WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF

US, 1966, 132 minutes. Black and white.
Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, George Segal, Sandy Dennis.
Directed by Mike Nichols.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf is the film version of Edward Albee's outstanding play. It concerns a middle-aged Mr and Mrs Middle America (George and Martha - Washington?) who are joined in a love-hate union that has created barriers, myths, sorrows. They are visited by a new generation couple on the University campus and a late evening of truth games ensues in which masks are brutally torn from all four and an 'exorcism1 (Albee's word) of evil takes place - enabling George and Martha to find some kind of honest truth together.

The film is very well made - it lost out to A Man for All Seasons for 1966 awards, but obtained Oscars for Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis. But the outstanding performance is that of Richard Burton, who shows what a brilliant actor he is. The sequence of his telling the story of his youth is a masterpiece of acting. The film was Mike Nichols’s (The Graduate, Catch 22, Carnal Knowledge) first as director. Screenplay was by Ernest Lehman - who had just done The Sound of Music.

The film created some sensations when first made and released because of the strong language and sexual innuendo. It was released, with approval of the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures as well. Many franker films that have followed have the sensations but lack the intense intelligence behind it. As a drama it is well worth seeing. As a study of human beings, of truth and illusion, of marriage, love and hate, it is a must. .

1. What is the point of the title? (Was it effectively used throughout the film? How?)

2. The musical score was gentle and unobtrusive. How did it contribute to the success of the film? Would a more dramatic score have been better?

3. What were your first impressions of Martha and George and the atmosphere they lived in? (Did they represent America - George and Martha Washington?) The campus, their home, parties, her cackle, his weariness, her 'braying' and eating so slatternly, the Bette Davis discussion?

4. Why did they fight? How well did you think they loved each otfier? How much was love, haw much hatred, how much frustration?

5. Was the audience meant to see the visiting couple as a younger reflection of George and Martha, or George and Martha as they were when younger?

6. Why was Art trying to impress? How ambitious, immoral and unscrupulous was he? How callow? Was he likeable at all?

7. Why was Fran trying to impress? How happy was she? Why did she continually "throw up"? Did she understand what was going on?

8. How cruel were the games played? How cruel were George and Martha? To each other, to their guests? "Get the guests. "

9. The Games led to an exposing of secrets and secret selves, then to on exorcism of the evil within them that left them limp, but readier to live:
- Art - his secret, ambition, forced to marry a pregnant girl with little love, vanity over masculinity, ready to use people, but unaware that he could be outwitted and used, as by Martha as she made him her houseboy. He was almost totally a flop,
- Fran - pregnant in imagination, fear of husband and children; she moved in a fantasy world,
- George - Art as a threat, George building him up and then unmasking him as an 'inevitability', too serious about his ambitions, George’s story about the boy who asked for 'Burgon', Its impact in the film. This is his secret. Why did he marry Martha? For whipping? Why did he not get promotions? Why had he slackened off? Victim of the game, "Humiliate the Host"?
- Martha - calling the tune, vulgar, vicious, sensual? Her building up of Art's ego and her loud despising of George and his failures. The influence of her father and his position. Her longing for children she could not have. Her claim to be "Earth-Mother" and her myth of her child. Her moving "bag and baggage into her fantasy world'?

10. What did the film offer on the theme of marriage
- truth and illusion, honesty, possibilities of communication
- suffering and pain, humiliation and growing older the hatred in love and "total war".
- killing (the umbrella gun, the War threats, George's killing of parents, killing their son)
- exorcising evil?

11. Comment on the use of
- facial close-ups
- the repartee and the vicious dialogue
- the truth games - the visit to the Inn and Martha and Art's "frug"
- the suggestions of adultery with the car and the blinker still on
- the language and the jokes.

12. How successful was
- the transition from stage to screen of the play
- the individual performances
- the black and white photography.

13. How moving was the final death of the child and George and Martha's rediscovering each other - the song, Martha's "I am" and the clasped hands?

14. Was this an optimistic or pessimistic film? Why? Was it a humane film? Why?