Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), which turns 55 on June 22nd, is best known for its performances. It features Academy Award-winning turns from Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis, as well as very effective work from Richard Burton and George Segal. But to view this film as merely a collection of great acting is to… Read more »
Tag: theatre
Pygmalion (1938) and the Art of Cinematic Comedy
You might expect Pygmalion, the adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s classic play, to not make great use of the formal potential of cinema. Its theatrical roots, as well as Shaw’s role in writing the screenplay, might lead you to think that the filmmakers would create a filmed version of the play that would be so… Read more »
This is Not My Interview with André Gregory
A running theme throughout the career of theater director and actor André Gregory is proving that the seemingly impossible is actually possible. It might seem impossible to direct a production of Alice in Wonderland (1970) in which six people play all of the most iconic characters from Lewis Carroll’s two Alice books, transforming into different… Read more »
Fassbinder Melodrama
Much has been made of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s relationship with the great Hollywood auteur Douglas Sirk, and of Fassbinder’s predilection toward working within a mode of overwrought melodrama – the kind of “weepies,” largely intended for female audiences, that Sirk was most comfortable working with in the ‘50s. Those who study Fassbinder have even come… Read more »
On Your Marc: Nostalgia as Healing on Stage and Screen
Guest post by Kathryn Glen. Readers of a certain age and socioeconomic privilege will remember Marc Summers as the host of Nickelodeon’s hit game show Double Dare, where pint-sized contestants competed in physical challenges and hoped to avoid Nickelodeon’s ubiquitous green slime. Anyone who missed the show can catch its reboot on air today, or… Read more »
Theatrical Cinema: How Stop Making Sense, Swimming to Cambodia, and Bronson Combined Two Art Forms
Theater and film have had an interesting give-and-take relationship over the course of their mutual existence. Some of the most acclaimed movies ever made — such as Amadeus and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — were adaptations of plays that remained true to their source materials’ language and theatricality. Likewise, some of the most interesting… Read more »