About a year and a half ago, I adopted two zebra finches named George and Martha. I did not really understand why they were so named other than a vague recollection of a play by Edward Albee with characters sharing nomenclature. It wasn't until I brought them home that first, Martha went after George, flying at him, pushing him out of their gourd home, pecking him, and generally being a harridan. They fought like cockerels and screwed like field mice, yet they never did produce an egg. One day, the tables turned, and George took ownership of the bird house. George began to rip out Martha's feathers. George banished Martha to the floor to pick her sustenance from among the shit-encrusted scraps on the cage floor. Then, one day, while I was away, Martha died of mysterious circumstances. I buried her under a cactus; within two days, something had dug her up and eaten her.
My only exposure to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? came from mentions and a high school performance of Martha's opening monologue: I thought it was a pure comedy. What I got were two hours of pure, inhuman nastiness, goaded on by razor-sharp tongues dripping with venom. True, there were laughs to be had, but as in the life of finches, the story of a crumbled and fruitless marriage is rife with tragedy and delusion that permeates every character. There is little room for sympathy with these characters, who fluctuate so readily from fondness to loathing and back again. Nonetheless, their exchanges, much wittier and allowing more time than most modern films (owing to the theatrical source material), keep the viewer engrossed and cringing.
The late, great Elizabeth Taylor very much deserved her Oscar for her role as Martha, a performance unlike any I'd expected from the queen of class, so elegant in her horridness, yet overflowing with emotional layers that may or may not have been real to the character. Martha is a truly sick woman who has built up an entire world of illusion that George has somehow tolerated for years. Yet, they feed off each other, enable each other, and are clearly meant for each other, as dysfunctional as their alcohol- and revenge-driven relationship is. Their example offers a warning to anyone on the brink of marriage: choose wisely, not for money or out of panic, or else become the monster or the monster's bitch.
I give Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? four stars for sheer cringe factor. Whether I would watch it again on screen or choose to see it on stage instead remains to be determined. In any case, it is an excellent film for any (would-be) actor looking to see how the pros can make the most of long conversations in few, select settings, as well as how to effectively make the audience squirm at every turn.
My only exposure to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? came from mentions and a high school performance of Martha's opening monologue: I thought it was a pure comedy. What I got were two hours of pure, inhuman nastiness, goaded on by razor-sharp tongues dripping with venom. True, there were laughs to be had, but as in the life of finches, the story of a crumbled and fruitless marriage is rife with tragedy and delusion that permeates every character. There is little room for sympathy with these characters, who fluctuate so readily from fondness to loathing and back again. Nonetheless, their exchanges, much wittier and allowing more time than most modern films (owing to the theatrical source material), keep the viewer engrossed and cringing.
The late, great Elizabeth Taylor very much deserved her Oscar for her role as Martha, a performance unlike any I'd expected from the queen of class, so elegant in her horridness, yet overflowing with emotional layers that may or may not have been real to the character. Martha is a truly sick woman who has built up an entire world of illusion that George has somehow tolerated for years. Yet, they feed off each other, enable each other, and are clearly meant for each other, as dysfunctional as their alcohol- and revenge-driven relationship is. Their example offers a warning to anyone on the brink of marriage: choose wisely, not for money or out of panic, or else become the monster or the monster's bitch.
I give Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? four stars for sheer cringe factor. Whether I would watch it again on screen or choose to see it on stage instead remains to be determined. In any case, it is an excellent film for any (would-be) actor looking to see how the pros can make the most of long conversations in few, select settings, as well as how to effectively make the audience squirm at every turn.
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