It’s hard to imagine The Graduate was filmed over fifty years ago. Not from watching it, clearly from the setting it is the sixties but I’ve never thought of it as an old film. Perhaps that is more an indicator of my age but 1967 was another time to now. I tried to imagine whether they could make this film now in a contemporary setting with a contemporary audience but I doubt it would work quite so successfully. How it would be done, how they would show a rebellion from another age is unclear but I can’t imagine a similar film being done in such a style, or at least with such style. The sixties cinema influenced by French avant-garde. All those wonderful little camera angles and intense close-ups. Would a modern audience accept such styles of film. Probably. I enjoyed it. But we’re told they wouldn’t so I guess they wouldn’t.
It’s not exactly a risqué story line, they are all consenting adults, but it kind of is as well. Even for this modern open and enlightened audience I somehow feel content talking on behalf of. Perhaps it’s risqué because it is done so well that it feels real. The older woman and younger man is still not a socially accepted concept. It’s also stilted and a little strange, but in a way that makes it even more real. These are people who see an emptiness with their lives. Mrs Robinson because she’s in a loveless marriage and she gave up her career and passion for the arts to raise a family and Dustin Hoffman’s character Benjamin Braddock because he doesn’t relate to the world his parents inhabit and expect of him, but more importantly the world society expects of that generation. While he appears deeply unhappy, the truth is he’s simply deeply lost.
There are many iconic films which represent periods in time and generational change. The Graduate doesn’t seem like one of those films people use as such an example. Perhaps it’s the knowledge of what was coming next in the late sixties and into the seventies, the cultural changes which were about to come. Had we not known in what general mood the film was made our understanding of Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson, the daughter, as they elope at the end may have been different. It is unclear whether it is a happy ending. Are they happy? They have what they want yet they still don’t seem happy. It seems like a challenge to traditional cinematic romanticism too. They’re still searching for answers to questions they don’t know yet and love doesn’t quite answer them. In a way I wonder if they represent the beat generation of ten years earlier, or at least my idea of them. Before everything became about love and flowers, when everything simply felt wrong, empty and pointless. It may be the perfect film for modern audiences after all.
Incidentally while I watched it I couldn’t help but think of Wayne’s World and was overjoyed that the scene in Wayne’s World Two when Wayne is banging on the church glass balcony shouting “Cassandra!!” down at the wedding was directly taken from The Graduate. While some films make subtle references there’s nothing quite like comedies ability to make full blown parodies.
Observations and Misunderstandings 