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Post by brandonsquared on Jun 17, 2018 5:42:50 GMT
Even though this film has been recognized as a kind of legendary film and a cultural staple (or has known cultural significance) for what it broke down for cinema, I've noticed that it's somewhat underrated in other areas of film criticism/academia/pop cultural consciousness (as opposed to something similar like "ASN Desire"). I mean this in terms of it as a film and not just the original play it of course is based from.
I first saw ten years ago right about this month as a fifteen year old and it became my favorite film (probably third fav now) and just captivated me like nothing else. Every time I watch it it does something that every (art) film should strive for, creating a world that I can get lost in like a dream (it's late night, shadowy setting sets up a dreamlike experience perfectly). It always feels like such a complete, satisfying cinematic experience every time and the movie only gets richer and more terrifying as years go on.
I love how the setting is slightly opened up from just the living room yet it still feels completely empty and isolating. It just adds to the atmosphere. The bravura roadhouse sequence and George and Martha's separate trips back to the hous after, completely changes the energy going into the third act and each character and plot point becomes richer for it. It gives the story and characters room to breathe in darkness alone (literally and figuratively) for a bit before they spend the final scenes stuck together again (I.e George seeing Martha and Nick upstairs, talking with Honey and formulating his plan is given a new, darker perspective here than it was in the play when no gaps were allowed for the characters to fester in some private places.
What do you guys think of the changes the movie included?
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Post by pacinoyes on Jun 17, 2018 8:18:59 GMT
I think its one of the great stage to screen transfers and a lot of the credit goes to Mike Nichols, a theater director who really understood how to adapt and modify (his debut here) and who knew that he had to keep the story as is with only minor but crucial tweaks or else it would be too much oppressive shouting really.
It's weird because it's nominated for best adapted screenplay, even though it is more or less the whole play itself rather than adapted. The small changes work spectacularly - George and Martha's world seems so small and suffocating and also seems like it's closing in on them too.
Its somewhat underrated as the years have gone on because of when it was released - in '66, it had the appearance of something arty and cutting edge but the next year changes film forever in terms of style and sensibility in American films (The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, In Cold Blood etc,) and makes it seem like something older and belonging to a different time (in that way its very much like the play and film Look Back In Anger from a decade earlier, also with Burton in great form or other plays transferred to film in the era - Long Day's Journey Into Night etc.).
I like the film very much and think Burton is tremendous - I'm not much for Segal and Dennis but they are good enough for me and the play transfers with all its power intact. It still holds up imo.
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Post by brandonsquared on Jun 18, 2018 5:29:36 GMT
I think its one of the great stage to screen transfers and a lot of the credit goes to Mike Nichols, a theater director who really understood how to adapt and modify (his debut here) and who knew that he had to keep the story as is with only minor but crucial tweaks or else it would be too much oppressive shouting really. It's weird because it's nominated for best adapted screenplay, even though it is more or less the whole play itself rather than adapted. The small changes work spectacularly - George and Martha's world seems so small and suffocating and also seems like it's closing in on them too. Its somewhat underrated as the years have gone on because of when it was released - in '66, it had the appearance of something arty and cutting edge but the next year changes film forever in terms of style and sensibility in American films (The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, In Cold Blood etc,) and makes it seem like something older and belonging to a different time (in that way its very much like the play and film Look Back In Anger from a decade earlier, also with Burton in great form or other plays transferred to film in the era - Long Day's Journey Into Night etc.). I like the film very much and think Burton is tremendous - I'm not much for Segal and Dennis but they are good enough for me and the play transfers with all its power intact. It still holds up imo. It feels completely cinematic and only a genius like Nichols could have pulled it off. The atmosphere and world he creates around them is otherworldly in a way - while everyone else sleeps they come alive in the darkness early in the morning and create their own world; George and Martha (and later Honey) can only become or reveal their true, dark selves in this noir-ish twilight zone and Nichols captures that madness perfectly. It's at once grounded in our world yet so heightened like in another universe. I completely agree with your assessment of why it's been underrated in many areas of the film world. It's something I thought about but you articulated it better. Given its subject matter and the film form in which Nichols brings the play to the screen, the movie couldn't have been released in a more appropriate year. The film - through initial social conventions/mores, clothing, the car, quietly represent the ethos of an outdated era that the late 60s breaks through. By the end of the night social conventions are shattered, the cultural innocence of early 60s America destroyed, the people (and their "proper" clothes) are disheveled, tired and allowed catharsis for once, the swinging sixties music in the roadhouse jukebox becomes a haunting soundtrack as the action gets more and more intense (George has to yank the cord and end the music because it reminds him of the modern world and youthfulness), even the car (not sure the model, but looks like a 60s "all American mobile" station wagon) is driven recklessly, treated carelessly with the lights left on and doors open, and Honey is left abandoned in there for a long time while Nick and Martha are upstairs. The would-be family car loses its innocence in a way. It's a testament to Nichols' genius that not a single element of an older era on the brink of major change feels stale even though it's coming to an end. You can "feel" the late 60s aura in the film yet it's there to remind us of how the cultural changes around George and Martha have influenced their fantasy lives and how it's driven them to this one fateful night where everything changes. 1967 was an enormous change for cinema but Virginia Woolf was really where it all started, with a subject matter that mirrored the contemporary world's ethical/moral struggle and as well as cinema's own new era and how it played with contrasts of filmic modes of the past. Being in black and white immediately makes it seem older than those '67 films and it's complex examination of two eras colliding has ironically resulted in *itself* being overlooked as more culturally/cinematically significant. Yet I wouldn't change a thing about it nor would I want it released in any other year. It's like a glowing, dark, semi-hidden gem that's half in shadow and almost cultish in its reputation. Sounds a helluva lot like George and Martha. Another irony is that it feels quite possibly even fresher than many films from the next year - the movie has grown richer and darker. As I've gotten older, the darkness in the film has become darker and more despairing. It's grown more relevant and I really think it deserves,and could one day get, the kind of Renaissance it deserves for younger generations and even older ones. Oh and Burton delivers what could be the greatest male performance of the entire '60s. It's that incredible. And Sandy Dennis embodies every emblematic aspect of the film while crafting one of the most terrifying, feral pieces of acting I've ever seen. It's like she as an entity was magically manifested during filming by sheer will. And Taylor...well, let's just say that Nichols tapped into and brought something out in her that you can see her joyously discovering as she's doing it, and without it distracting from her performance. |
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Post by pacinoyes on May 17, 2019 11:23:57 GMT
I just rewatched since I saw this on Netflix now and on this my 100th viewing (lol) I found a fascinating thing I completely blew by and I've seen it on stage and read it and I still missed it (because me is kinda stupid sometimes).
First Richard Burton here, the finest actor in the world at this precise moment - Hamlet '64 on stage, this, Becket and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - wtf kind of demonic streak was that, come on!) - gets even deeper and more lacerating with each rewatch. I utterly love this performance and this is one of the great stage to screen transfers under Mike Nichols direction - my small gripes with the supporting cast aside - and there ain't many GOAT contending stage to screen transfer either (like 10 maybe?.....less?).
In the scene where Burton brings the flowers near the end, Taylor exclaims ""Pansies! Rosemary! Violence! My wedding bouquet!" - I had always taken that as just a quip and there's so many of those.......but of course, it's ironically so - the flowers of romance and wilting and the "violence" (not violets) of married life. I think for years I've either thought she said "violets" there and I've literally read the play so that's ridiculous (!) or didn't link it to her marriage at all there even if I got the quip to begin with.
Anyway, it was great to see it again, the line jumped out at me and for those who've seen it and aren't sure how they feel about it......the nice people at Netflix have made it easily watchable.
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urbanpatrician
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Post by urbanpatrician on May 17, 2019 11:36:52 GMT
It's one of those movies that I should love, but I don't. I find it ultimately underwhelming. The arguments seem minor and the there's too much hysterics by Taylor and Burton to take them seriously. The film this reminds me of is The Misfits. Not a really strong film, but that had the roadhouse junkie aspect of it that made it stand out. And it had Marilyn Monroe.
I know people really like Burton and Taylor in it, but Sandy is my girl. She was just the only thing really original about it. She took her own spin and culminated it into something totally Dennis-esque. This is where her acting began to take form - the Sandy Dennis school started in this movie.
It's an interesting look at the beginning of the American new wave, but I think there were a lot of Tennessee Williams adaptation preceeding it that was more interesting. I know you have to look at it via the perspective of the medium of theater.... I guess there's subjectivity on that too.
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Post by getclutch on May 31, 2019 17:03:59 GMT
George/Martha have a marriage made in hell. They have an intense hatred of one another fueled by years of disappointment. This is not an easy movie to watch. But it contains some remarkable work.
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