Double Feature!

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Noms: Picture, Director (Mike Nichols), Actor (Richard Burton), Actress (Elizabeth Taylor), Supporting Actor (George Segal), Supporting Actress (Sally Dennis), Adapted Screenplay, Score, Sound Mixing, Editing, Art Direction (B&W), Costume Design (B&W), Cinematography (B&W)

Wins: Actress, Supp, Actress, Art Direction, Costumes, Cinematography

Why I watched it:

1) Look at all those nominations!

2) I really wanted to watch this one

I love this movie! I want to watch it again soon. While watching, I was thinking about how much I didn't want it to end. Why couldn't it just keep going? Seriously, this is a new favorite. Admittedly, I was enjoying a bottle of wine while watching, but still, this is a fucking fantastic movie.

It's film's like this that make me realize how much I like dark comedies, and boy is this one dark. Nothing like watching a couple be at "total war" with one another and flush out all the insecurities and doubts of a couple they just met.

I could gush for a while about a lot of things in this movie, but I will attempt to contain myself. I thought the stark cinematography was brilliant. Lots of close-ups and follow shots and long takes. It really showed off the acting and focused everything on the characters and their relationships. The camera work did a lot of work to direct attention to where it mattered. Sometimes on the person speaking, but often on the unspoken moments of the other characters or their reactions. The most extreme example of this would be when we as the audience follow George (Burton) into the closet while Martha (Taylor) tells a story about George's reticence to box with his father-in-law. She becomes muffled and all the focus in on Burton's face and the score building the tension around what he grabs in the closet. The following moment is amazing, and I would hate to ruin that for anyone who hasn't seen it.

Speaking of focusing on the actors...(terrible transition FTW?) it is great to watch a movie that is all about the performances. Yes, the technical aspects of the movie were great, but there's a reason that every major actor was nominated (I want to say every actor, but there are two non-credited roles with very brief screentime). I am pretty sure that I had never seen any of these actors before, but I loved all of them! (a quick IMDB search tells me that I have seen George Segal in a couple things, but I don't remember him specifically in them) All of them give such great performances. Segal is so charming, even when you learn that he has nasty side. Dennis seems at first to be such an innocent, but so many little nuances show her strength of character. Everyone always talks about the George and Martha dynamic of this play, but I found it so fascinating to watch the other couple have to react to their craziness and the dynamic of the less explosive couple. George and Martha - wow. Totally engrossing to watch these two screen legends battle it out in every acidic moment. There are also the remains of relationship, but it has been subsumed by the constant bickering and verbal acrobatics. I know this is different from Elizabeth Taylor's typical role, she is one of my new favorites. I feel as if Butterfield 8 might be jumping a bit higher on my list to watch. Much the same can be said about Richard Burton. I was excited to see Becket before, but that will definitely be happening in the next week or two. It was especially great to see the legendary Mr. Burton after seeing his daughter, Kate, on stage in The Seagull last week (its playing in Boston now through April 6, btw). You can definitely see the resemblance especially in the eyes and the intensity.

I think maybe I'm done....

But isn't it interesting that the Oscars used to differentiate between color and black &white films for the Art Direction, Costume Design, and Cinematography awards? It is a very different task, especially for Costume Design I would think. I remember the designer from The Artist talking about his color choices for that film and that he chose them as if he were doing a color picture. This was the last year they made the distinction, I assume due to there being fewer and fewer competing films that were still in black & white.

Next up: I received The Grandmaster  in the mail yesterday from Netflix and will hopefully watch it tonight.