Focus on Film: The Graduate (1967)

What makes a film good? What draws an audience? How can you make great cinema? Here at Focus on Learning, we offer exciting English Plus courses with Film and Creative Writing.

If you have an appetite for imagination, film is a powerful medium for education. A visual and often visceral medium, the expression of thoughts and concepts in film are not restricted to verbal communication. From Hitchcock to Herzog, from Star Wars to Interstellar, no art permeates our consciousness quite the way film does. It goes straight to our feelings, deep down into the very heart of our being.

Whether you’re a creative soul with a story to tell or someone with a passion for performance; whether you’re interested in the industry or just love watching films, the silver screen brings these ideas to life. What you haven’t seen yet can be more important than what you’ve seen already. Film is much more than a series of still images put together to create the illusion of movement.

Film can be one of the most inspiring ways to teach and to learn English, or any other language. In the words of Bong Joon Ho, director of Parasite, the 2020 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture, “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” This works both ways - watching English language films with English subtitles can be a great way to reinforce your understanding of the language, while for native speakers, watching foreign films with English subtitles opens the door to a whole new world of cinema.

Here, we focus on the world of film criticism, which provides a rich resource of engaging English writing that can be used for comprehension and discussion. Our first review in our new ‘Focus on Film’ series is the classic 1967 film, The Graduate.

Copyright Lawrence Turman Productions/Embassy Pictures

The Graduate (1967)

Directed by Mike Nichols; Starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross

Rating: 4/5

While catching up on those cinematic classics that I’ve still never seen, I recently saw The Graduate for the first time. I inevitably went into it with some idea of what was going to happen, but little more than an expectation for Dustin Hoffman to pursue a relationship with an older woman, to the soundtrack of Simon & Garfunkel. 

Hoffman plays Benjamin Braddock, the disaffected young university graduate who returns home from his studies to a summer without direction. He is swiftly seduced by Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father’s business partner, and embarks on a lengthy affair, but his affection soon turns towards her daughter, Elaine. Yet, this is merely the bare bones of the plot: it’s more complex than a simple romantic comedy, and the ending, notably, is ambiguous.

It’s impossible to complain about spoilers for a film that came out over fifty years ago; it has seeped into popular culture and been subjected to merciless parody. The iconic ending sequence is especially strange to watch for someone who grew up repeatedly watching Wayne’s World 2 (1993), where it is replicated shot for shot.

The critical eye has been on the film for so long, and it has passed through so many generations that its contemporary relevance can be questioned. Though a product of the late 1960s, the counterculture elements we associate with the period, such as free love, psychedelia, or hard rock, are largely absent. Benjamin’s sexual experiences are not part of a revolution, and he remains trapped firmly within the rigid framework of upper middle class suburbia.

While there’s a certain fascination to looking back on a snapshot of the past, many of us no longer have the same relationship with our parents and the older generation. Do we look back at a history of steady liberalisation, but no massive social upheaval, and see further subversion as unnecessary? Do our parents, the children of the past, simply provide us with a system we no longer need to escape? Maybe modern youth have it worse than Benjamin; our coming of age is not so straightforward. We are no longer afforded the opportunity of clear rebellion, and are left to wallow in the established structure. 

What does hold true is the portrayal of a graduate with no clear future, returning to inhabit the fading skeleton of a life that’s somehow no longer their own, and the dull resignation that there’s little incentive to do anything about it. Even modern graduates can largely sympathise with Benjamin’s predicament.

After all, what does the immediate future hold? The prospects of the graduate are numerous and varied. Will it be more of the same on a postgraduate course? Are we heading for the city for a mysterious role as a business analyst or consultant (when we’re really just brewing tea for executives)? Perhaps it’s just going to be a couple more months playing video games in pyjamas before we make a final decision.

We still need something. A last hurrah before we’re thrown to the world of work and responsibility for good. Could the modern rebellion be merely the fabled gap year abroad? At any rate, it seems the coming of age requires something extreme, a ditching of the world and its obligations, the way that Benjamin does at the end of The Graduate. The whole film is an exploration of these questions, symbolically relayed through the central relationships. The choices the characters make in their attachments are reflective of the choices that can be made in all facets of life.

This is emphasised stylistically through a number of visually captivating shots and transitions that underline the sense of emptiness and alienation. Water (swimming pools, aquariums, and rain) appears frequently as a tool of separation. The soundtrack contains little youthful euphoria, but is melancholic, featuring repeated motifs that again accentuate loneliness. These are played during moments that could otherwise be seen as positive steps in Benjamin’s life, at the height of his relationship with Mrs. Robinson, and during his final elopement, elevating the drama above mere romantic comedy.

His obsession with Elaine is far from romantic destiny, and exists primarily as an escape from his relationship with her mother, and as a chance to give his life some purpose outside an unhealthy liaison that makes him feel increasingly trapped. Compared with Mrs. Robinson, Elaine’s character is chronically underdeveloped, though she responds positively to Benjamin’s pseudo-philosophical ramblings.

While she is disgusted to learn of Benjamin’s affair with her mother, we learn little else of her thoughts on home and where she fits in to the loveless dynamic in the Robinson household. We do not know if she is as desperate to break free as Benjamin is. She ultimately follows him on impulse, having initially seemed happy enough to marry another man at her parents’ request. The separation from the character of Elaine forces us to experience the relationship purely from the perspective of Benjamin, who has put her on a pedestal and made her the object of his salvation.

Despite the vein of sympathy one inevitably has with the viewpoint character, Benjamin is at times an insufferable and frustrating character to watch, and ultimately, Mrs. Robinson comes off as more sympathetic. She is the one who is truly lost and trapped. Benjamin still has his whole life ahead of him, once he finally decides what he’s going to do with it.

In conclusion, I would recommend this film as a classic that still holds up, not least because of the iconic soundtrack. While often billed as a romantic comedy, it is certainly not laugh out loud and is definitely more of a drama, at least by today’s standards. It may be a little slow paced for more modern viewers, but this shouldn’t deter fans of older cinema. The themes would resonate most with young adults, but are perhaps not as relevant as they may have been to contemporary graduates in the late 1960s.