The Graduate: 1967, A Movie for Its Time

This review was written as an entry into @wiseagent's Movie-writing Contest. The theme for December is 'Back in Time', and this week the time designated is the 60s. I chose to review The Graduate.

Woodstock August 15, 1969

The Graduate

Release Date: December 22, 1967
Director: Mike Nichols
Producer: Lawrence Turman
Writers: Buck Henry, Calder Willingham

Main Players:
Ann Bancroft, Mrs. Robinson
Dustin Hoffman, Benjamin Braddock
Kathleen Ross, Elaine Robinson

Synopsis
Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college. The future looms. Everyone wants to know Benjamin's plans. Benjamin seems unconcerned. He floats in a kind of indifferent malaise, and passively submits to the influence of events. One of these is seduction by his parents' close friend, Mrs. Robinson. The plot thickens as Benjamin falls in love with Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Elaine. The juxtaposition between mother and daughter, past and future, corrupt and innocent, becomes the central conflict of the movie. It is a conflict that finally gives Benjamin purpose.

(Spoiler Alert)
I was a sophomore at NYU, in Greenwich Village, when The Graduate was released. Never did a movie more perfectly fit the mood of a generation. It was as though the writers used a cinematic language which only the initiated could understand. The film's synchrony with the spirit of the times was made clear to me one day in class, when a professor commented on the theme. At first he seemed privy to its coded language. Then he made a comment that showed he really didn't have a clue. In referring to Elaine, Benjamin's love interest and Mrs. Robinson's daughter, he said she was, "The kind of girl anyone would fall in love with."

In that moment I realized he didn't get it at all. What do I mean by "it"? It wasn't Elaine's pretty face, or schoolgirl charm that entranced Benjamin. It was her naivete, the fact that she had not yet been corrupted by the 'system'. Elaine was the antithesis of her mother. She was the blank slate upon which a better future could be writ. That message was clear. Freedom from corruption by the system was the central theme of the movie, at least to my generation.

Today, when people speak of the 'establishment' generally they are referring to a socio/economic/governmental monolith. In 1967-68, the establishment meant something different. It was a much more encompassing concept. It wasn't just about money and power. It was about history. It was the culture of the 50s. The values we saw as dead. A moribund time, an oppressive set of expectations intended to define our future. We rejected all of it.

If you doubt that the symbolism I see exists in this movie, please consider the last scene. Elaine's family has assembled to ritually seal her fate through the orthodoxy of church. She is to marry the "old make-out king" and become wedded to the corrupt, stale values of the past. Benjamin rushes to save her--to save the two of them. He seizes an essential tool of orthodoxy--a giant cross--in his crusade.

The film's writers drive home the significance of this scene when they add a final exchange between Elaine and her mother, Mrs. Robinson. The mother declares, after vows have been pledged, "It's too late." By this she means the indomitable authority of custom and tradition now weigh upon Elaine.

Elaine answers with a cry of freedom: "Not for me." In that instant she throws off the yoke of the past. Ritual and consensus no longer rule her life. This emancipation is almost more radical than Benjamin's evolution from passivity to action.

Was this a perfect film? No. I would have preferred a female lead who did not need saving. The movie was made, after all, after the Second Sex and the Feminine Mystique were widely recognized as landmark books. If there is anything about the movie that seemed off at the time, it was Nichols' portrayal of women. But he did allow Elaine to grow. Perhaps he meant to suggest the evolved Elaine would be more assertive and would eventually own the kind of equality that was hers by birthright. However, so much else about the film was perfect-- including casting.

Dustin Hoffman was catapulted into top-tier star status. Bancroft cemented her place in the history of cinema. And Katherine Ross' performance in time would become iconic.

If you haven't seen this film, do so. Please pay attention to the scene, early on, where Benjamin's neighbor recommends "plastic" as a promising future. That scene fixed forever the symbolic significance of plastic in the public consciousness.

1967-68

Though The Graduate was released at the end of 1967, its worldwide distribution extended into 1968. It's impossible to consider the film properly without also considering the social and political firestorm consuming the US that year: opposition to the Vietnam War.

The Graduate wasn't just a film. For some, it was a manifesto, even if it wasn't intended to be that by Nichols. Its message was seized by a generation. That's not all that was seized.

In the U.S. students seized the Columbia University campus, and they imprisoned its president. In a sense, they even seized the U.S. presidency, for in face of unrelenting protests against the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson declared he would not run for a second term.

In August of 1968, demonstrators seized the streets of Chicago in an attempt to disrupt the Democratic National Convention. Once again, the protest was against the Vietnam War.

The notation for this picture reads: Young 'Hippie' Standing in Front of a Row of National Guard Soldiers, Across the Street From the Hilton Hotel at Grant Park, at the Democratic National Convention, August 26, 1968

The opposition, the establishment, did not retreat quietly. In that year, champions of change--Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy--were assassinated.

Of course, these disruptions didn't occur because of The Graduate, but the movie did capture a moment as it was about to happen. It was the rumble before the tsunami.

Perhaps without the catalyst of the Vietnam War, change would have been more gradual, less cataclysmic. Perhaps The Graduate would have been merely another socially relevant experience. But given the climate, the movie resonated powerfully.

What makes a great movie? Is it acting? Script? Directorial skill? Or is it power as a work of art, as an enduring part of culture? On that last count, I would have to place The Graduate among the greatest of movies. Certainly that was true in the U.S., for some of us who came of age in 1967-68.

Before I sign off, I want to thank @serialfiller. I read his (her?) outstanding review of The Hustler and learned about this contest from that blog. If you haven't sampled @serialfiller's delightful reviews, you're missing out on a treat.

I'd also like to thank @wiseagent for running a movie review-writing contest. This is one more creatively rich place for me to hang my hat when I'm surfing the blockchain.

Picture sources not already credited:
V W bus Pixabay Kaz/
Flower Pixabay
Peace/Flower collage pixabay

A Few Noteworthy references:

1. The Second Sex, by Simone De Bouvier
2. The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
3. The Viet Nam War-Anti War Movment
4. Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
5. Assassination of Robert Kennedy
6. The Democratic National Convention, 1968
   

If you'd like to see the movie, you might be able to catch it on Youtube
Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/37247-the-graduate
Rate: AAA