Lecture Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf -48-
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1966
Directed by Mike Nichols
Play by Edward Albee
Screenplay by Edward Albee and Ernest Lehman
Presented by Warner Brothers, Not rated.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are ideal as malevolent marrieds George and Martha in first-time film director Mike Nichols’ searing film of Edward Albee’s Broadway hit Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Taylor won her second Academy Award (and the new York Film Critics, National Board of Review and British Film Academy Best Actress Awards). Burton matches her as her emotionally spent spouse. And George Segal and Sandy Dennis (1966’s Oscar winner as Best Supporting Actress) score as another couple straying into their destructive path. The movie won five Academy Awards (art direction, costume design and cinematography as well as the acting pair) and remains after 30+ years a taboo-toppling landmark.
About the production
The five-month shooting schedule was conducted on location at Northhampton, MA, and at Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, CA.
The picture can claim several noteworthy firsts: the first motion picture directed by Mike Nichols, the first film produced by Ernest Lehman and the first true character role for Elizabeth Taylor.
Lehman opened up the play to the larger scope of the screen, but still kept it a four-character vehicle, as true to playwright Edward Albee as possible.
So true that Warner Brothers president jack L. Warner established an “adults only” policy for the film. The film was responsible for the creation of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) rating system.
The policy prohibited theatres from admitting anyone “under the age of 18 unless accompanied by his parent.”
Making one of the rare instances in which the dialogue of a motion picture was issued as a recording, Warner Brothers Records released a special deluxe album featuring the entire dialogue of the movie.
Commentary by Haskell Wexler, Academy Award Winning Cinematographer.
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 1962-1963 season.
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. 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. 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).
Chapter 1: Moonlit walk home (credits).
These scenes under the titles were all shot back east at Smith College, located in Northhampton, Massachusetts. They had a problem with both fog and rain at this location. The real problem with dealing with fog is that it reveals where your light source is coming from, your artificial light source. You can relate to this technique if you watch rock videos or if you attend concerts utilizing a hazer or fog machine. Works great for those venues, however you don’t want to see shafts of light when the actors are walking down a street in a movie or on stage.
The street lamps that you see in the background which serve as a source of light, placed there by Richard Sylbert, the production designer, the leaves in motion, are caused by Ritters, wind machines, when they did have fog to deal with they would sue the wind machines to clear some of it out, so that it wasn’t so apparent.
A Missed Opportunity. University-bred and costing 75 cents each, 100 moths blew their chance to appear in the movie. The moths were obtained from the University of California for a night scene with stars Taylor and Burton. Their role in the scene was to fly around several lampposts near a cottage where the characters are. Unfortunately, the fickle moths chose to head for a set of brighter lights in the vicinity, thus defaulting screen immortality. They were replaced by a batch of mechanical plastic moths. These, propelled by giant fans, worked out fine.
Notice the gradual focus to focus under the title card of the cinematographer. The street lamps help at depth of field to the shot.
They had a certain date to clear out of Smith College; movie crews in those days were not a welcomed site, as they are today. To the aristocratic New Englanders the film crews were considered more like a traveling circus, than a benefit to the economy. Hollywood crews resembled more like a bunch of drinking cowboys at this time period, than respectable citizens.
Chapter 2: “What a dump!”
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.
When you see in a film, a practical light fixture turn on, like the corner lamp that she just flipped the switch for, there is actually about ten lighting units burning overhead to create that effect.
Most of the film is done in low lights with the use of shadows, so Wexler wanted to make sure that when they go into the kitchen he could utilize high key lighting. The human eye has a tendency to fall asleep if it is not given enough light in a movie, so that is another reason for the various lighting effects that we see in movies. They are placing a silk screen in front of the lights to get this wash and spread of lights. Still photographers also do this effect when they bounce a light off of the ceiling.
Martha looks around the living room discontentedly and parodies Bette Davis' mannerisms, exclaiming:
What a dump! [from Beyond the Forest]
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.
Elizabeth was concerned about how many of these chicken legs she would have to eat.
This was filmed with a new black and white film that Kodak came out with at this time. The studio wanted the film to be made in color, but Mike Nichols the director insisted that it should be shot in black and white.
Wexler was comfortable shooting in black and white, as he didn’t have a lot of experience working with color, so he was thrilled with the decision. Richard Burton was not thrilled, he was very conscious about his pockmarks on his face, and felt that he would not look good in the black and white medium. A greater concern for Burton was the fact that Wexler had made documentaries in the past, and he was concerned that Wexler would not know how to deal with him photographically, and make him look good. Something Wexler didn’t know about until the publication of Burton’s autobiography.
This was Mike Nichols first experience in directing a movie, previously his directing credits came from the Broadway stage. The second movie that Mike Nichols directed goes down as an all American classic film, just like this one, only the second one appealed to a much broader audience, that being The Graduate. The studio did suggest that Nichols take on his staff a senior editor to assist with the filming, to make sure that Nichols would shoot a film that could be logically edited, but that offer was rejected.
Wexler also was the cinematographer for The Graduate, and recalls doing screen tests with Robert Redford, speaking of which Robert Redford turned down a part in this film, the part of Nick.
Notice as Elizabeth cleans up she places a dirty plate of food in the nightstand drawer this was her idea.
Look around this room the art direction and production design is excellent, every little object enhances the actors’ personality.
Elizabeth’s move from the mirror to the bed is an overhead crane shot, yet it looks like a simple basic move.
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.
When Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor made this movie they were in love with each other, as a result they can really play with each other, and the chemistry is visible for the audience.
There is a couple of hand held camera shot that sneak in, and this over the bed shot was done with a bridge built over the bed. Look at all of the set ups and moves the camera is doing here to catch this natural flow of dialogue.
The advantage of the bridge was that he could shoot down on his two subjects, and this was an angle you didn’t see much of in films. The next shot is a tighter angle from the same perspective. The cameras at this time period were also quite big and heavy, so they had to take great care to make sure that it didn’t drop on their stars.
The Bicycling Burtons. Though they had no part in the movie, two highly polished red bicycles lettered in gold were integral to the making. The bikes belonged to stars Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton who used them daily to get around the huge Warner Brothers lot. The Bicycling Burtons were just about the only Burtons visible to eager studio visitors, because while performing they were behind closed doors and guarded doors.
“Virginia Woolf” marked the fourth film in which Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton starred together. They teamed earlier in “Cleopatra,” “The V.I.P.’s” and “The Sandpiper.” They reteamed in “The Taming of the Shrew” and “The Boom!”
You get Elizabeth laying down here, this is when the popularity of widescreen came out in theatres, and the human figure in relief was appropriate for compositions.
Richard Burton 1925-1984
Height
5' 9"
Spouse
'Sally Hay' / (1983 - 5 August 1984) (his death)Susan Hunt / (1976 - 1982) (divorced)
Elizabeth Taylor / (10 October 1975 - 1 August 1976) (remarried/redivorced)
Elizabeth Taylor / (15 March 1964 - 1974) (divorced)
'Sybil Williams' (c. 1948 - 1963) (divorced)
Trivia
He took his professional name from his former schoolmaster, Philip Burton.
Richard Burton was banned from the BBC... From the New York Times Arts and Leisure Section, November 23, 1974, in Richard Burton's article about his experience playing Churchill in a television drama [probably the 1960 series, "Winston Churchill: The Valiant Years". Although 1974 was also the year he played Churchill in the movie, The Gathering Storm.] comes this: "In the course of preparing myself...I realized afresh that I hate Churchill and all of his kind. I hate them virulently. They have stalked down the corridors of endless power all through history.... What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, "We shall wipe them out, everyone of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth"? Such simple-minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single-minded and merciless ferocity." The BBC response printed in the NY Times on the 30th of November 1974 banned him from future productions with the BBC. The supervisor of drama productions said, "As far as I am concerned, he will never work for us again.... Burton acted in an unprofessional way."