Summer here in Colorado ends for me when the college students swarm back into town. With classes starting next week and temperatures dipping in the evening, the time to take down my backyard screen is at hand. But not before one last film! It is with academia in mind that we end my outdoor cinema program with Mike Nichol’s feature debut; Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

This film was also suggested to me by one of my neighbors, and she added that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was one of Stan Brakhage’s favorite films of all time. Brakhage, who passed away in 2003, was a distinguished professor at the C.U. Film Studies Program and had a voracious appetite for cinema – it’s no exaggeration to say he watched several films a day, every day – which means that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? had a lot of competition to beat.

Further accolades of the more traditional variety came in the form of the film being nominated for 13 Academy Awards. This adaptation of Edward Albee’s 1962 Tony-award winning play netted Elizabeth Taylor her second Oscar and also snagged trophies for Best Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis), Best Cinematography (Haskell Wexler), Best Art Direction (Richard Sylbert, George James Hopkins), and Best Costume Design (Irene Sharaff).

To touch on the story for the uninitiated: George (Richard Burton) is a History Professor married to a woman (Martha, played by Taylor) whose father has clout at the university. This hard-drinking and deeply unhappy couple stumbles back home from a social function and, despite the late hour, they receive two guests; Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis) – a naive campus couple that have unknowingly walked into a night of salty, bitter, gut-wrenching, and flamboyant tirades. The language was startling enough for its time that, as IMDB notes, it was the “first movie to successfully challenge the Production Code Office and eventually force the Motion Picture Association of America to overhaul the Production Code Seal with the eventual classification system (G-M-R-X) in 1968.” This earned Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the distinction of being the first film to get an “R” rating.

Behind the scenes and on the set: Sandy Dennis had a miscarriage, Richard Burton celebrated his 40th birthday and received a white 1966 Oldmobile Toronado (given to him by Taylor, with whom he was married at the time), meanwhile; Taylor gained 30 pounds just for this role – which thus explains the following IMDB tidbit of how “Academy Award-winning cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr was replaced by Haskell Wexler just after filming began for attempting to ‘beautify’ Elizabeth Taylor.” Variety notes that Taylor was given “a reported $1 million plus” for her role (and “earns every penny”). Burton and Taylor’s characters (George and Martha), were based on Willard Maas and Marie Menken, an intellectual couple connected to academia and the arts who led rich social lives – both were also experimental filmmakers, which is where Brakhage steps in.

Knowing that Brakhage was influenced by, and friends with, Maas and Menken, I just pulled Brakhage Scrapbook: Collected Writings 1964 – 1980) from my bookshelf and include below some choice excerpts. (And it should not surprise you to know that it comes with some salty “R”-rated bits.)

“Marie Menken’s ‘Open Sesame’ to me was that Visual Variations on Noguchi was the first film I had ever seen which completely not only admitted but capitalized on the fact that the camera was hand-held. She was, at that time, the purest disciple of Jean Cocteau’s advice to young film-makers to take advantage of the freedom of the hand-held camera.” (p. 91)

Brakhage goes on to credit Menken’s influence on his own work as being as important as that of Gertrude Stein, and his wife (of the time), Jane. For more on Menken, read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/09/movies/09mari.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Of Maas, Brakhage recounts experiences working with him “at the center of Gryphon Film Productions” where a “loft was dominated by the most enormous bed I’ve ever seen, surrounded on three sides by film-making equipment, the most expensive being locked in a chicken-wire enclosure to prevent its theft by questionable pickups who might gain entrance to the rest of the room” (p. 99). Brakhage also reveals how he frustrated Maas’ attempts at making him “the object of desire.”

Brakhage gives fascinating descriptions of “Willard the Poet” as well as “the socialite Willard Maas… who could crack jokes with Charles Addams, drink champagne from Marilyn Monroe’s slipper, and hold his own with Reinhold Niebuhr…” (p. 101) Within these pages there is much to discover about the real couple that provided such interesting fodder for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Instead of delving further I’ll simply cap things off with a fun quote that Brakhage attributes to Maas on p. 103:

“Gawwwwwwwwwwd! BRAKHAGE, you’re always yackety-yacking about FILMS. Why don’t you go sit on a beach for a while, fuck all the girls, or boys, or both. Lie in the sun. LIVE a little. Think about things. Read poetry – the classics. You’re making too MANY films. Go have yourself a Balllllll. LIFE is SHORT. THERE’S OTHER THINGS TO DO, you know, BESIDES MAKING FILMS ! “

Boy… if Maas thought Brakhage was making too many films back then, I can only wonder what his reaction would be to the list of 373 titles currently on IMDB under his credit. His reaction to THAT would probably require an “X” rating.