Put simply—though marriage and dinner company never are—Mike Nichols observed that "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is about a couple who comes home late after a party. She has invited another couple over for a nightcap. They drink and they argue and then the guests go home.” Celebrating the publication of a new book by Philip Gefter, Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, we’re screening a pristine 35mm print from the Academy Film Archive on a double bill with the world premiere digital restoration of Andy Warhol’s Bitch (1965). Between the two screenings, Gefter takes part in an onstage conversation with Greg Pierce, director of film and video at the Andy Warhol Museum; actor, poet, photographer, and filmmaker Gerard Malanga; and Mark Harris, author of Mike Nichols: A Life.
Bitch. 1965. USA. Directed by Andy Warhol. With Marie Menken, Willard Maas, Gerard Malanga, Edie Sedgwick. Digital restoration courtesy the Andy Warhol Museum. World premiere. 66 min.
“Andy Warhol called Marie Menken and Willard Maas ‘the last of the great bohemians,’ and, in 1965, made Bitch, his real-life parody of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Willard and Marie sitting on the couch in their living room, drunk and arguing on a Sunday afternoon. Unscripted, shot with a stationary camera in his signature home-movie documentary style, Warhol’s Bitch has never before been seen by the public—until now…” (Philip Gefter).
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1966. USA. Directed by Mike Nichols. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman. With Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis. 35mm restoration by the Academy Film Archive; courtesy Warner Bros., Park Circus. 131 min.
“Edward Albee rejected the idea of a single inspiration for George and Martha, his characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), although, in response to one interviewer’s question, he alluded to Willard Maas, a poet with whom he taught at Wagner College, and his wife, Marie Menken, an experimental filmmaker. Known for their drunken weekend salons and marital arguments in front of their guests, Maas and Menken were at the center of a significant bohemian circle of New York poets and artists. ‘Edward [Albee] used to come here every time to eat and just sit and listen while Willard and I argued,’ Menken recalled. ‘Then he wrote Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? That’s supposed to be me and Willard arguing about my miscarriage.’ All of this is to say that George and Martha, despite their slovenly drinking and unsavory psychological cruelty, had their origins at the center of the thriving, urban, mid-century anti-establishment zeitgeist” (Philip Gefter).
Program 252 min.