Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(Mike Nichols, US 1966, 131 min., DCP)

Edward Albee’s play about a pair of dysfunctional academics held a dark mirror to the boozy, brawling marriage of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton—the “it” couple of the international jet set whose turbulent private life had become harrowingly public. Broadway wunderkind Mike Nichols’s brilliant screen adaptation marked an unexpected leap forward for both the first-time film director and Elizabeth Taylor in a shockingly raw, Academy Award–winning performance of her lifetime. “I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.” –Mike Nichols