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Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
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 1962-3 season.
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. [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 searing film exhibited a fine sense of pacing, comic timing,
and gripping buildup in a series of emotional climaxes. The
shocking content - the dramatic portrayal of the destructive,
sado-masochistic battles in one couple's tempestuous, love-hate
relationship during a late night to dawn brawling encounter -
was thought to be too vitriolic, frank, explicitly blasphemous
and foul-mouthed for the film screen. [It was the first American
film to use the expletive 'goddamn' and 'bugger'.] 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).
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. [The film became noted as the only
one in Academy history up to that point to be nominated in every
eligible category. It was also the first film to have every
member of its cast receive an acting nomination.] 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).
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The 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. 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:
What a dump! [from Beyond the Forest (1949)]
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 "Mulberry Bush" (or
"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" from Disney's animation short
"The Three Little Pigs"):
Poor Georgie-Porgie, put-upon pie...Awwwwwwwwwww! Hey! Hey! Hey!
(She sings) Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf,
Virginia Woolf, Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf...Ha, ha, ha, HA!
(No reaction) What's the matter? Didn't you think that was
funny? I thought it was a scream...You laughed your head off
when you heard it at the party.
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:
Try to keep your clothes on too. There aren't many more
sickening sights in this world than you with a couple of drinks
in you and your skirt up over your head...
When the doorbell rings, George asks her to refrain from
mentioning their mythical child while the guests are there:
George: Just don't start in on the bit about the kid, that's
all.
Martha: What do you take me for?
George: Much too much.
Martha: Yeah? Well I'll start in on the kid if I want to.
Martha: Just leave the kid out of this.
George: I'd advise against it, Martha.
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:
Martha, will you show her where we keep the...eh, euphemism?
After the two women leave, Nick mentions that George has been at
the University for quite a long time. George answers:
What? Oh...yes. Ever since I married, uh, What's-her-name...ah,
Martha. Even before that. (Pause) Forever. (To himself) Dashed
hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. (To
Nick) How do you like that for a declension, young man? Eh?
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:
All right, what do you want me to say? Do you want me to say
it's funny, so you can contradict me and say it's sad? Or do you
want me to say it's sad so you can turn around and say no, it's
funny. You can play that damn little game any way you want to,
you know?
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:
Martha and I are having...nothing. Martha and I are merely
exercising... that's all, we're merely walking what's left of
our wits. Don't pay any attention to it.
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:
Well, you'll get over that - small college and all. Musical beds
is the faculty sport around here.
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." When Honey joins their company again, 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 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:
George is bogged down in the History Department. He's an old bog
in the History Department, that's what George is. A bog...A
fen...A G.D. swamp. Ha, ha, ha, ha, A Swamp. Hey, swamp. Hey,
SWAMPY!
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:
Honey (giggling and drunk): When is...where is your son coming
home?
George: Ohhh. Martha? When is our son coming home?
Martha: Never mind.
George: No, no. I want to know. You brought it out into the
open. When is he coming home, Martha?
Martha: I said never mind. I'm sorry I brought it up.
George: Him up...not it. You brought him up. Well, more or less.
When's the little bugger going to appear? I mean, isn't tomorrow
meant to be his birthday or something?
Martha: I don't want to talk about it.
George: But Martha...
Martha: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
George: I'll bet you don't. (To Honey and Nick) Martha does not
want to talk about it...him. Martha is, uh, sorry she brought it
up...him.
Honey (idiotically giggling): When's the little bugger coming
home?
George: Yes, Martha...now that you've had the bad taste to bring
the matter up in the first place...when is the little bugger
coming home?
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:
Martha: George's biggest problem about the little...about our
son, about our great big son, is that deep down in the
private-most pit of his gut, he's not completely sure that it's
his own kid.
George: My God, you're a wicked woman.
Martha: And I've told you a million times, baby...I wouldn't
conceive with anyone else, you know that baby.
George: A deeply wicked person.
Honey (grieving and drunk): Oh my, my, my, my, my...
Nick: I'm not sure that this is a subject for...
George: Martha's lying. I want you to know that right now.
Martha is lying. There are very few things that I am certain of
anymore, but the one thing, the one thing in this whole sinking
world that I am sure of is my partnership, my chromosomological
partnership in the...creation of our...blond-eyed,
blue-haired...son...
Martha: ...George, our son does not have blue hair or blue eyes,
for that matter. He has green eyes, like me. Beautiful,
beautiful green eyes.
George: He has blue eyes Martha.
Martha: Green.
George: Blue, Martha.
Martha: GREEN you bastard.
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:
George: You've already sprung a leak about you-know-what...about
the sprout, the little bugger, our son. If you start in on this
other business, Martha, I warn you.
Martha: I stand warned...So anyway, I married to S.O.B. I had it
all planned out. First, he'd take over the History Department.
Then when Daddy retired, he'd take over the whole college, you
know? That was the way it was supposed to be....Until he watched
for a couple of years and started thinking that maybe it wasn't
such a good idea after all, that maybe Georgie-boy didn't have
the stuff, that maybe he didn't have it in him!...You see,
George didn't have much push, he wasn't particularly aggressive.
In fact, he was sort of a FLOP! A great big, fat, FLOP!
On the word FLOP, George startles the guests by breaking a
bottle against the portable bar. But Martha continues her angry
tirade:
So here I am, stuck with this FLOP, this BOG in the History
Department...
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":
Martha:
...who's married to the President's daughter, who's expected to
be somebody, not just a nobody, a bookworm who's so god-damn
complacent that he can't make anything out of himself, that
doesn't have the guts to make anybody proud of him. ALL RIGHT
GEORGE! STOP IT! George:
Go on Martha, go on. Martha. Don't Martha, don't. All right, all
right. (Singing) Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf,
Virginia Woolf. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, so early in the
morning.
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