On December 6 2014, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is doing a retrospective of the late Mike Nichols film career. Its first offering: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Mike Nichols was special. Some say gifted, but I've never liked that word as it applies to accomplishment; it implies, to me anyway, an elitist privilege that further implies a nonpayment of appropriate dues.
Mike Nichols was born to a Jewish family in Berlin Germany in 1931. In 1939 his father, a doctor, had the means and the foresight to escape the oncoming holocaust just before it was to begin in earnest. There is a hell of a story in there somewhere, but I have never heard it. My point being that escaping from the Nazi's is enough dues paying for a lifetime.
Yeah, he was special, but what astonishes me in reviewing his life work, is how he was apparently able to immediately impress everybody else that he was special. His first directorial assignment was not off –Broadway, not off-off Broadway, not dinner theater in Poughkeepsie, but on Broadway for established writer Neil Simon. The result was" Barefoot in the Park" for which Nichols would win a Tony award as best director. The play would become Simon's longest running play ever (around or above four years) and the 10th longest running non musical production in Broadway history! First at bat: grand slam home run.
Sometime in the 1960's legendary producer Jack Warner (yes that Warner of Warner Bros. Studios or Time-Warner if you prefer) thought the eccentric writings of playwright Edward Albee in his play"Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" might make a good movie. I don't know how he came to that conclusion, but conclude it he did, and he hired multiple Academy Award nominee Ernest Lehman to write the screen play, and then cast Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to play the leads.
Just a few words about Liz and Dick; they were the Godmother and Godfather of celebrity pop culture. They weren't just big; they were the biggest by far. They would dominate the tabloid press and intrude into the real news for almost twenty years. To compare them to modern celebrity like the Kardasians is not only ludicrous but blasphemous.
OK, who should direct this spicy hot mélange? Why not someone who's never directed a movie before? Mike Nichols. Success on Broadway is not a guarantee of success in cinema. Bob Fosse's first foray was "Sweet Charity" which is a certifiable catastrophe. In stage craft everybody is always in full shot, in cinema you have to know when to push the camera in, when to pull it back, when to open the story up so it looks like a movie and not a photographed play. There is a certain grammar to cinema and it needs to be used correctly. It is essential in order to create and build the emotional tension that is so necessary for this film's success. In his first attempt, does Nichols succeed? Well, here's the stat line: 13 Academy Award nominations. It was only the second and last film to ever be nominated in all the categories for which it was eligible. It won five, including one for Ms Taylor, surprisingly not one for Mr. Burton, nor one for Mr. Nichols (although that would be remedied shortly.) And! It was a financial success being one of the top 10 grossing movies of 1966. Nichols first at bat for a different team: Grand slam home run.
Pocket Review:
If you didn't know who Virginia Woolf was before you see this movie, you will certainly be afraid of her by the end of it.
George (Richard Burton) is a teacher at some unnamed small college and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) is the daughter of the college president. They are a middle aged married couple who are disappointed in how their lives have turned out, especially since their life together seemed to have started out with so much promise and advantage. Their coping mechanism is to blame each other for their failures both individually and as a couple, and this failure is complete, professional, emotional, and sexual.
Oh, yeah, they also drink a lot, that's always helpful.
In to this toxic alcoholic mix comes a young professor at the college Nick (George Segal) and his mousey wife Honey (Sandy Dennis) who Martha has invited over to their on campus house for "a drink". They will serve as audience surrogates as together we will watch as George and Martha's marriage explosively dissolves. As the drama demands, they will also become participants to the wreckage, but more than that, they get to walk through the looking glass and see what bleak future may be in store for them.
It is through the interaction of this fabulous four, that we, the audience, discover that George and Martha have constructed a nest of lies in order to keep themselves at least one hash mark above the median of sanity, and it is through these lies that the deeper psychological truth is revealed.
What does it mean? Why should we care? Honestly I don't know. I have always had trouble figuring this movie out, but I have watched it several times, always with avid fascination. I wouldn't call it one of the best movies ever, but I would certainly call it one of the most extraordinary.
Mike Nichols film directorial debut. It was a doozy. Thanks Mike... I think.
Nichols next offering goes beyond any baseball metaphor I could possibly come up with. It was certifiable, bone fide phenomenon. "The Graduate".
Mike Nichols was special. Some say gifted, but I've never liked that word as it applies to accomplishment; it implies, to me anyway, an elitist privilege that further implies a nonpayment of appropriate dues.
Mike Nichols was born to a Jewish family in Berlin Germany in 1931. In 1939 his father, a doctor, had the means and the foresight to escape the oncoming holocaust just before it was to begin in earnest. There is a hell of a story in there somewhere, but I have never heard it. My point being that escaping from the Nazi's is enough dues paying for a lifetime.
Yeah, he was special, but what astonishes me in reviewing his life work, is how he was apparently able to immediately impress everybody else that he was special. His first directorial assignment was not off –Broadway, not off-off Broadway, not dinner theater in Poughkeepsie, but on Broadway for established writer Neil Simon. The result was" Barefoot in the Park" for which Nichols would win a Tony award as best director. The play would become Simon's longest running play ever (around or above four years) and the 10th longest running non musical production in Broadway history! First at bat: grand slam home run.
Sometime in the 1960's legendary producer Jack Warner (yes that Warner of Warner Bros. Studios or Time-Warner if you prefer) thought the eccentric writings of playwright Edward Albee in his play"Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" might make a good movie. I don't know how he came to that conclusion, but conclude it he did, and he hired multiple Academy Award nominee Ernest Lehman to write the screen play, and then cast Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton to play the leads.
Just a few words about Liz and Dick; they were the Godmother and Godfather of celebrity pop culture. They weren't just big; they were the biggest by far. They would dominate the tabloid press and intrude into the real news for almost twenty years. To compare them to modern celebrity like the Kardasians is not only ludicrous but blasphemous.
OK, who should direct this spicy hot mélange? Why not someone who's never directed a movie before? Mike Nichols. Success on Broadway is not a guarantee of success in cinema. Bob Fosse's first foray was "Sweet Charity" which is a certifiable catastrophe. In stage craft everybody is always in full shot, in cinema you have to know when to push the camera in, when to pull it back, when to open the story up so it looks like a movie and not a photographed play. There is a certain grammar to cinema and it needs to be used correctly. It is essential in order to create and build the emotional tension that is so necessary for this film's success. In his first attempt, does Nichols succeed? Well, here's the stat line: 13 Academy Award nominations. It was only the second and last film to ever be nominated in all the categories for which it was eligible. It won five, including one for Ms Taylor, surprisingly not one for Mr. Burton, nor one for Mr. Nichols (although that would be remedied shortly.) And! It was a financial success being one of the top 10 grossing movies of 1966. Nichols first at bat for a different team: Grand slam home run.
Pocket Review:
If you didn't know who Virginia Woolf was before you see this movie, you will certainly be afraid of her by the end of it.
George (Richard Burton) is a teacher at some unnamed small college and Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) is the daughter of the college president. They are a middle aged married couple who are disappointed in how their lives have turned out, especially since their life together seemed to have started out with so much promise and advantage. Their coping mechanism is to blame each other for their failures both individually and as a couple, and this failure is complete, professional, emotional, and sexual.
Oh, yeah, they also drink a lot, that's always helpful.
In to this toxic alcoholic mix comes a young professor at the college Nick (George Segal) and his mousey wife Honey (Sandy Dennis) who Martha has invited over to their on campus house for "a drink". They will serve as audience surrogates as together we will watch as George and Martha's marriage explosively dissolves. As the drama demands, they will also become participants to the wreckage, but more than that, they get to walk through the looking glass and see what bleak future may be in store for them.
It is through the interaction of this fabulous four, that we, the audience, discover that George and Martha have constructed a nest of lies in order to keep themselves at least one hash mark above the median of sanity, and it is through these lies that the deeper psychological truth is revealed.
What does it mean? Why should we care? Honestly I don't know. I have always had trouble figuring this movie out, but I have watched it several times, always with avid fascination. I wouldn't call it one of the best movies ever, but I would certainly call it one of the most extraordinary.
Mike Nichols film directorial debut. It was a doozy. Thanks Mike... I think.
Nichols next offering goes beyond any baseball metaphor I could possibly come up with. It was certifiable, bone fide phenomenon. "The Graduate".