This is my favorite play and movie. It is a masterpiece of brilliance with almost infinite layers to unpeel...like a never ending onion. To me it is a tragic love story with incredible symbiotic dysfunction. Think about the trust these characters (George and Martha) had to have in each other to conjure and carry out the "life" of "their son" for so many years. It's a brilliant piece of literary and psychological drama that was brilliantly performed. And I still say Richard Burton should have won the Oscar. This was spot on. Thank you.
Certainly agree! Both the film and play left a lasting impression on me after I studied it in school. It was like nothing I’d seen before. It’s Richard Burton’s finest performance, definitely should have won the Oscar.
Absolutely should’ve won the Oscar! I’m pretty sure it was Scofield that year for ‘A Man for All Seasons’, and though wonderful, his performance, imho, didn’t top Burton’s performance in ‘Virginia Woolf’! Truly, Burton’s finest work! He was unfortunately robbed…
1 year late to the conversation, but this movie makes me always regret that Taylor is no longer around to hear an in-depth Q&A from her about this role of roles, the time her talent poured out in an unbelievable way. I wonder how much of her actual dark side (all people have that) is reflected in this performance.
It’s truly an amazing yet disturbing movie with the best of Elizabeth and Richard’s performance’s. I grew up in a highly dysfunctional family and highly recommend a watch for those that did as well. It tears the scab off many unhealed wounds so I can clean and resolve what the movie teaches us is clearly subversive and broken.
I enjoyed this video! I was first shown this movie in a writing class in high school and it really hit me and taught me a lot about how to show and not tell or how to engage the audience by making them think critically about what is and isn't being said and also what's a lie and what's not. I can never get any friends to watch this due to its age, but the performances and writing are downright enthralling and really make you think and pay attention to just about everything on screen. I genuinely think everyone needs to watch this movie.
Thank you! I too struggle to convince my mates too watch this masterpiece. Between the snappy, quick-witted dialogue and harrowing performances it’s the perfect picture.
I remember seeing this in high school, expecting some dumb old black & white flick, and then being absolutely blown away by the acting and film making.
The movie was an extraordinary fabrication -- each actor delivering a viscerally powerful performance without compare in any film before or since; Taylor and Burton had a bit of personal history to draw from in creating their characters just as we get to see them, but dredging up personal connection to the created character is one of the greatest tools a master actor can bring to any part. This movie should be considered one of the 100 greatest character performance films of the 20th century. Great analysis commentary, by the way.
I have stated several times in my life that, if I were even to consider going into a realtionship, I'd make her watch this movie with me, and I will pay serious attention to her reaction to it; and talk about it with her, in stark detail. This film, IMO, is the single greatest directorial debut cinema HAS EVER SEEN (hands down!), and there is a reason why I hold it in such extreme high regard. ❤🤩
This play is iconic, as are Burton and Taylor's portrayals in Nichols' film adaptation. It's a psychological smorgasboard, set before us for glorious dissection. It's like peeping into the lives of others. It's one of my favorite movies ever. I absolutely adore it. ❤️
There are three movies I can watch over and over, this is one of the three. The others, Lion In Winter and To Kill a Mockingbird. Your analysis is spot on.
I really enjoyed your video and explanation of illusion vs reality, don’t you know the difference, George?? This movie blew me away. Such an honest portrayal of a dysfunctional couple scared the heck out of me as a teenager. So raw. I didn’t quite get the ending but I never forgot it. It reminds me of The Lion in Winter and the family dynamic in that film!!! As a gay teen I totally identified with the Anthony Hopkins portrayal of the young Prince.
Glad you enjoyed! It’s certainly one of those movies that left a striking impression on me. At times it feels like you are witnessing a descent into madness. I believe the ending directly refers to the title of the picture, who is afraid too live a life without illusions. Martha fears a life without the refuge of illusions. With the death on the imaginary son the last stronghold of her illusions shatters. George comforts Martha in an attempt to reassure her that they must go on without illusions anymore. I’m going to have too review ‘The lion in Winter’ now. Have had a few comments mention it and it looks like it’s worth a visit!
I've seen this both as a play, then the movie. This never gets dated. I've heard that this has been done with an all male cast and has worked. That's what I call good playwriting. I remember after classes one day years ago at the drama department at Syracuse University that we were hanging out in the lounge area and a couple of the guys did that powerful scene between George and Martha (parking lot in the movie), at first just fooling around. Then they really got into it, and it really grabbed our attention, and it was very powerful. A friend once told me that he thought WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF was probably the greatest love story ever told. After over 50 years of pondering this, along with life experience, I think he may have something there.
Through all the fights they reveal themselves to each other and that brings them some kind of ballance. They re beyond catharsis but they manage to find peace in the end .
I just watched this the other night. I buy old DVD's to watch older movies that are highly regarded by critics or have won awards. 80% of the time I like them. This one was waaayy weirder than I thought it was going to be. It was indecipherable but I started to put it together. Something about the 'hysterical pregnancy' and the lies people tell each other to keep them where they are as prisoners, many times in relationships. Playing games, feeding on insecurities, manipulating. I gave that up a long time ago but when people don't it goes on way too long and becomes sad. That's what I got from this play/movie. I loved the acting here and equally the settings and environment. It felt alive even when it was actually dead all along.
Spot on mate! It's a film that slowly unravels sinister undercurrents lurking beneath its suppposedly basic premise. The story lingers with you well after the credits roll.
This gets both better and better and sadder and sadder as I have watched it since I was a little girl. Back then it was scary because of the reality of it. My parents were great arguers and split up when I was 3. One or two other families in what was a brand-new suburban housing development in the 1960's also had very loud arguing, but every family had at least 2-3 children. I regret to say that it mostly the Italians (like my mom) who did the loudest shouting and throwing of things...
Possibly, It's an interesting point I never considered. George's tale of "the boy who had shot his mother with a shotgun" was brought into the open when Nick gave a glass of bourbon to George.
Albee was an emotionally stunted gay man in a very homophobic time for who intimate relationships were a mystery. This is what he imagined intimate relationships to be like down deep or what he had experienced himself. Albee was clearly a tortured soul.
Sadly, that wasn’t uncommon for a lot of gay men of his generation. If you live in a society that constantly tells you that you’re wrong, sick, broken or even immoral and depraved for who you are and you’re attracted to, eventually that begins to rub off you to some extent, even if you don’t entirely believe it. At the same time, you would also begin to resent society, for refusing to leave you be, refusing to give you any peace and judging your moral character based on a single aspect of your personality.
Thank you! I believe so, George and Martha may have used alcohol as a way to cope with the dysfunctional behavior within their broken marriage and to tolerate the guilt that came from their illusions. The “Birgen” story also suggests that George started drinking from an early age.
I just watched the movie, and I thought it was a bit weak. It was a well-made movie, and the acting was good, Richard Burton was awesome, and Elizabeth Taylor not as good, but still good. And the dialogue was impressive and literate and abundant. But it was a bizarre story, and did not feel real at all. I can understand bitter middle-aged couples, but the key story elements were just too improbable. As if the playwright wanted a certain kind of drama, and simply couldn't come up with compelling enough, nor naturalistic plot elements, and instead went with, presumably by default, an almost sensational thing where they both indulged this fiction that they had a fake child, on account of her barrenness. And that's just bizarre. It's very unnatural and not normal and throws the whole thing off. Maybe even worse than the equally bewildering incest angle in Chinatown. And old girl sleeping with the young buck that blatantly, on both their parts seemed like a stretch, and the verisimilitude was further strained. The ending was affecting, almost as much on account of what the play seemed to aspire to do, and yearned to elicit, so you had to appreciate the effort. So it was good, and it's a culturally important bit of drama and all that. I'm glad I watched it. But it was no Cool Hand Luke, let's put it that way....
That's fair! The film is definitely not everyone's cup of tea and there's validity to your argument about the narrative seeming unrealistic and in a sense sensational or bewildering. In the play itself, I feel Albee intended on incorporating a supernatural quality to the stories proceedings, Act 2 is titled 'Walpurgisnacht' which in Germany essentially is the eve of May Day on which witches are held to ride to an appointed rendezvous. Defined, it is also something (such as an event or situation) having a nightmarish quality. Act 3, (the final act) is also titled "The Exorcism", which in the narrative refers to the abolition/termination of the phantom child. I believe reasons to why George and Martha created this phantom child are definitely up for debate, barrenness is certainly a valid diagnosis. Another interpretation could suggest that the film is an allegory for America at a particular point in its history, the early 1960s, the son that doesn't exist might be analysed as a symptom of the country's anxieties over its future. I certainly agree that the incest angle in 'Chinatown' seemed improbable and perhaps fantastical. In both cases I believe the films were attempting to shock and confront it's viewers. 'Cool Hand Luke' is also a classic, will certainly be doing a video on it sometime in the near future.
I enjoyed the majority of your breakdown but I feel the need to oppose your claim that wanting to avoid pregnancy could be considered “selfish”. Perhaps your words required more context but as is, I’d ask you to reconsider. Women do not have a moral obligation to breed.
This is my favorite play and movie. It is a masterpiece of brilliance with almost infinite layers to unpeel...like a never ending onion. To me it is a tragic love story with incredible symbiotic dysfunction. Think about the trust these characters (George and Martha) had to have in each other to conjure and carry out the "life" of "their son" for so many years. It's a brilliant piece of literary and psychological drama that was brilliantly performed. And I still say Richard Burton should have won the Oscar. This was spot on. Thank you.
Certainly agree! Both the film and play left a lasting impression on me after I studied it in school. It was like nothing I’d seen before. It’s Richard Burton’s finest performance, definitely should have won the Oscar.
Absolutely should’ve won the Oscar! I’m pretty sure it was Scofield that year for ‘A Man for All Seasons’, and though wonderful, his performance, imho, didn’t top Burton’s performance in ‘Virginia Woolf’! Truly, Burton’s finest work! He was unfortunately robbed…
1 year late to the conversation, but this movie makes me always regret that Taylor is no longer around to hear an in-depth Q&A from her about this role of roles, the time her talent poured out in an unbelievable way. I wonder how much of her actual dark side (all people have that) is reflected in this performance.
It’s truly an amazing yet disturbing movie with the best of Elizabeth and Richard’s performance’s. I grew up in a highly dysfunctional family and highly recommend a watch for those that did as well. It tears the scab off many unhealed wounds so I can clean and resolve what the movie teaches us is clearly subversive and broken.
just watched this. the dialogue was incredible. but you know it's bad when you think "eh they're not as bad as my parents" LOL
The inability to live your life without illusions was already masterfully portrayed in O'Neill's 'The Ice Man Cometh'.
There seems to be a film adaptation from 73' with Lee Marvin. I'll check it out!
❤❤❤❤❤
I enjoyed this video!
I was first shown this movie in a writing class in high school and it really hit me and taught me a lot about how to show and not tell or how to engage the audience by making them think critically about what is and isn't being said and also what's a lie and what's not. I can never get any friends to watch this due to its age, but the performances and writing are downright enthralling and really make you think and pay attention to just about everything on screen. I genuinely think everyone needs to watch this movie.
Thank you! I too struggle to convince my mates too watch this masterpiece. Between the snappy, quick-witted dialogue and harrowing performances it’s the perfect picture.
I remember seeing this in high school, expecting some dumb old black & white flick, and then being absolutely blown away by the acting and film making.
Your friends are obviously idiots.
The movie was an extraordinary fabrication -- each actor delivering a viscerally powerful performance without compare in any film before or since; Taylor and Burton had a bit of personal history to draw from in creating their characters just as we get to see them, but dredging up personal connection to the created character is one of the greatest tools a master actor can bring to any part. This movie should be considered one of the 100 greatest character performance films of the 20th century. Great analysis commentary, by the way.
I have stated several times in my life that, if I were even to consider going into a realtionship, I'd make her watch this movie with me, and I will pay serious attention to her reaction to it; and talk about it with her, in stark detail. This film, IMO, is the single greatest directorial debut cinema HAS EVER SEEN (hands down!), and there is a reason why I hold it in such extreme high regard. ❤🤩
This play is iconic, as are Burton and Taylor's portrayals in Nichols' film adaptation. It's a psychological smorgasboard, set before us for glorious dissection. It's like peeping into the lives of others. It's one of my favorite movies ever. I absolutely adore it. ❤️
Amazing performances from start to finish.
Well, I'm not seeing this movie, I had enough seeing my parents fight all my life
There are three movies I can watch over and over, this is one of the three. The others, Lion In Winter and To Kill a Mockingbird. Your analysis is spot on.
Thanks! To Kill a Mockingbird is a masterpiece.
@@Onewayticketproductions Have you seen Lion in Winter. Deals with another troubled marriage.
@@donaldwesterhazy9333 I haven’t but looks like a must watch. The cast is stacked.
@@Onewayticketproductions please talk about the literary devices in the play
@@blackgotit Will revisit ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ in future. Definitely much to discuss within the play!
Excellent breakdown. I share this film with anyone who loves film.
Glad you enjoyed!
The volatile relationship between the two main characters and Burton and Taylor. What is reality here and what is art?
It was probably a little of both. That's what makes it sooooo good. 😊
I really enjoyed your video and explanation of illusion vs reality, don’t you know the difference, George??
This movie blew me away. Such an honest portrayal of a dysfunctional couple scared the heck out of me as a teenager. So raw. I didn’t quite get the ending but I never forgot it.
It reminds me of The Lion in Winter and the family dynamic in that film!!! As a gay teen I totally identified with the Anthony Hopkins portrayal of the young Prince.
Glad you enjoyed! It’s certainly one of those movies that left a striking impression on me. At times it feels like you are witnessing a descent into madness. I believe the ending directly refers to the title of the picture, who is afraid too live a life without illusions. Martha fears a life without the refuge of illusions. With the death on the imaginary son the last stronghold of her illusions shatters. George comforts Martha in an attempt to reassure her that they must go on without illusions anymore.
I’m going to have too review ‘The lion in Winter’ now. Have had a few comments mention it and it looks like it’s worth a visit!
I've seen this both as a play, then the movie. This never gets dated. I've heard that this has been done with an all male cast and has worked. That's what I call good playwriting. I remember after classes one day years ago at the drama department at Syracuse University that we were hanging out in the lounge area and a couple of the guys did that powerful scene between George and Martha (parking lot in the movie), at first just fooling around. Then they really got into it, and it really grabbed our attention, and it was very powerful. A friend once told me that he thought WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF was probably the greatest love story ever told. After over 50 years of pondering this, along with life experience, I think he may have something there.
Through all the fights they reveal themselves to each other and that brings them some kind of ballance. They re beyond catharsis but they manage to find peace in the end .
Amazing film and film making. Taylor was in her mid 30's playing an aging alcoholic in her 50's.
"Don't rile me, MARTHA!"
Another one...."VANISH"
I wont
Brilliantly done, dude, brilliant!
The plays a fantastic piece because it's not just a generic drama theathre it's a pathos of anger,hatred,contempt,dreams,age and lies
Couldn't agree more!
I really loved this explanation !
I would really like to play as Martha’s character in theatre.
The black n white is perfect. This couple was royalty.
Thank you for this well made video essay.
Interestingly Elizabeth Taylor was less than 2 years older than George Segal (the young professor).
I just watched this the other night. I buy old DVD's to watch older movies that are highly regarded by critics or have won awards. 80% of the time I like them. This one was waaayy weirder than I thought it was going to be. It was indecipherable but I started to put it together. Something about the 'hysterical pregnancy' and the lies people tell each other to keep them where they are as prisoners, many times in relationships. Playing games, feeding on insecurities, manipulating. I gave that up a long time ago but when people don't it goes on way too long and becomes sad.
That's what I got from this play/movie.
I loved the acting here and equally the settings and environment. It felt alive even when it was actually dead all along.
Spot on mate! It's a film that slowly unravels sinister undercurrents lurking beneath its suppposedly basic premise. The story lingers with you well after the credits roll.
This gets both better and better and sadder and sadder as I have watched it since I was a little girl. Back then it was scary because of the reality of it. My parents were great arguers and split up when I was 3. One or two other families in what was a brand-new suburban housing development in the 1960's also had very loud arguing, but every family had at least 2-3 children. I regret to say that it mostly the Italians (like my mom) who did the loudest shouting and throwing of things...
thank you for this, i saw the movie but i did not understand completely
Magnifique film et acteurs❤.
Well done.
Thanks.
Is alcohol holy water? Bringing out the demons so that we can "exercise" them.
Possibly, It's an interesting point I never considered. George's tale of "the boy who had shot his mother with a shotgun" was brought into the open when Nick gave a glass of bourbon to George.
There's nothing wrong with not bearing children.
Albee was an emotionally stunted gay man in a very homophobic time for who intimate relationships were a mystery. This is what he imagined intimate relationships to be like down deep or what he had experienced himself. Albee was clearly a tortured soul.
Sadly, that wasn’t uncommon for a lot of gay men of his generation. If you live in a society that constantly tells you that you’re wrong, sick, broken or even immoral and depraved for who you are and you’re attracted to, eventually that begins to rub off you to some extent, even if you don’t entirely believe it. At the same time, you would also begin to resent society, for refusing to leave you be, refusing to give you any peace and judging your moral character based on a single aspect of your personality.
Very astute and eloquent,Mr Productions.It's all before I was born,but were the older couple supposed to be alcoholics? It sure was intimated enough.
Thank you! I believe so, George and Martha may have used alcohol as a way to cope with the dysfunctional behavior within their broken marriage and to tolerate the guilt that came from their illusions. The “Birgen” story also suggests that George started drinking from an early age.
Whats this peculiar mix of an Australian and Canadian accent lol
Need more dialogue, less voiceover.
Thanks for the feedback!
@@Onewayticketproductions Otherwise it's difficult to apply what you're saying in the VO.
I just watched the movie, and I thought it was a bit weak. It was a well-made movie, and the acting was good, Richard Burton was awesome, and Elizabeth Taylor not as good, but still good. And the dialogue was impressive and literate and abundant. But it was a bizarre story, and did not feel real at all. I can understand bitter middle-aged couples, but the key story elements were just too improbable. As if the playwright wanted a certain kind of drama, and simply couldn't come up with compelling enough, nor naturalistic plot elements, and instead went with, presumably by default, an almost sensational thing where they both indulged this fiction that they had a fake child, on account of her barrenness. And that's just bizarre. It's very unnatural and not normal and throws the whole thing off. Maybe even worse than the equally bewildering incest angle in Chinatown. And old girl sleeping with the young buck that blatantly, on both their parts seemed like a stretch, and the verisimilitude was further strained. The ending was affecting, almost as much on account of what the play seemed to aspire to do, and yearned to elicit, so you had to appreciate the effort.
So it was good, and it's a culturally important bit of drama and all that. I'm glad I watched it. But it was no Cool Hand Luke, let's put it that way....
That's fair! The film is definitely not everyone's cup of tea and there's validity to your argument about the narrative seeming unrealistic and in a sense sensational or bewildering. In the play itself, I feel Albee intended on incorporating a supernatural quality to the stories proceedings, Act 2 is titled 'Walpurgisnacht' which in Germany essentially is the eve of May Day on which witches are held to ride to an appointed rendezvous. Defined, it is also something (such as an event or situation) having a nightmarish quality. Act 3, (the final act) is also titled "The Exorcism", which in the narrative refers to the abolition/termination of the phantom child. I believe reasons to why George and Martha created this phantom child are definitely up for debate, barrenness is certainly a valid diagnosis. Another interpretation could suggest that the film is an allegory for America at a particular point in its history, the early 1960s, the son that doesn't exist might be analysed as a symptom of the country's anxieties over its future. I certainly agree that the incest angle in 'Chinatown' seemed improbable and perhaps fantastical. In both cases I believe the films were attempting to shock and confront it's viewers. 'Cool Hand Luke' is also a classic, will certainly be doing a video on it sometime in the near future.
I enjoyed the majority of your breakdown but I feel the need to oppose your claim that wanting to avoid pregnancy could be considered “selfish”. Perhaps your words required more context but as is, I’d ask you to reconsider. Women do not have a moral obligation to breed.
Most awful, boring, waste of time of a movie ever made. It was horrible from beginning to end.