The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols (1967)
“Never trust anyone over 30” and “If you remember the 60’s you weren’t there.” A major paradigm shift in consciousness was occurring four short decades ago and Mike Nichols’ The Graduate from 1967 is a significant part of the matrix. Watching it now is to be reminded that nostalgia is what it used to be and what is old is new again.
Dustin Hoffman begins his movie career as Benjamin Braddock, the man/child slacker prototype who comes of age in a time when 'plastics' stands for 'over 30' and cougar women are on the prowl. Braddock is the upper middle class outcast, misfit and loner, who, like Buster Keaton before him, makes the transit from antihero to romantic hero, from fatalistic to determined. In order to succeed, Benjamin must circumvent a world of suburban malaise, several repetitions of Scarborough Fair, angry parents, hostile institutions, and swimming pools inexorably linked with claustrophobic fish bowls. Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, the poster woman for dysfunctional middle age, Benjamin’s journey takes him from boyhood to manhood, mother to daughter, and to both freedom and uncertainty.
Informed by the French New Wave and serenaded by Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate, along with Easy Rider, captures the essence of the counterculture and generation gap that exemplified the sixties. Benjamin is the rebellious hobo who refuses to conform to the status quo and seeks a new path he can call his own.
In the end he rides the bus out of town with Elaine like the Little Tramp and The Gamin. Only a cynic would notice that he’s on a residential bus route taking him straight back to suburbia. “I think you are trying to seduce me Mrs. Robinson. The Graduate is an 'older' film that is more seductive than ever.
