I have a Virginia Woolf movie question

[broadwaygiant19122]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:25pm

Im seeing the show Wednesday, so excited. thought id watch the movie again and see what i get out of it. In that monologue George has, regarding the kid who orders "bergin", and he then talks about the kid int he asylum, is he one of those kids?

[MusicMan]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:30pm

It's purposely ambiguous. It could indeed be a chapter from his life but could also just be more of George's game-playing and messing with Nick's head. Either way, though, it hints at unspoken depths in George's experience.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:30pm

Albee has refused answer any interpretive questions regarding this play, but some critics and scholars have theorized that in the story George is referring to himself, others have said he's one of the kids and still others think it's a well-rehearsed story George completely made up to tell at cocktail parties and previous "get the guests" evenings like that one.

[broadwaygiant19122]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:45pm

As George and Martha drive Honey and Nick home, she taunts him by saying " YOu used to drink bergin too" and he tweaks out and swerves the car. HMMM!. any words on the revival? i read the reviews that have been here, just curious about other thoughts..

[wickedfan]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:51pm

I don't remember Martha having that line in the play. Maybe she did. I don't remember, can anyone clarify this for me?

[broadwaygiant19122]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:52pm

I really think the movie loses something, when they leave the living room and go outside and then to the roadside cafe. there is intensity, and an acute sense of claustrophobia in the play, as tensions escalate, and they are boxed in.

[wickedfan]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 9:58pm

well, in a way it does. but u have to understand, its hard for a movie audience to watch characters stay in one room the entire movie. if it had to be done, it was done well

[broadwaygiant19122]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 10:01pm

Yeah i guess so, i still feel like it didnt have to be done though.

[broadway86]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 10:14pm

Broadwaygiant-

I was going to post the exact same question. I can't remember how exactly Irwin delivered it, but when Burton did it, I was almost certain that George was the bergin boy.

As for the movie itself; it's one of my all-time favorites, and I think that the move to the roadside bar was necessary. I also think that Elizabeth Taylor deserved every inch of that Academy Award. THAT was an Oscar-worthy performance. She was also great in "Suddenly, Last Summer". Updated On: 4/30/05 at 10:14 PM

[kjklo]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 10:35pm

She was good, but Katharine Hepburn blew her away. Taylor's performance was heavily edited and spliced, Hepburn's not at all.

Has anyone else read that at the end of filming, Hepburn spit on Mankiewicz, because of her disgust at his mistreatment of Monty Clift? God bless that woman.

[broadway86]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 10:58pm

Edited or not, that final monologue was chilling. Hepburn was also excellent. How did Mankiewicz mistreat Clift?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 11:12pm

Hepburn is is a film version of WOOLF? I wasn't aware!

I thought Liz Taylor was absolutely amazing in that movie - spliced and edited or not - after all, it IS a movie. That's how it goes. I love the script cuts made in the movie - it makes it more watchable.

[broadway86]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 11:14pm

I thought that kjklo was referring to Taylor's performance in "Suddenly, Last Summer".

[kjklo]

Posted: 4/30/05 at 11:46pm

Right. I was. Apparently, Mankiewicz was a homophobe, and also had no patience with Clift's various addictions and neuroses. Hepburn loved him anyway, and stuck up for him.

I once went to a lecture by Kenneth (Hollywood Babylon) Anger, and afterwards asked him about what really happened on the set of Suddenly, Last Summer. He got very agitated and refused to discuss it. Not sure what that meant.