The Graduate

Because Anne Bancroft has recently passed away, I would like today to talk about the “The Graduate”, the film she is best known for.

I first saw “The Graduate” when it first came out in 1967, a time I more and more look back at with nostalgia. I’m, of course, well aware that to look back anywhere with nostalgia, is to deceive oneself, since nostalgia is wistfulness, implying we’re remembering only what made us happy, and that we conveniently sweep under the carpet anything that made us unhappy in the times we’re nostalgic about.

What makes me nostalgic about 1967 is my remembrance of my irrevocably lost youth, which more and more in my flowery imagination assumes, how shall I say………….a roseate hue?

And I’m careful not to spoil this almost prelapsarian picture by remembering that I often wasn’t happy then. But there were times when I was happy, and so 1967 has become in my autobiography a Golden Year – the year of the Summer of Love, and the year “The Graduate” came out, with Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, Anne Bancroft’s Mrs Robinson, and the ineffably sublime songs of Simon and Garfunkel infused in my memory for as long as I live, and maybe even after.

In the years since then, I’ve seen “The Graduate” many times, and have never failed to find it as wonderful and as funny as when I first saw it. No doubt its appeal, apart from the nostalgia, is that I see much of my then youthful self in Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock, an introverted awkward and shy young man, who doesn’t know what he will do with his life because the adult world makes no sense to him. All he wants is to be alone, so to figure things out.

Who of us who have seen “The Graduate” will ever forget the scene where, at the graduation party which Benjamin’s parents throw for him, one of the guests, a middle aged businessman, takes Benjamin aside and, referring to what Benjamin might like to do in his life, says to him, "Ben, I want to say just one word to you. Plastics. Think about it”.

The generations not of the ‘sixties may wonder what’s funny about this, but in 1967 it was thought hilarious, because plastics represented everything the ‘sixties generation was supposedly against – materialism, inauthenticity, hypocrisy, and all of that.

Then Mrs Robinson - a family friend of long standing - sets her cap, so to speak, at Benjamin, who, after much hesitation, succumbs to her wiles. I consider the scenes where Benjamin books a room at the hotel for the first assignation, and where Mrs Robinson seduces the virginal Benjamin to be among the funniest in film, and I guffaw each time I watch them. And what is also funny is that despite the many months long affair, Benjamin called Mrs Robinson (we never find out her first name) only “Mrs Robinson”.

But Mrs Robinson is also a sad figure because she is in a loveless marriage, which she had been forced into because she’d been made pregnant, and she is an alcoholic, and she hates herself, so much so that she can’t stand the thought of Benjamin dating her daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross) because anyone, like Benjamin, who would have an affair with her (Mrs Robinson) must be worthless. And, understandably, Mrs Robinson wouldn’t have relished the idea of her lover being, too, the lover of her daughter.

It is the songs of Simon and Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence, Scarborough Fair, April Come She Will, and, of course Mrs Robinson – which are the crème de le crème of “The Graduate”, since not only do they set its mood and tone, but also tell us what its story is about.

Take, for instance “The Sounds of Silence”, in which Benjamin’s confusion and alienation from the adult world and its meaninglessness and hypocrisy, are perfectly reflected in the words “And in the naked light I saw/Ten thousand people, maybe more/People talking without speaking/People hearing without listening/People writing songs that voices never hear/And no one dare/Disturb the sound of silence”.

The rise and fall of Benjamin’s summer affair with Mrs Robinson, and its piquant flavour, is exquisitely summarized and captured in the montage of scenes showing Benjamin floating, in the bright sunlight, on a waterbed in his parent’s swimming pool, morphing onto scenes of him making love with Mrs Robinson, while we hear the song “April Come She Will” and its words:

April come she will,
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain,
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.

June, she’ll change her tune,
In restless walks she’ll prowl the night,
July, she will fly,
And give no warning to her flight.

August, die she must,
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold,
September, I’ll remember,
A love once new has now grown old.

And what about the scene where we, from up on high, look down through the dappled California sunlight at Benjamin in his little red car far below, speeding over the Golden Gate Bridge to rendezvous with Elaine, while we listen to “Scarborough Fair”.

But for all its visual and musical poetry and lyricism, something about “The Graduate” seems discordant, for although its tone and feeling is very much late ‘sixties, its characters look and act early ‘sixties. No doubt this is because the novel on which the film is based, came out in 1962. But this enigmatic quality only enhances the film’s magic.

Now you will know why, to me, “The Graduate” is one of the great films ever made, and, which along with the other film classics, should be part of the cultural inventory of all of us whose sensibilities were influenced by the ubiquitous American popular culture, no matter where in the world we first saw the light of day.

So, if you’ve never seen “The Graduate”, please do so.