Grief and the Unspeakable
In its first moments following its opening credit sequence, Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) reveals its resounding thematic essence. It is a film about the unspeakable, and the inability to speak, expressed either as miscommunication or lie. That is both its narrative crux and something embedded in its screenplay, in and beneath the dialogue. This torment of the unspeakable is foreshadowed in the film’s opening, after Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and her husband, George (Richard Burton) – likely named for George and Martha Washington, the earliest president and first lady of the United States of America – arrive home after a party, expecting the arrival of Nick (George Segal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis). ‘What a dump!’ Martha exclaims, mimicking Bette Davis, but neither she nor her husband can recall the name of the moving picture she is quoting. Martha also forgets the names of the guests she has invited to their house for a nightcap. When they do arrive, George refers to his own wife as ‘what’s-her-name’. While they seem fairly minor, these seemingly mundane elisions of specific descriptions and terms foreshadow a narrative in which characters commit acts of omission, mendacity and fabrication with much more serious consequences. Such acts, alternating between consensual and abusive, may be caused by the irreconcilability of grief and love, although many possibilities are embedded in this rich cinematic text.
The camera continues to serve as an indicator of the characters’ entrapment, both spatial and psychological, embroiled in their own intricate stories.
In his commentary on the film’s 2006 Warner Bros. DVD release, director of photography Haskell Wexler comments frequently on his efforts to introduce depth into the visual composition of particular shots. With became, more or less, a chamber piece contained to that same setting. While a few minor elements were altered in the film, overall, screenwriter Ernest Lehman honoured the play in his adaptation, and first-time feature director Nichols ‘was motivated by what he considered fidelity’ to Albee’s original telling of the story. Additionally, rather than alleviating the play’s claustrophobia, Wexler’s technical prowess adds to it; the camerawork and editing – the latter by Sam O’Steen – often serve to entrap and disorient. Moving beyond its theatrical origins but essentially retaining the same characters, narrative and dialogue, becomes stifling in a very cinematic manner.
