The Graduate (1967)

"A Ford!! Goddamit. A Ford.  That's great! Mrs. Robinson."  (Ben)

I'd always heard about The Graduate from other people, but I'd never seen it.  (Yes, I was a Graduate virgin.)  I was sort of sad that I expected it to disappoint me.  Before watching it, I thought it was going to be like a Nerf-dart gun experience.  -great looking in commercials, slightly rebellious, still safe, highly inaccurate  and breaks down after 2-3 uses.  However, to my surprise, (I really shouldn't have been.  This is regarded as a classic, after-all.)  The Graduate is a phenomenal movie and deserves inclusion into the term art.

I admit that I have troupes and story telling devices that I enjoy and some that I don't.  One of that I truly enjoy is the use of background and foreground in contrast.  The Graduate and its director and cinematographer (Mike Nichols and Robert Surtees) seem to have an innate understanding of how to use the entire canvass of a shot to better tell the story.  I loved the SCUBA shots. It made everything seem close. I loved the long shots -like in the church at the end.)  I loved the dark shots -when Ben was with Mrs. Robinson.  I even thought that they way that the shots just played with the audience in terms of the SEX, was A: far more alluring, B: far more tasteful, and C: made for a better and more captivating story.  Well done.

Ratings:

College Grads:  See it

Cougars:  See it  (Anne Bancroft, Whoa!!!!)

Music montage-ists:  See it.  Yup, Simon and Garfunkel at their best.

Love BeWitched?:  See it.  I am such a nerd that I recognized two of the minor actresses as Aunt Clara and Esmeralda.

Actors:  See it.  I loved basically every performance.

On a scale of the first time to the last time, I give The Graduate 4.1 out of 5 stars.