BSA 106 (Screen Arts) Semester 2 Week 7 : The Graduate

This week in class we watched The Graduate (1967) directed by Mike Nichols, it often credited as one of the two films that transitioned the industry from the Golden Age into the Hollywood New Wave (the other being Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, released the same year). 

- What elements indicate the start of the New Hollywood movement?

The desire to tackle more risque topics in the films of the seventies is definitely something that started here. The Graduate deals with very sexual subject matter and lingers on it.

It deals with politics, in how the generation of the time wanted to divorce themselves from the generation that came before. This is something present in The Graduate, being the problem the main character wrestles with throughout the film.

The Graduate tends to divert from the main plot and linger there, this is something seen heavily in the second act, but we also see it in the swimming pool scene. For his birthday the main character gets a scuba diving suit and stands at the bottom of the pool with it. This seems unnecessary in the greater scope of the story but once again supports where the character is in his life.

It has an open ended conclusion, suggesting that what the characters did might be a mistake and that they will be unhappy with their choice.

I really enjoyed The Graduate, there are two main things I took away from it:

- It's very subjective, from a technical viewpoint it was a joy to watch because of how the director uses the camera to portray a subjective viewpoint. The start of the film is a great example of how to place your audience in the shoes of the character. The framing for example is claustrophobic during the opening scene, emulating the characters own state. The whole film is very good at communicating the main character's point of view without spelling it out. The movie does a good job of putting us in the characters shoes.

- The writing is very good, especially for the first half of the film. I roughly knew what the movie was about but didn't expect it to be this entertaining. It's the mark of a good writer if the audience can be kept on the edge of their seat with such a real life, low stakes situation as the one represented in this film. I was surprised to find it was based on a book though, can't help but wonder what changed.

The problems I had with the film was based mainly in the second half. In which the very good score by Simon and Garfunkel becomes comically overused and where the entire film starts dragging. The character spends a lot of time not advancing the plot and simply drifting, this is frustrating especially for a story which started of so well. It redeems itself at the end though,