Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Directed by: Mike Nichols - 2 hours, 11 minutes - 1966 - USA – B&W - DVD - 1.85:1
Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis
George and Martha walk home late at night from a party thrown by Martha’s father, the president of the university where George teaches. The moment they return home they’re already on each other’s last nerve, and they pour the first of many drinks. Though it’s the early AM hours, Martha tells George that she’s invited a new professor and his wife over for drinks, and they’ll be over any minute. The young couple Nick and Honey arrives, more drinks are poured, and George and Martha begin their nightly show. They talk over their guests, trading barbs and jokes, veering from pedantic to vulgar, and making the guests more uncomfortable with each minute. George and Martha know exactly what the other is going to say and exactly how to hurt one another. As the night goes on they reveal more about their lives and pull Nick and Honey into their game, revealing secrets and insecurities in the young couple’s relationship. Then they pour another round of drinks and things start to get vicious.
The Motion Picture Production Code (or “Hays Code”) that had dictated the moral standards of Hollywood for the last three decades was starting to fall apart in the early 60s. Foreign films not bound by the code were becoming popular in the U.S., and more American films began to push the limits of what was permitted. When Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? premiered on Broadway in 1962, it was considered unfilmable due to its content. By 1966, despite threats from the MPAA and the Catholic Legion of Decency, the film was released almost unchanged from the original play, and was the first film to be labeled as “Suggested for Mature Audiences” (SMA), two years before the current MPAA ratings system was adopted. It wasn’t just the language that surprised audiences – for the role of Martha, Elizabeth Taylor played against her glamorous Hollywood image to portray an aging alcoholic, and gained 30 pounds for the role. Burton and Taylor were also a real-life couple at the time, and friends of the notoriously hard-drinking duo said that the nastiness onscreen was not far removed from the couple’s own tumultuous relationship.