Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Young couple Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis) accept an invitation for a nightcap with history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). At first it’s fun and games. But what passes for caustic wit soon degenerates into vicious mind games as their hard-drinking hosts let rip with burning resentment and hostility.

Edward Albee’s lacerating play about the cruelties of marital dysfunction evidently struck a chord with Elizabeth Taylor and husband Richard Burton, who seized on it like vultures on carrion. (In his book about the Burtons, Erotic Vagrancy, Roger Lewis said the film encapsulated “their entire marriage, crammed into a single picture.”) Taylor, 33, happily gained weight and embraced a character 20 years her senior, performing the part so convincingly there was no going back. Burton, a heartthrob, was equally persuasive as a gone-to-seed intellectual. This was Mike Nichols first film as director and he made a film that secured the play’s reputation as a modern classic. All four actors were nominated for Academy Awards in their respective categories (Taylor and Dennis won).

Jul 9: Intro by filmmaker and educator, Professor Harry Killas

Harry Killas is Professor and Assistant Dean in the Film + Screen Arts program at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. His most recent documentary films include Collective Agency about a group of seniors who became photo-artists in late life, and Greek to Me, an autobiographical documentary about his family and ethnic identity. His research/ filmmaking theme areas include education, the arts, and social, political and other histories. As a curator, Killas programmed seven seasons of the series The Image Before Us: A History of Film in British Columbia at The Cinematheque.