[1966] Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

The joke in 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is deeply ingrained in the small intricacies of wordplay and in ephemeral hand-gestures or sideways glances. So far buried this joke that what we mistake for plot is sad, onionic livelihood, ever unraveling from saneness to madness. What we watch is not what we see as alcohol metaphysically represents itself and its deep decline into an inebriated system of stories and layers so that this joke is simply not funny – it’s not sad either. The joke is carefully wrapped in itself, torturous and self-destructive and funny in the same way that Virginia Woolf herself straightforward. The lesson in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is not about fear of feminism and instead about questioning the motives of fear in instance.

The first joke is the set-up of the scene: George and Martha are too innocuous of names and the ludicrousness that a young couple would saunter home to them at half-two in the morning is absurd. We are to believe that these partiers, demure in nature and cruel in disguise, want to shindig throughout the evening with the most magnificent of boring. They, together, of course booze but some aspect of the scene is off. If not for the witty and rapturous dialogue, we might stop to ask: why is this happening? Where exists the humor in this evening or even a relative purpose? For whom is this entertaining? Surely the right move is to cut the scene off and move toward a more in-depth characterization of the innocuous couple; but no, here comes bright-eyed and waifish Nick and “Honey” to provide straight relief from the focal, rather cartoonish relationship. We are led to believe that George and Martha will use Nick and Honey as foil, a reflection of their joke of a relationship.

This joke is off-centre in a way that offers another vital point to the story: why are these two together in the first place? Are we supposed to see glimmers of a past relationship reflected and magnified as the two couples drink more and juxtapose? We laugh at Honey over-drinking, but doesn’t Martha consistently over-drink and over-talk? We scoff at George’s meek attempts at typical masculinity but don’t we see Nick attempting dominance throughout the film? At various points in the film, the script is patently obvious at its attempts to expose reasoning for why this particular difficult relationship – the four-way – is unfolding. It’s the set-up for the big joke, the big reveal we all know is coming in the film’s denouement. Except it isn’t funny.

[1966] Alfie

The man Alfie Elkins’ constant pursuit of hedonism, even as a caricature and as a plot device, is despicable and watching him prey on women in 1966’s Alfie, made me, as I’m sure it was supposed to, uncomfortable. The barrage of dehumanizing rituals to which Alfie routinely subjects his “things,” even as a parody of machismo and masculinity, if nothing else drives the point home that, even the most hedonistic and emotionless of all men, need some TLC. Sex without love is, as we’ve always seen, and we’ll continue to see, eventually meaningless and mostly depressing.

Hedonism, as a life pursuit, deludes lots of men (and women) into thinking that the sole goal of one’s life should be pleasure, and any work or relationship or activity should totally and finitely support that goal. In reality, as has been proven for thousands of years of text, music, film and fine art, the lifestyle is unsustainable and more often than not ends in defiant crash-and-burn. Refreshingly, though, Alfie’s life affirmation ends with contemplation; not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Alfie attempts to provide insight and hope into the concept of The Modern Man. In the 1966 rendition, Michael Caine, plays Alfie (not Alfred, Batman),  a womanizing, friendless, carcass of a man, whose sole purpose seems to be reducing his women to almost inhuman levels of subservience. He treats his women like chattel and his “friends” as tools to the next easy lay. For, you see, women are Alfie’s addiction, but not love and not even lust; flesh is less important to him than the concept of owning a woman. It’s truly despicable: he describes his women using the pronoun “it,” picks up a nubile, naïve girl and almost forces her into involuntary servitude…..for what? What is it about this man that makes him so confident that his attention is even worth its weight in delusion? The answer, as our caricature finds out, is nothing.