‘Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me…’
The importance of a soundtrack within cinema is perhaps understated. Would the movies of Quentin Tarantino or Shane Meadows be as powerful without their knack for choosing the right song to soundtrack the right moment? Absolutely not. The Graduate – famously soundtracked by Simon & Garfunkel – takes this concept to a new level. Their haunting and prescient songs inhabit every inch of Mike Nichols film, eventually almost becoming their own character. The infamous climatic scene which sees the two runaways reflecting on their wild decision in the cold light of day is rendered all the more salient by the inclusion of The Sound of Silence. Luckily, the rest of the film lives up to the songs that accompany it…
Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is disillusioned and lost. The constant intervention from the adults in his life have left him neurotic and exhausted. When Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) – an older woman – enters his life, Ben enters into a complex love triangle also involving Mrs. Robinson’s beautiful daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross).
First off, it’s easy to see how The Graduate made a star of Dustin Hoffman. He is incredible here, channeling Holden Caulfield, Bob Dylan and every other teenage tearaway who has been misunderstood by the world at large. His heart-on-his-sleeve performance allows Ross and especially Bancroft (who is terrific) to bounce off his manic energy to produce something that crackles and fizzes from scene to scene in a film that whizzes by in less than two hours. This is not the same teenage rebellion as Rebel Without A Cause or Easy Rider, but it’s in the same ballpark. Pent up anger. Sexual repression. The whole nine yards.
The Graduate was so successful, and has become so influential, that many of its more explosive scenes have been robbed of their power due to a slew of pale imitations and parodies. That shouldn’t diminish what Nichols and screenwriters Calder Willingham and Buck Henry created here. A truly transcendent work.