Synopsis
"The sparks fly in
Mike Nichols’s electrifying adaptation of
Edward Albee’s Tony-winning play about the word and mind games waged between a history professor (
Richard Burton) and his embittered wife (
Taylor), and against the younger couple (
George Segal and
Sandy Dennis) who become their unwitting pawns. A landmark in American cinema, the profanity-laced, sexually explicit
Virginia Woolf? signaled a sea-change from Old Hollywood morality to
New Hollywood permissiveness, and silenced once and for all those who thought
Taylor was just a pretty face. Merely 34 at the time, she gained 30 pounds to play the abrasive yet fragile, fifty-something Martha, and won a second Best Actress Oscar for her performance." – Film Society of Lincoln Center
