(Received as a birthday present): My parents must have sensed something was up when I started quoting
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at age 12. Edward Albee's scathing portrayal of a sadomasochistic marriage always intrigued me. I first saw the movie on TV and even with network edits, it was so powerful. Then I viewed the film on the big screen in college and was overwhelmed. This is probably Elizabeth Taylor's best performance and Richard Burton's too. Philip Gefter entertainingly exposes the struggles to get this explosive property on film, and the backstage conflicts, principally between producer Ernest Lehman and first-time director Mike Nichols. Gefter traces the origins of the play and the bohemian gay circles Albee inhabited. The impact of
Virginia Woolf on popular culture is seismic as it tore off the facade of polite depictions of American marriage and showed the raging emotions underneath.
The film version effectively ended studio censorship and ushered in the ratings system so film language was no longer so restricted.
Of course, the meat of the book is the day-to-day travails of filming which were mainly a power struggle between Nichols and Lehman. The Burtons did not make things any easier. Their contracts stipulated they would not work before 10am and at 6 pm sharp, an assistant would show up on set with a Bloody Mary for each of them signaling they were through for the day. It's that kind of detail that makes the book fun to read.
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