I decided to watch the Hollywood version of the story after going to the play with the same name in the original language in Brisbane, where I live.
It is necessary to give the position of boldness of decisions (the play is played by black actors, and Honey is an actress with Vietnamese roots) and a swing on racial themes, as well as the monumental efforts of the creators of the play and actors. Can you imagine what it would be like to run a three-hour marathon? Well, the scenery was impressive, and the timing of the play did not interfere with keeping the viewer in suspense. The actors quite managed to convey the inner tear of the heroes, maintaining a frenzied dynamic throughout the three hours. However, there were still some “buts.” I understand that the theater is a chamber substance in comparison with the cinema, but the film version of the production, in my opinion, looked more advantageous, because the film adaptation gave the director the opportunity to balance the long dialogue of the characters with a change of locations and background. In the play, we do not fully understand how sloppy Martha is, and we can only judge this defect from the words of her husband George, who mentions that Martha leaves undrinked glasses all over the house. In the film, we are shown how hastily “sweeps up the garbage” under the carpet Martha, stuffing scattered around the room things anywhere.
The play to us in Brisbane, which is the capital of Queensland, came from South Australia, where, of course, its accent. Honestly, I didn't understand everything, given the pronunciation of Aboriginal actor Jimi Bani, who played George. A younger actor with Congolese roots, Rashidi Edward, who played Nick, tried very hard to portray the formal and distinct pronunciation of a university biology teacher, but in the second half of the play his powers clearly dried up or he was “out of the role”, so that his pronunciation changed not for the better. At first, it was the desire to catch up that was my main motivation to watch a Hollywood movie, and even with such stars as Taylor and Burton. But then I realized that my desire to see the Hollywood version killed two birds with one stone. In his English-language review of the play, the author wrote that he saw the best productions, but the opportunity to compare different options is always a plus, so comes a more holistic understanding of the topic.
The cinematic version of the play I would compare with the later Hollywood film “War of Rose” with Michael Douglas in the title role, also telling about the total war of the spouses among themselves. Here we should remember Lev Nikolaevich with his famous phrase about happy and unhappy families. This family is just an example of the fact that together it is impossible, and apart in no way, when for many years of life together people grow roots in each other. This is the situation when you say “no”, meaning “yes”.
George is sorry at first. This man is doubly tidy - and wife and father-in-law. Moreover, the attitude of George and Martha resembles some strange mathematical equation: the better George treats his wife, the more he tries to please her and fulfill all her whims from a half-word, the worse she treats him. But then George sends Martha to such a knockout that our sympathies are already on her side. At the end of the film, Martha is covered in reflection, and she sees herself from the outside - an elderly, externally and internally disheveled and emotionally broken woman, tired of the endless sparring she initiates. Their family is childless, and there is no one to balance them, so the roll is always in one direction or the other. Martha lives as the plot of the novel “Dangerous Liaisons” by Shoderlo De Laclo, which was also filmed by Hollywood. She probably didn’t learn to live any other way. Her mother died early, her stepmother also died early, and her father was busy with his other child - college.
There is a saying that the fisherman sees from afar. So George, who married Martha's money, sees through Nick's younger colleague. With righteous anger, Nick is outraged by George’s insinuations, and he certainly thinks he’s better than him, but is he? In fact, Nick is not much different from George. All the same careerism and indiscriminateness in the ways of climbing up the ranks. Nick is basically a younger version of George. George's shocking revelations, which Nick initially takes for assault, are an allegorical message to Nick: "get out of here before it's too late." And we can only hope that Nick will heed the advice of the host of the party.
At first, a young couple trapped in a lair of energy vampires from a university beau monde seem innocent victims. However, from the very beginning, we are given a hint in the form of the name of the second heroine - Hani, which means "sweet" in English. It is true that she is so mimicky and innocent that doubt creeps in: Hani’s image is too good to be true. And the truth is - then Nick and Honey give out such a background that there is no doubt about the continuity of generations at the university. If George's lesson doesn't go well for Nick, it won't be long before Nick and Honey risk becoming second George and Martha. They are like the edges of a spectrum.
Perhaps both the film and the play will cause an emotional response from not everyone. Someone will look at these “freaks” and be glad that their family is not so bad. And I'll take my hat off in front of them. However, I personally know couples who are exact copies of the characters of the play. And if someone lives comfortably in such a mutually accepted scenario, then why not? And if uncomfortable, then this is a topic for a completely different conversation.
9 out of 10
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) is an adaptation of Edward Albee's play of the same name. Directed by Mike Nichols. Starring Richard Burton (George) and Elizabeth Taylor (Martha).
I thought for a long time that I watched this movie, but straining my memory, I did not remember a single episode. It puzzled me, and I wanted to review and remember, but it turned out that I did not watch it at all! So the film, which is more than fifty years old, I looked like new.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is 131 minutes long, and I haven't taken off screen for a minute. The film itself is amazing and shocked me. I always considered Elizabeth Taylor one of the many Hollywood beauties, and she did not cause much impression in me, except in the historical role of Cleopatra. In Cleopatra, Richard Burton starred as Antony, it was in that picture that I first saw Burton and since then I have not let him out of sight - so I liked him!
In Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Taylor and Burton play husband and wife.
The action takes place over one night. Drinking at the banquet, George and Martha return home at two in the morning, and a young couple Nick and Honey come to visit them. This couple is needed in order to show the limits of the personal relationship between Martha and George. So Nick and Honey didn't impress me either together or separately, and I won't talk about them. My attention was completely absorbed by Martha and George.
In reviews of the film I read, many people talk about Martha’s hysteria as a consequence of her dislike of her husband. She says she drinks, mocks him and cheats because she stopped loving him. Not at all!
Martha and George love each other very much. For some reason, the couple were left without children, which greatly affected Martha, who, much wanted a child. She considers them and her husband life without children inferior, it torments her and causes severe mental pain.
George, played by Richard Burton, is a brilliant husband. He tolerates all the antics of his wife, even deliberately provokes her to hysterical attacks, so that she thus threw out the emotional suffering that tormented her. He treats Martha like a big and capricious child and patiently endures her abuse. Another man would have exploded and left her, but George loves his wife and understands. His patient "okay, Martha," "I agree, Martha," "if you say, Martha," "I'll do it now, Martha," "I'll take it away, I'll bring it, I'll take it, I'll put it down, etc." Martha understands the reasons for her husband’s obedience, but she cannot stop, she is carried away! I love him so much that I will kill him someday.
To ease her mental suffering, Martha invented a son, whom she constantly talks about, and George, stepping into the game, plays along with her. Their son is beautiful, he is always different in appearance, but constantly remarkable in content.
On the night in the film, deadly tired George decides to put an end to Martha’s illusions and put an end to their deadlocked game, otherwise both Martha and he could die.
Martha pours tears, scolds him, reproaches him with insensitivity and selfishness, but accepts his decision as the only right and inevitable.
In the film, the characters drink a lot, not because alcoholics, but because they need a drink to stifle feelings. That night, heated by a fair amount of alcohol, they reach the limit of fictional hatred for each other, and that’s when George realizes that there is only half a step left to the general madness.
George is a real man, I admire him!
Explanation of the film title. There's a moment in the film where Martha sings a song where the question is 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' Later, George asks Martha, "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and she replies, "Me, George, me!" He laughs with ease.
The point of the question (and the title of the film) is that Martha could end her life like Virginia Woolf, who committed suicide after suffering a state of deep depression.
The film ends with a great hope that Martha, with the help of George, will cope with her emotional stress, and everything will be fine.
I would recommend watching.
Here is a game that has been amused for a couple of years. Are there any guests who become unwitting participants in this show? They existed. They lived twenty years ago, when they were still full of hope and enthusiasm, when a woman’s addiction to alcohol was more amusing than hurting. The young biologist is as hopeful as George was at the beginning of his career. And Martha is not at all like that funny stupid lady who gives funny comments.
They were unable to have children or lost their child. They were left alone with themselves and their grief.
We were shown a kind of couple where a woman enjoys the insignificance of her husband. She puts all unreasonable expectations on him. Martha was waiting for George to jump over his head. She belittled him day by day, comparing him to her successful father. George goes with the flow, his enthusiasm has long faded, he is so rooted in the very being of Martha that he does not represent any other life. Their relationship is built on a game - who brings the first? Martha misses the former, not spoiled by her own George, which is why she pays attention to the young teacher Nick.
George and Martha destroy each other, they play on their nerves and cause pain. Play - how far are we willing to go, how cruel are we still capable of?
Virginia is a symbol of the madness that the novelist suffered. The heroes of the film are also afraid to go crazy. The plot is based on the borderline state of their marriage. Couples are looking for a reason why life has failed. They do a 2-hour psychoanalysis. Mixing fiction with reality, according to grandfather Freud.
Was there a son? Does it matter if George shot his mother or not? And did he write about himself in an unreleased novel... about a murdered father? It's just social chatter. In which, as in Tennessee, a terrifying truth is revealed.
But Albee drives her to the absurd!
It all starts with a night party. Nick and Honey come to visit Martha, the rector's daughter. And George, her husband. A quarrel arises, and he shoots his wife with a gun. Instead of a bullet, an umbrella comes out. Precedent or joke? But when it turns out that George killed his mother with the same gun, it becomes no joke.
And as in the brain of a madman, the viewer flashes the thought: what if everything was so... He killed his parents - how did Martha try?
- And both times it was an accident, she joked.
Suspecting a husband and murdering a non-existent son
- I will not give it to you, she shouts, you will not dare! Even in my mind...
Assuming this is not a game. And the news of the death of his son the postman brought! Did George's parents kill him? Better to go crazy than live with it! That's what Martha's trying to get the hell out of. The killer himself confesses in books. In the murder of the unborn child admits Hanni. She's getting drunk too!
Heroes are not afraid of madness, it is the only way to survive. A sound mind with life is not compatible when reality breaks the fragile human soul.
- Don't be afraid of Virginia Woolf, George comforts in the final.
- And I'm afraid... - insists Martha.
Afraid of Virginia Woolf is he who fears for his reason!
Just the two of you. And again pro- and nbsp; love.
The film shocked me.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Barton are brilliant. I don't know if they have a personal, mutual experience of family life or an innate talent, but it's played hard. Bravo!
The film adaptation shows hopelessness, pain, anger, rabies and again despair. It’s all in every movement, every look, every breath of the characters.
I read some reviews. 'Institute of Marriage', ' licentiousness', ' removal of litter from the household' write many moralists... What I saw in all this chaos of anger and resentment was pain. The pain of loneliness, the pain of loss. The loss is not a fictional son, nor a career that could have been, if not for circumstances, rector-father, etc. The pain of losing dreams, or rather, illusions. ' Pick up the shards!' Marta shouts to her husband. These are the fragments that you need to pick up after you break the illusions. So loud, so loud and so painful.
How often are two people married but so lonely? And who is more alone in this production? Are married couples Martha and George angry? Or are they young, seemingly normal, and even seemingly cute Nick and Hanni? Such mature, seemingly decent people? The first, though deeply depressed, but accustomed and humbled in their loss of illusions and even consciously playing and writing more and more new games? Or those who grow these illusions in front of the audience inside themselves? What's worse? Play consciously or revealingly smile, hiding the truth about yourself, about the real reality deep inside to the fifth or sixth glass of booze?
The first pour a drink of pain, bitterness and loss of their possible beautiful and happy life, where the husband is the heir to the throne, the new rector of the university, and next to the green-eyed smart son with hair, like a golden fleece.. during the banquet, tirelessly leading verbal battles, accusing each other of losing this possible happiness, not understanding where the truth is, and where the fiction is, trying to hurt each other.
Why did they throw this carnival, this circus to a couple of strangers, like decent people, who inadvertently came to visit in the middle of the night? At the very beginning, it seems that this young and inexperienced couple of lambs were simply used by bloodthirsty and unhappy people in their anger about the pain. It's like Nick and Hannah are just victims of these cannibals, these monsters. Is that true? Are these people really cute? Are they worthy of such disrespect, such panibratical and consumer attitude?
After a while, everything falls into place. Lambs are not so innocent at all. They're just on their way. Ways of lies and betrayal, deception and cunning. And at the end of that journey, Martha and George. Where it started, it will end. All dreams, all plans, all will turn into shards of hatred, malice and betrayal. Just give me time.
The difference between the two seemed obvious to me. Martha and George used to love each other. And how can they love each other now? But Nick and Hannah are completely alien and indifferent to each other. They were, are and always will be.
So it's a love movie. That's not weird. Through pain, resentment, hatred and anger. A love that is not always beautiful and tender. But it is still love.
This film is a patchwork black and white blanket. It has a style, a concept, but the whole is only a combination of motley pieces. "Angry Young People" crossed the Atlantic and sprinkled their anger with sugar sentimentality. Look, look, when dawn breaks out, werewolves turn into people again, and the hyper-reality of close-ups appears only as an element of a fairy tale story. As if in Fincher’s Game, the absurdity that overtakes the heroes turns out to be an artifact, that is, invented and deliberately created. The logical question, which appears after 15 minutes of viewing: "Why?", becomes rhetorical in the finale of the film, sharing and apologizing for dragging us into this story. The picture moves away from the problems of family conflicts, leaving only the instruction: This cannot be done”. Quite a banal ending to almost a thriller heat. How would you like it if a serial killer suddenly started preaching morality to us? Just as feigned seems the redemption of our heroes, according to the logic of the theater of the absurd, turning their action into delirium, a temporary obscuration of reason, almost a dream. Sleep is the same patchwork blanket.
It is incredibly difficult to evaluate this film for the reason that some parts of it want to appreciate very high, and some vice versa. Let’s take a closer look at the flaps.
What happened in this movie? Two stars – Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor – in life were the same long-suffering couple that we are shown. I would not like to delve into their real relationships, but the chemistry of well-known and tired people apparently still transferred to the screen. In addition, the rivalry in the plot is successfully fueled by the rivalry of acting talent and written checks. Of course, the film is not a play, it is shot on frames, and the actor sometimes speaks into the void, the face of his opponent is only glued to the editing, but the myth of this couple will forever feed the aura of this creation. In contrast, we see a young couple, who not only are most of the film separated on the screen, but also in those moments when they are together, there is no attraction between them. The reasons for this can be found in the artificiality of their marriage and their inner demons, but the couple never reveal themselves for two hours, remaining mindless puppets. This leads to the question, what didn’t happen in the movie? One of the main stories that arises in it is a circular story. The place to which the young arrive, like a quagmire sucks into a dull measured life, which brings to a state of frenzy with its mundaneness and nondescriptness. The "games people play" in this city stem from the inability to otherwise get emotional discharge. They get drunk and begin to let go of what is oppressed by social pressure during the day. Everything that comes out at night is a phantom of the forbidden, when diligent teachers cannot but be the ideal of decency, when family order cannot be voluntarily violated, because reputation is at stake. To remove these fetters, you need to drink alcohol, and then invent a new life in which you are not a regular lecturer, whom your wife treats every evening, when you are not a respectable wife and housewife, but a weaving beast intrigue. Heroes try to escape from their dull life in the invented alter-ego, although the director with his final and departs from this interpretation. Now, this fate has to be carried forward gradually, and to a couple who have just arrived in the city, they have to go through this macabra in order to decide who they want to be and whether they can resist the environment. The viewer, on the contrary, is invited to feel the sadistic role of the manipulator, since the main focus is shifted to the adult couple, in order to eventually slightly repent for their misdeeds. The plot would have received a completely different depth when we saw what was happening through the eyes of a young couple, then the vicious circle of everyday life turned into an eternal vicious circle, as if transmitted by a baton further, which inspires much more horror than complacency from boredom in a small town. Anyway, the second pair of characters looks pale, even their blonde hair seems to give them even more paleness, what can we say about acting, except for the scene with the bell and the scene with the servant, we see nothing in these characters except a reverent reaction to the nonsense that is hanging on their ears.
What else did the movie do? The two halves of the patchwork blanket are dialogues and mise-en-scene/operatorial work. These two halves work equally well separately, but together they only draw the audience’s attention from each other. Work with the camera is done filigreeally, sometimes with the use of perspective-distorting lenses, but because of it, you seem to miss the nuances on which the plot of the play is built. From the small details we get a texture portrait of a middle-aged couple, but where in the theater all 4 actors are always in sight, here we see a close-up of only one. Stunning mise-en-scene scenes, when the face of the dominant character occupies more screen space than the entire figure of the one who is depressed in the scene, their cinematography prevents us from looking deep, where the one on whom there is no focus, betrays himself without feeling the attention of the audience. The camera work is extremely remarkable, the dialogue is full of hints, irony, ridicule quite in the spirit of salons with the real Virginia Woolf, but together these two components are in imbalance. Again, continuing the thought, I want to note that the director did not quite succeed. He failed to turn the play into a film. As you know, the plays are dialogues with remarks, and they also have intermission. And in the transition from the bell-to-servant stage, it feels like he should be here, but there are no intermissions in movies, so our imagination does not have time to imagine what happened on the second floor between Martha and Nick. In addition, there is a certain arrhythmicity of the picture, from which the 15 minutes of intermission were cut out, because the action of the play is an action that takes place in real time. The skip between the two scenes reminds us of how skillfully the play is built, that 15 minutes of intermission really corresponded to 15 minutes in the bedroom, and the film seems to rush events, rewinding time forward.
The social drama of the “young angry” turns out to be a kind of elegy in the past years, stopping two steps from the status of pretentious and loud, it turns itself into a mass product in which the god of the machine suddenly grants the mind to the mad.
7 out of 10
The film begins with a problem with Taylor - in the first scene, she is painted so that she cuts her eyes, alone in front of her husband "after hell knows how many years" of marriage. Nichols did nothing about it.
With the arrival of guests, her drawing becomes true, since there were spectators.
Then for quite a long time everything goes well, great work, and in general. Fascinating. Sometimes they slip completely dead phrases, but this is a small thing.
At some point, I didn’t see from what, the film begins to go downhill. The main problem: monologue dialogues from second-rate literature, empty, long, pretentious. By their unnaturalness, they will mutilate the already imperfect acting work. There is a scene near a cafe or dance: in the dark under the lamps of Taylor and Barton, the scene lasts a few minutes, but it seems like an eternity - both say such nonsense that Barton begins as if just reading from the sheets that hold before his eyes.
The last 30-40 minutes seem like hours, waiting for the end.
Finally, I want to mention the work of Sandy Dennis, a good image.
Many years later, Polanski will do Massacre, cope perfectly with the actors, despite the fees of some, and show a good lesson in the sense of proportion.
P.S. recalled another work, similar to the unity of time and place, the theme of family dramas, little known thing, but higher level - 1972, dir. Elia Kazan, Guests ("Visitors)
7 out of 10
I don't know if it's cinema in the full sense of the word. The film is completely built on dialogue, there is no action as such.
A small family adok, in which two enthusiastically play for a relegation. The game without spectators does not make sense, so two extras, a young couple, are invited to visit, in front of whom these two crazy people shake their underwear in detail and consistently.
And it is not clear to the end, what goal are the players pursuing? Destroy each other or regenerate each day from the ruins again and again.
Elizabeth Taylor is absolutely gorgeous! What power, what desperation and anger in every line, in every look. This is the first movie I’ve seen with her, and her performance shocked me. She rightfully holds the title of Queen of Hollywood.
A very unpleasant film! Doubly unpleasant because the actors are excellent and play with passion and feelings. Horrible! For two hours, four people tremble each other's nerves, morally mock, evil joke and other arsenal ' psychological dramas ' Skeletons are shaking out of the closet, which modern man looks at with bewilderment and thinks: '. What's all this shit about? But older people would protect each other, otherwise Kondraty enough!'
This is an unpleasant and anti-family movie. The director apparently intended ' to break the veil' with a decent marriage life. Elizabeth Taylor plays very shrillly, suffers, scandalizes, sobs ... You can't watch it, and you can't get away.
Once I was advised this film, calling it psychological ... and indeed: the characters are like psychopaths who have everything in life: a house, a son, money, social status, a favorite job, but there is no, perhaps, the main thing - mind! The whole film, the characters eat each other, remembering past grievances, constantly each other ' puncture ' and stalk, drag a young couple into their relationship (also neurotic), there is a feeling that they feed on their sick experiences and find a reasonable solution to the situation simply afraid.
A professional psychologist would probably give everyone a diagnosis in the first 20 minutes of the film and, yawning, kicked it out... I have no such experience, besides I was hoping for a favorable resolution and resolution of their problems, but in the middle of their senseless emotions, I had a headache ... I did not watch the film ... My verdict:
Come in, come in. Throw your coats where you have to, it's our custom. And pour yourself a drink.
Me, Martha and my husband George have been together for how long? 200 years? Do we love each other? You live with ours and find out. Boredom is terrible. After countless battles, all the pain points are known. It is boring and uninteresting.
I’m loud and vulgar, and George is not a man at all, not like my daddy.
Come on, let's have a drink. Who wants whiskey, brandy? Come on, jin-jin, we can't wait to start our show.
It feels like a centrifuge. Your legs are choking and you're vomiting, either from psychological hell or pseudo-alcohol. Sophisticated dissection of emotions and feelings of each other. Piece by piece, from small to big. A thriller, the most that neither is a thriller.
I naturally wanted to pour a bucket of water on a raging Martha. George just wanted to run over by car.
Elizabeth Taylor is not only beautiful, she is disgustingly beautiful. And when her voice jumped through the dubbing, it gave even more reality to the character. This movie should be seen in the original. Not far behind his wife, at the time, and Richard Barton. An amazing duet. Bravo!
I find this debilitating spectacle useful. Thanks to the film, I clearly understood how dangerous manipulation, provocation and other role-playing games are. The main characters are spouses with impressive experience. They once started “for health”, and continued the competition “who hurts who”, and without this psychological game can not live. They are extremely cruel to each other, since it is too late to start with a clean slate with someone else, the years are not the same.
For those who want to get married, the film can become a warning, for convinced bachelors - a tick in support of status.
The characters are close to me, with all their hoaxes, inconsistencies, the desire to dust my eyes and work for the public, bored in the quiet scene. Close as a man who tried his hand at such a game and lost all his army on the way. And these, performed by Liz Taylor and Richard Barton, continued. Funny moment when the wife reprimands her husband, as she expected his rapid career growth at the beginning of marriage. It became clear to me which of the spouses started this “exciting game”, and with whom I then had to swap roles.
Perhaps the quarrel in the family of childless intellectuals will not seem at first glance a plot worthy of attention. But I recommend watching the movie – everyone will find something for themselves. It's pretty deep for that.
P.S. A great addition to Virginia Woolf is the avant-garde Void dir. Vincenzo Natalie.
In the life of any person there can be an unpleasant episode, which he diligently tries to forget or, in extreme cases, change that no one even had suspicions. Trying to change the truth, a person launches a game whose rules are created on the go. It is important to observe every detail, otherwise everything will collapse and the truth will be revealed. A similar idea was laid in the basis of the plot of the psychedelic tragicomedy “Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?”
Synopsis Late Saturday night. History professor George returns with his dissolute wife, Martha, from a weekly corporate party hosted by Martha’s father. Heroes invite a young couple Nick and Honey to their drink. Hosts and guests begin to drink together, have fun, argue, not assuming how this night will affect their lives.
Game of actors It would be amazing and at the same time great if each of the actors received an Academy Award, because the roles performed in the film were so amazing that there are no words to convey how amazing the talent of the performers seemed. First of all, of course, I would like to highlight Richard Burton, who played the role of George, a history professor and depressed husband who dreams of putting a bullet in Martha’s head. Magnificently played the role of Martha went to the incomparable Elizabeth Taylor, embodied the image of a vulgar and spoiled woman who all her life is used to controlling men and therefore will not tolerate at least one male dare to contradict her. George Seagal plays Nick, a young and ambitious biology teacher who doesn’t love his wife. Honey played Sandy Dennis, who played the role of, at first glance, a quiet gray mouse, which turns out to be an insidious person who, for the sake of her husband Nick, is ready to kill thousands of human lives in herself, if anyone understands what I mean.
Directorship Mike Nichols’ first job was a successful ticket to Hollywood, where he gained popularity and respect as a talented film director. Most importantly, what is worth noting in the directing Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is how the director focuses on the person’s personality, on her behavior. The main characters are not just people, but collective images of human vices that simultaneously faced each other in one night. Of course, the picture turned out to be extremely psychedelic, and I think the viewer will walk away from what he saw for a long time to understand what he just saw. However, it was this mystery that became the key to success, which is still held.
Scenario You can immediately see that the film is based on a theatrical play, because the structure of the plot, the development of the action, the change of scenery or characters immediately resemble some kind of performance. The film, in fact, consists of a whole galaxy of dialogues and monologues, in which each of the characters is revealed to the viewer more and more. However, throughout the film, the viewer understands that something is wrong in the plot, that something is missing. This turns out to be the main intrigue, which is revealed at the very end, but which the viewer will probably understand only a few hours later, after the inscription “The end of the film”.
Total I can say with full confidence that "Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is a very powerful picture, which simply attracts with its stylistics, its intricate plot, its magnificent acting, so without further words, I just strongly recommend the picture for viewing.
10 out of 10
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a 1966 American drama directed by Mike Nichols. This drama turned out to be a film for all time, a strong, exciting, psychological story shot atmospherically and mysteriously. The movie looks with interest, and it is impossible to break away from the screen. This drama is realistic and emotional, and the director brilliantly revealed all facets of its story and “skeletons in the closet”.
We see a deep, deep night and a married couple waiting for guests late at night. He is a professor of history, she is the daughter of the rector of the college. We see their skirmishes and bullying, provocations on each other, but they have a certain subtext, and it is that the heroes had a son, and now he is no longer there. Uninvited guests get into a real hurricane of human passions and psychological games of this difficult family, which hides its terrible grief deep behind the mask.
What a wonderful role Elizabeth Taylor played in this drama. She loved her role with all her essence and invested one hundred percent in it. Taylor played just gorgeous, and watching her clean performance in this film is one great pleasure. Elizabeth Taylor is a beautiful woman and a wonderful American actress. For me, she will always be one of Hollywood’s finest pearls. She received her second Oscar for Best Actress in this drama. Richard Burton is also a strong and interesting, talented actor. He, too, played clean and believable in this drama and composed Taylor just a chic, emotional duet. Cinema this definitely has cinematic value and its significance, any movie lover will be delighted with this picture. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a drama filmed with emotion, and this movie is much deeper than it seems at first glance. Watch this movie and feel the intensity of the talented actors.
Mike Nichols’s films may not have a tie-in, but there’s definitely an exposure, a visual “introduction.” If "The Graduate" first shows that the action will mainly take place in the tired eyes of Dustin Hoffman, and "Catch-22" meaningfully meets a military sunset over the Alps, then in the case of "Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?" everything is even more obvious. Two o'clock in the morning, a pale moon spills on a prosperous quarter. Drunk Elizabeth Taylor and serious Richard Burton go separately, and if they do communicate, it is only to practice harsh sarcasm bombing on each other. They are husband and wife, and Satan is involved. In their dusty professorial home, the ironic battles will continue: the joke of the day is to replace the Grey Wolf from a song by three piglets in the name of a modernist writer. The intelligentsia, what to take from them. Soon quite invited guests will come, while young, inexperienced; tension, despite jokes, will grow, and the Devil quietly dormant behind the house will be joined in a vintage sleepy, but still cruel, God of (verbal) Massacre.
And the author of “Virginia Woolf” (prominent master of the “theater of the absurd” Edward Albee), and the director of its adaptation, both successfully flew out of their universities somewhere in the fifties, abandoned the idea of higher education in principle and from their first works began a large-scale sad and satirical activity towards the social stratum that is called the intelligentsia. Albee is a master of dialogue, and Nichols is a directorial instructor. On the one hand - witty drunken quarrels with Darwinian gaiety, and on the other - visual transformations: Elizabeth Taylor is terrible when drunk, and handsome Richard Burton, now wearing vintage glasses, turns into a man in a case with an expressionless face and adds himself a dozen years. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a very clear-cut, cinematic film. Nichols’ faithful co-writer and creative partner Elaine May once said that if you’re an author and want your script to be filmed with feeling and knowledge, giving it to Mike is the best possible solution. After all, every shoe in the frame works on the author’s idea.
In addition to Nicholas’ shoes, there are also quite literal Chekhov guns, neoclassical Tennessee-Williams tantrums and even prayers in Latin. However, this movie is more appropriately called a movie looking only forward than looking back. Both the play and its adaptation is a competent provocation, subtle enough not to be deliberate and repulsive, but also shocking enough to attract the attention of the time and cause rejection from the puritanical society of postwar America. The university intelligentsia was not weakly turned away from such an incriminating image of their life: kind of happy and family, but in which it was only necessary to blow away the upper layer of library dust to expose reality. In addition, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is one of the class mirrors of the sexual revolution, which is very easy to portray when talking about uninhibited youth, but is more difficult when talking about the middle class. Taylor walks around the house in tight short trousers and a decolleted sweatshirt, seduces a young professor, and from the screen, meanwhile, words are poured, indecent only slightly, but already to a sufficient extent that the theater-goers of the sixties are flustered and, perhaps, even disdainfully wince.
In general, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, despite almost all possible Hollywood acclaim, is a movie that has remained slightly underrated on a global scale. Mike Nichols, a former theater director, introduces the masses to psychologism through a dynamic camera, to filming a car ride, oh God, not face-to-face (!), and to the fact that for every conditional act of the film, at least one cult shot can occur. He will continue his work in the already mentioned “Graduate”, where plans will be chosen even more lovingly, and the sociotypes of “Virginia Woolf” will be developed (after all, Martha-Taylor is exactly a bored Mrs. Robinson!). Burton's subtle play is underrated and the infernality, not even metaphorical, of the film's title jingle is underestimated. It was difficult, at least in a terrible dream, to think that in Austin’s graceful Virginia Woolf could become a figure as terrifying as a hyperbolized gray wolf for poor piglets.
After "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" there's quite normal light dizziness and darkness in the eyes - if not real, then figurative exactly - as after any sleepless night with alcohol, dancing, table games, and here with family drama, one of the strangest deaths in the history of new drama and stunning catharsis. An old, full moon will set behind a prosperous quarter, the Devil with the first roosters will shake off and leave, and the sun will measure the beginning of a new era for heroes and society. The university version of Bartholomew’s Night will come to an end, and then you can go to sleep as if nothing had happened. Few people before this so cynically disassembled the boring mental elite, attracting to this unusual power of emotion. The main point of Albee and Nichols’ research is that the intelligentsia is the only social class that, even in its prime, manages to remain decadent. After all, if you constantly multiply painful reflection, ambition and alcohol, it is foolish to expect that anything will ever change from the rearrangement of the multipliers.
The wonderful playwright Edward Albee wrote the play. No less talented director Mike Nichols made a film on this play, inviting actors who were already famous: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to play the main roles. The only question left was whether they would confirm their reputation or rest on their laurels. The answer came naturally when the movie came out. For me, this film is much more significant than the cult “Cleopatra”.
First of all, it is a chamber drama, a genre that I really like. Well, when atlanteans like Taylor and Burton are involved, a movie can't be bad by definition. The story of Martha and George is very symbolic, because in the past and in the present and in the future, the relationship between husband and wife will always be relevant and in demand for the general public, because those moments and situations about which the main characters are discussing are our moments, our life with you, real and unvarnished.
Martha and George can't exist without some kind of game where there's no room for pity or mercy. Marta started. She'll turn anyone you want and make you feel hot. It would seem so calm and phlegmatic George and he falls under this whirlwind and hurricane, and just as his wife goes crazy. They make fun of each other, they push and provoke each other, they do their tricks and tricks in this game. There is no place for mercy and compassion, but alcohol is always welcome here, because it is a springboard to immerse a husband and wife in the abyss of clarifying relationships.
What happens when a young couple joins them? Yes, you can't say otherwise. They come off in full, only this is not a comedy, but a drama about people and fates. Potential? Martha's a crook, March's a golden pen. These are terms that come to mind when I look at Elizabeth Taylor in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But you can't take your eyes off of this mess.
How wonderfully invested in this film. Both. But Elizabeth Taylor is a tornado, a tsunami and at the same time a mild calm. She's storming like Moby Dick, and she doesn't care. And Richard Burton? It is no coincidence that of all her husbands she loved him more than others and considered a real man. This is the absolute truth!
Feelings during and after watching incredible!!
10 out of 10
Not even a soul, but a meaty two-hour action based on Albee’s brilliant play, played by stage and movie mastadonts – Liz Taylor (Marta), Richard Barton (George), and a couple of young then, but very talented Sandy Dennis and George Seagal.
Taylor in the role of a drooping, terribly vulgar, full of hatred and love for her husband, a woman who “plays” games that make her hair stand on end is magnificent. At times, there was an absolutely vivid feeling that all the words of rage and anger she addressed not to George, but to Richard, her husband, whom she had abandoned, then begged again to accept. These two so filled the space with electricity that it seemed as if just a little more, and their dialogues will burst the display.
I really liked Sandy Dennis as the stupid and complex Hanni. She and her weak husband, caught in the net of two animals locked in a cage of loneliness and hatred, were almost literally torn apart, humiliated, insulted, but at the same time they had the chance to look at themselves “in the mirror” and see themselves 20 years later, already in the role of Martha and George.
Two hours of soulful striptease, where there is no hint of decency, respect, brakes.
It’s a spectacle to be prepared for.
Dedicated to the crisis of traditional family values, the infamous adaptation of Edward Albee’s play no longer gives the impression of a shocking revelation, over the years has lost the appeal of the satirical illustration of the institution of marriage, which for a long time has been in the shadow of the obsessive tendentiousness of American cinema, but by the efforts of a popular playwright first crowned with the burden of negative sides; offers the modern viewer obvious and accessible to his consciousness truths. Particularly prone to dreams of a domestic idyll, the average American was shocked by the once censored truth of marital relations, provided the deliberately defiant tape with a resounding success and several Academy awards, usually an increasingly denied dignity for years.
The grotesque realism of the image of family anarchy is confirmed in the provocative behavior of the characters, absurd situations and verbal duel of the married couple, indicating the fatal disunity of people bound by ties of duty, allows the director to express the combination of both tragic and comic in their false well-being, to describe with fullness and insight human vices and shortcomings. Accompanied by profanity, sarcastic arguments, immoral acts of the film’s heroes not only confused the American public with the ideological imagery of the recreated reality, questioned the unshakability of marital happiness, but also became a prerequisite for the fall of the Hollywood system of self-censorship, which oppressed the creativity of domestic directors.
In the history of cinema, there were no cases when the word “ped***st” would sound from the screen, the ban on ridiculing the sanctity of marriage was finally violated, yet the postulates of the notorious Hayes code prevented the detailed presentation of the text of the play, namely, they obliged Nichols to exclude from the adapted script the illustrative scene of adultery of vulgar Martha, as for those years, having too pronounced an erotic color, but, most regrettable, would certainly allow the viewer unfamiliar with the drama of the primary source to make the most faithful representation of the paradox of the vagarity of the characters in the relationship, the need of the disbeliance of the past.
Consisting mainly of simple everyday dialogues, sometimes subject to ambiguous interpretation of the confessions of the main characters, Albee’s play has undergone significant reductions, thanks to the creative organization of the stage director, does not plunge the viewer into the monotony of public quarrels, reveals hidden springs and internal patterns of the described agony of joint life in a strictly defined compositional rhythm. Nichols does not allow a static mise-en-scene to happen, uses theatrical experience in order to build an extremely dynamic event series, however, the literary original does not allow him to fully demonstrate his professional abilities, turn around figurative-artistic thinking, gives complete freedom of expression only to the cast, in which the stunning Elizabeth Taylor stands alone.
Stirring up the sanctimonious family values of America of the sample of the 60s, Edward Albee’s play “Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with a light hand of Michael Nichols stepped onto the screen, where it made an even greater furor with a shocking demonstration of the realities of marriage with a term. The fact of the participation of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, at that time already gained wide popularity, only added fuel to the fire in the notoriously scandalous film adaptation.
Martha and George are a middle-aged couple who dance daily on the ashes of their long-dead marriage and pour unimaginable amounts of alcohol into the act. George is a college history professor who is rectored by Martha’s father, a lady with an uncertain occupation who has made drinking her main job. George tries to keep up with his wife, however, if for Martha alcohol is already part of the image, for George brandy and whiskey are more fuel for verbal quarrels with his wife, which flare up at every turn. Marta, a classic example of a woman with a hysterical personality type, tirelessly demonstrates her contempt for a husband who “should have become someone and become nothing.” On one of the evenings of the traditional clarification of relations, guests appear in the house of the couple - a young couple Nick and Coney, who will face a serious test in the form of a visual demonstration of their future family life, since the marriage of Martha and George is a futuristic forecast of the story of Nick and Coney. The only difference is that there was love between Martha and George after all, and between young people only her illusion.
"Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" is a reference classic of the genre and an example of the golden era of Hollywood cinema, carefully written dialogues and monologues worthy of quotation, high-class dramaturgy and brilliant actors who play as they breathe.