Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? At 60: Elizabeth Taylor still oozes wild energy | Elizabeth Taylor

AAfter a long day at work, we may not instinctively jump into movies about toxic marriages and relationship breakdowns — but by God, they can make good drama. Blue Valentine, The Squid and the Whale, and A Separation are some of the great pictures of love turned rotten. But perhaps greatest of all is Mike Nichols’ directorial debut – a stunning adaptation of Edward Albee’s legendary novel Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which came out in 1966, four years after the play, and helped cement it into the zeitgeist.

The film was nominated for every eligible Academy Award and won five, including Best Actress for Elizabeth Taylor, who gave a searing performance as the fierce and vulnerable Martha. It has lost none of its amazing charge today and its brilliantly performed experience still pulsates with emotional electricity.

The drama unfolds over the course of a long evening filled with booze and bile between Martha and her husband George, played by the equally stunning Richard Burton. Watching him and Taylor do it is a great lesson in screen acting — if not a little disturbing.

It doesn’t take long for the main characters to start sniping, and things get very bad very quickly. Take the equivalent of pillow talk: When Martha lies in bed, she says to George “You’re going bald,” and he replies “You’re bald too” — and not in a nicely ribbed way. When she told him she could drink it under the table, he replied, “There’s no abominable prize you haven’t won.”

Their dynamic in these early scenes is tense, even volcanic, but it’s nothing compared to what’s to come when they’re joined later in the evening by a much younger couple: Nick (George Segal) — who works at the same university as George — and Honey (Sandy Dennis). These may not be the best of times for Martha and George, though it is hard to imagine them as paragons of virtue even when sober. In fact, they are living testaments to that old saying: “Misery loves company.” These are not people who are willing to drink alone or sit down and cook; They want to share their pain and bring others down with them.

There are only four characters, with one very interesting exception: Martha and George’s son, whose presence looms over everything despite never being named or seen – or even non-existent. Early on, Martha mentioned him to Honey, telling her that his sixteenth birthday was the next day. This upsets George, and we later realize that the mere mention of their son betrays a special pact between them.

It is revealed, deep into the runtime, that this son is a fantasy they share: perhaps a protective shield, distracting them from their loneliness and emotional isolation. However, the meaning of this development is accessible to everyone, allowing all kinds of readings on the metaphorical core of the story. Michael Billington of The Guardian described it as partly revolving around “the theme of American truth and delusion”, arguing that Nichols’ film sealed the play “in the public mind as a booze-fueled marital battle”, pushing critical readings away from its comments on the state of America.

This was perhaps inevitable, given the speed of the film format compared to the physical distance between audience and actors in a stage production. Nichols really got into the characters’ faces. Sometimes the frame moves slowly, sometimes in sharp and unexpected ways; Sometimes the camera is steady and sometimes it’s oscillating like crazy. Always, the stage show seems closely attuned to the performers, sometimes quite uncomfortably so; You can practically smell their breath.

• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Available to stream on HBO Max in Australia and available to rent in Australia, the UK and the US. For more recommendations on what to stream in Australia, click here