92. Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Stars:  Elizabeth Taylor (Martha), Richard Burton (George), George Segal (Nick), Sandy Dennis (Honey)

Director: Mike Nichols

Awards / Honors

• 5 Oscar Wins – Best Actress (Elizabeth Taylor), Best Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis), Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design

• 7 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Richard Burton), Best Supporting Actor (George Segal), Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Film Editing, Best Music (Original Score), Best Sound

• #67 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)

Genre:  Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 11 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 ½ Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 3 Stars)

John's Take

Three things.

First, after watching this movie I have decided that at some point I have to see the movie “A Man for All Seasons”, and “The Fortune Cookie”.  This is because Paul Scofield, who beat out Richard Burton for Best Actor and Walter Matthau who beat out George Segal for Best Supporting Actor must have had unbelievable performances in those movies.  However, unless I am just blown away by those two performances, I am just going to have to assume that the “fix” was in that year.  It has been a long time since I have been as impressed with the performance of an entire cast as I was with the cast of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  Granted, there are only four people in the movie (five if you want to count the bartender that has a single line), but still…  If you want to see an example of why Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are “Screen Legends”, then you don’t need to look any farther than this movie.

Second, if you want to understand how symbolism can be used effectively in a story, this is a good movie to study.  Virtually everything in this film has some sort of symbolic importance – even the title of the movie.  For those of you are not familiar with Virginia Woolf, she was an early 20th Century English author who is best know for stream-of-consciousness writing that frequently touched the effects of war and other forms trauma on individuals.  Her worked also tended to touch on the idea of living life with no life with no illusions.  Early on in the movie, Elizabeth Taylor’s character sings “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” as a parody of the Disney song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” from “The Three Little Pigs”.  However, as the movie goes on, it becomes clear that this movie is going to delve quite deeply into the real meaning(s) of that question – Who’s Afraid of Living Life without Illusions?  Who’s Afraid of Looking at the Damage We Do to Those We Profess to Love?  As we watch George and Martha’s little after-hours party, the symbolism continues flow into the dialogue at gradually quickening pace, until the dialog stops being simply symbolic and transforms into a type of foreshadowing. George and Martha are always one step ahead of their guests (and us the audience) – the true meaning of their banter and arguing only becomes clear later as we learn more about them.  However, just as we have figured out what their earlier statements really meant, they are off busy talking and arguing about something else. 

Third, this film is probably one of the exhausting movies I have ever seen.  I have been in 2 hour-long arguments / fights with family members that were less exhausting than watching this movie.  Watching four people tear into each other for two hours can take a lot of out you.

After the film was over Beth and discussed if this was the most tragic / depressing of the movies on are list that we had watched so far?  Initially, we both felt it was clearly the most depressing, but as we discussed it, it became a little less clear cut.  For example, Sophie’s Choice – the story a Holocaust survivor – is hardly a feel-good romp.  Then you have movies like The Last Picture Show and Do the Right Thing, not to mention pure melodramas like A Place in the Sun and Wuthering Heights.  Declaring a film “most-depressing-so-far” wasn’t quite so clear cut.

Ultimately, however, Beth and I returned to this movie as “the-most-depressing-so-far”.  It won out for two reasons.  The first reason was the forementioned exhaustion we felt after watching it.  Watching Sophie having to choose between her son and her daughter was horrifically sad.  Watching Sonny come to realize that he would never escape that small town was depressing.  Radio Raheem being murdered by the police was tragic.  However, none of those things left us feeling like we had just run three miles.  The second reason is that the other movies all leave the viewer some sort glimpse of hope – Mookie and Sal come to an understanding; Singo goes on with his life; Ruth Popper is there for Sonny; the spirits of Heathcliff and Catherine walk off together; even George manages to come to terms with his fate at the end of A Place in the Sun.  In Who’s Afraid, however, no one escapes unscathed. There is no glimpse of hope – all four of them are trapped, and they don’t even have their lies to hide behind anymore.

I truly believe that this film truly deserves to be referred to as a “classic”.  Despite that this movie is artistically and technically brilliant I can’t give it a perfect ranking of 5 Stars.  As I mentioned back in the All the President’s Men post, for me to consider a movie truly great and get a 5 Star rating from me, I need to find it highly re-watchable.  It has to be able to make me stop and watch it if I happen to stumble across it while channel surfing.  I can say with all honesty that the odds of me watching this movie again casually are pretty low.  It is just too emotionally brutal.  Thus, it is just going to have to make due with a ranking of 4 Stars.

John