"Hello, darkness"

Rating: 8/10 (2 October 2011)

When the Motion Picture Production Code was abolished in 1967 every movie genre was irrevocably changed. Action pictures became bloodier, dramas became swearier, and romances became openly sexual. One of the earliest movies to show this change was The Graduate, a movie that pushed at the boundaries of taste not with smut but simply by showing who might be getting into bed with whom, and why.
It's an interesting story we have here. On the one hand it follows a very traditional romantic story arc that can be traced all the way back to Jane Austen. Our hero is at first attracted to one member of the opposite sex, only to find the relationship unfulfilling, and find that the "right" choice was under his nose all along. The difference of course is that The Graduate is very frank about how bizarrely messy real world relationships can be. There is perhaps a bit of a 1950s-style dig at assertive women (the plot is basically An American in Paris if Nina Foch was Leslie Caron's mother). Ben Braddock makes a distinctly creepy lead man as well, conceivably only a couple of nudges away from Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, to the point where it's unbelievable that Elaine should fall for him. But the whole thing has such a sly, anarchic slant to it that it's enjoyable despite these dubious factors.
The director here is a young Mike Nichols. Nichols is really good at playing with the images so that we only focus on the main characters. Often a minor character will appear with their back to the camera, contravening regular film grammar. Even when a character is more prominent, for example Mr Robinson or Carl, they are cleverly shot and lit so that while we remember what they do and say, we don't really get a clear look at them and they don't linger in the mind. Nichols is somewhat heavy-handed at times in trying to absorb us in the mood of a scene (the lengthy moving close-up of Dustin Hoffman at the party is a rather too artificial), but it certainly does the trick, even if it's headache-inducing at times. The precision involved can be exquisite too. The first time we see Anne Bancroft at the party, she might as well be just another extra, but she has a bit of clear space around her, and looks up just as the camera pauses, and thus we notice her, without actually realising yet that she's important.
The Graduate also gives us some fine examples of acting. Ms Bancroft is the best, only marginally convincing age-wise, but certainly possessing of all the bitterness and frustration necessary for the role. Dustin Hoffman is deceptively quiet here, never really seeming to show much personality, but when for example he announces his intentions to marry Elaine he has the necessary conviction despite his quietness. Katharine Ross gives a decent turn too, having the most overstated role but keeping it within the bounds of naturalism. No-one else really stands out, but of course that is the whole point of Nichols's directorial scheme.
When motion pictures became more explicit about sex, there was inevitably a great hue and cry from many in Hollywood's old guard. A lot of this was simple prudery, but others had more practical objections. Raoul Walsh for example, in his highly entertaining autobiography, says how in the old days all the tension was in when the romantic leads would finally get together, but in the modern era they will probably be shown having sex a third of the way through the movie, and that tension is gone. He has a point, but I think The Graduate puts forward a case for the sexualising of romantic cinema as something which makes the depiction of relationships more interesting, more compelling. It is, if nothing else, more true to life.