. Since Cimarron (1931), it was also the first in Academy history to be nominated in every eligible category.] As compensation for his defeat this year, director Mike Nichols won the Best Director Oscar the next year for The Graduate (1967) over Norman Jewison, the director of the Best Picture victor In the Heat of the Night (1967). The StoryThe film opens under a moonlit sky in the middle of the night on a small New England college campus (in the town of New Carthage - an allegorical name). Under the credits, an academic couple walk through the deserted campus - George (Richard Burton), a 46 year old, bespectacled history professor, and his 52 year old wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), a large, boisterous, blowsy woman with heavy wrinkles. Martha's drunken laugh acutely punctuates the title "WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?" After drunkenly weaving their way home, they enter their home and switch the lights on. Martha looks around the living room discontentedly and parodies Bette Davis' mannerisms, exclaiming:
In the sloppy kitchen in a famous sequence in which she munches on a fried chicken leg and puffs on a cigarette, she repeatedly - with a deep whiskey voice - berates her husband for not remembering the film the line is from: "What's it from, for Christ's sake?...some damn Bette Davis picture, some god-damned Warner Bros epic." Exasperated at her criticism of his cocktail-party behavior, he inquires: "Do you want me to go around braying at everyone all night the way you do?" They have returned at two o'clock early on a Sunday morning from one of her father's "goddamn Saturday night orgies," according to George. As they bicker at each other, it is revealed that George is a tired, defeated teacher, married for twenty years to the daughter of the president of the college. When she suggests that they have a drink, he finds out that they've "got guests coming over" that Martha invited to join them in an 'after-party' party - a blonde, good-looking, young newly-appointed Math Department member [Martha is mistaken - he is an assistant professor in the Biology Department] and his wife, described as "a mousey little type, without any hips or anything." Disturbed because she always "springs things" on him, she makes light-hearted fun of his reaction, acting both loving and vicious toward him, singing to the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush": NOTE: the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" from Disney's animation short "The Three Little Pigs" was too expensive to use, so a different tune (Mulberry Bush, in the public domain) with different lyrics was used instead:
Knowing that Martha acts abominable when drunk, he cautions her to behave herself in front of the guests. She taunts him back, typical of the violent, self-destructive arguments they have had in their joint lives together: "I swear, if you existed, I'd divorce you." Then, he warns her:
When the doorbell rings, George asks her to refrain from mentioning their mythical child while the guests are there:
As she explodes and yells "GODDAMN YOU!" at him, he flings open the door and there stand their younger invited guests arriving for a nightcap. Feeling immediately ill at ease in a socially awkward and uneasy situation are the 26 year old plain blonde Honey (Sandy Dennis) and her husband, a 28 year old professor Nick (George Segal). George is pleased with himself that they have unceremoniously heard Martha's hostile remark - coming from a "subhuman monster yowling at 'em from inside." Too polite and naive to have refused the party invitation in the first place, Nick and Honey suddenly find themselves pawn-like in the middle of an intellectual, argumentative warzone in a most unusual evening resembling an endurance test. After Nick comments on an abstract painting in the living room, George explains that it is "a pictorial representation of the order of Martha's mind." Honey is already a bit tipsy from the earlier party and orders more brandy: "Never mix-never worry." The first indication that Martha is lewdly flirting with Nick, one tactic in her arsenal of weapons against her ineffectual husband, comes when she rubs her hand on his knee, telling him that her "Daddy knows how to run things" at the college. While everyone is drinking the free-flowing alcohol, George tells Martha to help the wilting Honey find the bathroom in a famous line:
After the two women leave, Nick mentions that George has been at the University for quite a long time. George answers:
Early in the evening, George verbally tests the sparring skills of Nick in one of the evening's first social games, but Nick is caught off-guard and easily out-matched and outwitted:
Abruptly after his protest, Nick wants to escape and leave as soon as Honey returns, because he realizes that he is starting to become embroiled in the middle of marital warfare, but George merely excuses their behavior as an intellectual exercise:
Nick remarks that he prefers not "to become involved in other people's affairs," but George comforts and cajoles him into lowering his guard and remaining:
George notes that Nick's wife is "slim-hipped," but learns that they don't have kids yet: "We want to wait a little, until we're settled." George is distrustful when the two women are gone for awhile and ponders: "Damn it! I wonder what women talk about when the men are talking. I must find out sometime." As Honey descends the stairs, she listens, reacting fearfully when George is asking Nick how many kids they plan to have. When Honey joins their company again from upstairs where Martha has been changing her clothes, she tells George in a bright voice: "I didn't know that you had a son...A son. I hadn't known...Tomorow is his birthday. He will be sixteen." George wheels around after the second oblique reference to their son, asking: "She told you about him?" Then, he turns and glares upstairs, angry that she has violated their life-long pledge of discretion by revealing their make-believe procreation of a fantasy child, an imaginary son, that they could never have: "OK, Martha, OK....Damn destructive." (The child was created for self-protection, as a scapegoat, and to provide a common meeting ground for the warring couple.) When Nick and Honey nervously say they have to go home, George harshly barks (a subtle and nasty insult showing his incisive insight into the younger couple's marital problems and lack of children themselves): "For what? You keeping the babysitter up or something?" When Martha makes her reappearance in the living room, she has changed her clothes into something more comfortable and voluptuous, slacks and a tawdry, tight-fitting blouse - something she rarely does according to George: "Martha is not changing for me. Martha hasn't changed for me in years. If Martha is changing, it means we're gonna be here for days. You are being accorded an honor..." George calls her new attire her "Sunday chapel dress." Martha lets more sparks fly by bawdily insulting her husband's position in the History Department:
Learning that Nick was both a quarterback and a former intercollegiate state middleweight boxing champion, Martha makes lascivious, obscene advances toward the attractive young man. She taunts him: "You still look like you have a pretty good body now, too, is that right? Have you?...Is that right? Have you kept your body?" Even Honey naively encourages her observations about his studly body: "Yes, he has a very firm body." Martha describes how her own "paunchy" husband doesn't like "body talk. 'Paunchy' here isn't too happy when the conversation moves to muscle." One of the most dramatic, riveting moments of the film blurs fantasy and reality. Martha brings up another embarrassing wound from the past, questioning George's manliness. She describes a public boxing match incident which her Daddy orchestrated in his back yard. When George told his father-in-law that he didn't want to box, Martha got into the pair of gloves herself and punched George POW right in the jaw, sending him crashing into a huckleberry bush. During her story telling, George finds a shotgun in another room, stalks his prey, and takes aim at the back of Martha's head. When Honey notices the gun, she screams in fright. Martha turns her head to face him as he pulls the trigger - out blossoms a brightly-striped umbrella, a symbolic display of his weakness and sexual impotency in another of his games. He adds sound effects: "Pow. You're dead!" They laugh, mostly from relief and confusion. George won't allow Martha to play "blue games for the guests" when they kiss and she moves his hand down onto her breast: "Everything in its place Martha, everything in its own good time." Honey asks again about the most sensitive subject of the evening - their son. The feuding couple use the imaginary son as a weapon in most of their arguments:
Exasperated, Martha counter attacks and accuses George of having his own problems by attacking his pride. She brings up more statements which are either suspect, true, false, or concocted lies. One fact that is undeniably reinforced is that level-headed, rational George has biologically participated in the creation of their son. But they argue over their non-existent son, she insisting that the boy has green eyes, he claiming the child has blue eyes:
Soon, the constantly harried George wants no more of her vicious humiliation and gross emasculation, trapped in a marriage with a demanding, shrewish wife and controlled by her high-powered, successful "Daddy." He threatens to get angry over her continuing revelations of their courtship, marriage, and son, and the insulting contrasts she makes of him to her father. Martha believes George could never stand up to her father:
On the word FLOP, George startles the guests by breaking a bottle against the portable bar. But Martha continues her angry tirade:
They speak over each other's lines, their voices rising to drown each other out. Having withdrawn into an inner intellectual world of words and activities, George has numbed and blocked himself off, losing his "guts":
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Who's
Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), a famous and shocking black
comedy, was based on Edward Albee's scandalous play (Ernest Lehman's
screenplay left the dialogue of the play virtually intact). It
was first performed in New York in October of 1962, and it captured
the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and the Tony Award for
the 1962-63 season.