The Graduate is a classic film released back in the 1960’s that, until this week, I had somehow never seen. While I was familiar with all of the music from the film, and I had heard of it many times before, I honestly had no idea what the plot was and now that I’ve seen it, I feel like I understand a lot of references in other films and TV shows I’ve seen.
The plot centers around a young man named Benjamin that, upon graduating college with many honors, has no idea what he wants to do with the rest of his life. This leaves him vulnerable as a family friend, Mrs. Robinson, seduces him and he begins an affair with her despite his early protests. Soon into the affair, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine, comes to town, and with her being closer to Ben’s age and having a lot in common with him, they quickly begin a relationship as well. This causes strife between Ben and Mrs. Robinson, who sets out to frame him for rape and set Elaine up to marry someone else. The movie ends with Benjamin finding Elaine and interrupting the wedding, then the two of them running off together, leaving Mrs. Robinson behind.
Before even reading the prompt for this paper, I noticed all of the fascinating shots and transitions throughout the movie and thought that these kinds of shots were really good for this movie. Many shots were incredibly long, with whole scenes going by without a single cut. Many of them are around medium length of at least one of the central characters, often with another character – typically Benjamin – standing farther away in the background. I think this is an interesting choice because while we often see Ben’s face and body language, other characters often have their backs to us so it is hard to sense their emotions outside of their dialogue. Through all of this, I think the movie makes it very clear that the focus is on Ben, not on Mrs. Robinson or Elain or anyone else that may share the screen at times. The lead is always Benjamin and the most important thing in a shot is how he is feeling and reacting.
Several shots are framed excellently as well. For example, one shot that seems to be pretty famous is a shot of Ben through Mrs. Robinson’s bent leg as she seduces him for the first time. I think this shot is set up this way to show us what Ben is seeing and focusing on, thought he shot itself is still focused on Benjamin. Another interesting shot is through some of the carvings and the water of a fountain when Ben goes to find Elaine at her college. This shot again shows what Ben is focusing on, though he is not in the shot.
Some of the transitions were done really well, also. For example, there is a montage about halfway through the movie of Ben and Mrs. Robinson’s affair, which always winds up zooming in on Ben’s face laying back on something, then zooms back out to show another scene playing around him. It was an excellent way for the movie to show the passage of time despite the same thing happening on a regular basis.
One thing I didn’t see a lot of is shots that were angled downwards, making someone look small, or angled upward, making them look large and in charge. Almost every single shot was about at eye level to Ben, and the camera seemed to follow Ben around like it was his shadow. I think this was an interesting creative approach that made the movie very focused on Ben and his actions, and not as much about emotions or the way he felt around other characters.
All in all, I understand why this movie is considered a classic. It was very well done, pretty quick paced overall, with a lot of memorable scenes and shots that have become famous. I can definitely feel this film’s influence in other films – Edgar Wright’s directing style comes to mind – as this film employed long shots and interesting angles that I think weren’t necessarily thought of in this scale before. While I wouldn’t consider this film one of my favorites by any means, I feel like if this film hadn’t existed, perhaps other movies I do consider amongst my favorites would not be as good as they are.
Amanda Roach 