Masterpiece of Direction

Rating: 10/10 (17 December 2006)

I had never seen The Graduate all the way through until yesterday, ashamed of being a movie buff who'd never seen it before. I loved it. It isn't the zany comedy I thought it would be, however it's something much more urbane and cerebral. Really, it's just a demonstration of some of the greatest film direction I've ever seen.
Mike Nichols brings a quiet intensity to the movement and rate of the film, almost like a suspense film. Relative to Scorsese, his insinuation of time lapse is done with a mixture of hard cutting, closing in and closing out of tight shots, and a jukebox-like switch from one piece of music playing over the soundtrack to another. His camera-work altogether is an intense, very fixated series of extended shots, some of them taking us through long-lasting periods of action beginning with the profile shot of Dustin Hoffman on the automatic walking belt at the airport during the opening credits and his sustained closeup as he walks through his parents' party and is constantly stopped with several people invading the frame, creating the feeling of his space being violated. The film is in essence of series of shots like these, and it has a tremendous effect on the style, atmosphere, and pace of the film, especially during its scenes of wry humor, as does the recurring soundtrack integrated with Simon and Garfunkel and David Grusin.
The early performance by Hoffman is very entertaining, a much-imitated comically shy young man who opens up only to inadvertently reveal himself as a force to be reckoned with, and Bancroft's performance is one for the books, riveting in her screen time as one of the great femmes fatale, both performances sharply contrasting in charisma to the less memorable Ross.
The Graduate is one of the milestones of the 1960s, one of the greatest decades for cinema, and it carries on its lingering influence.