WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?
1966,
Warner Bros.,
131 min,
USA,
Dir: Mike Nichols
Winner of five Oscars, including Elizabeth Taylor for Best Actress and Sandy Dennis for Best Supporting Actress, director Mike Nichols and screenwriter Ernest Lehman adapt Edward Albee’s scorching play about a bitter, middle-aged, alcoholic couple’s war of words. Taylor and real-life spouse Richard Burton play people chained to their own mediocrity in the halls of academia. When they invite unwitting new professor George Segal and his naïve wife (Dennis) over for cocktails, the sordid game of verbal invective and elaborate emotional contortions begins, not abating until similar buried resentments are unleashed in their seemingly normal houseguests.