California Dreaming - The Graduate

Much has been made of The Graduate's lack of engagement with the real issues of the sixties - its failure to make any reference to Vietnam, the Berkeley campus protests or even the summer of love which occurred on its very doorstep - but, having returned to the film recently to prepare for teaching a Film Studies class, I was struck by the absence of references to work or employment, and in a film which posits success on the meritocracy of sixties USA, I found this rather curious. But before I go on to this, let's back track a little.

I don't believe that films should reflect every aspect of the era in which they are produced: doing so can very quickly date a text and although of interest to historicists perhaps, it can produce some cringeworthy effects. Easy Rider, although a film that helped turn Hollywood on its head, can feel alienating to a young audience. I have been teaching Dennis Kelly's DNA recently and I was struck by the absence of contemporary references in the play: there is a text about an alienated gang of youths in the modern world and not once do they get their phones out. There is something 'future proof' about the the elision of such contemporary references and I think that The Graduate falls into such a category. It doesn't have to be a news bulletin to situate itself in its baby boomer world, instead the sixties seems to permeate through its own particular, well, DNA. Maybe Foucault might have something to say about this: his episteme or the unconscious structures which underpin the production of knowledge in a particular period might be one way to see the mode of discourse within the film and that the conflicts between the two generations, Nichol's deployment of New Wave cinematography, the contrasting soundtrack that marries Simon and Garfunkel's pop-folk with the muzak of the Taft Hotel, the incongruity of a Jewish New Yorker playing an upper-middle class WASP all combine to give the film its own discourse of transgression.

And yet, where is the work? There is talk of work, yes: the future is plastics says one of Mr Braddock's friends, as if he were an oracle providing Benjamin with the seeds of his own downfall. And there are people at work: the stripper, the mechanic, the priest, the bell-boys and receptionists, but all these are there to serve the purposes of the protagonists. None of the main characters are defined by their particular occupations (we do learn that Mr Braddock and Mr Robinson are business partners but what their business is remains unclear) and therefore roles in society, despite Ben's father's anxieties about what his son is going to do with his life. It as if the idea of work has been excised from Benjamin's vision of the world, as ephemeral as the dancing crystals of light that reflect from the dream-like surface of the pool on which he floats. Work is for others, to provide the hero with the tools required to assist him in his quest: the way to the church, a room for the night.

 One way of exploring this absence is to see the film as a projection of Benjamin's own sleeping mind, perhaps. Nichol's locates the film's stylistics firmly within the observational range of Ben. We never venture from his viewpoint (Nichols did shoot some footage and voice overs that deviated from this but they never made the final edit). It is as if Benjamin is stuck in a dream-world where life revolves around desire and the transgression of the prohibitions that surround it. The first shot in the film is an extreme close-up of Benjamin as he sits immobile on an aeroplane about to touch down in Los Angeles. Nichols then zooms out to show us the rest of the cabin and Ben loses himself in this little crowd. He sleepwalks along the travelator and the film then jump cuts to another shot of Ben, his head in front of a fish tank, submerged, drowning. There are many scenes in which Benjamin is sleeping or relaxing: on the sun lounger in his parents’ pool, for example; in front of the TV whilst Mrs Robinson moves past in a hazy blur. Scenes involving glass, mirrors, all suggest Ben’s alienation, yes, but they also suggest a screen behind which Ben sees his own life unfolding in a steady procession of roles that he might or might not fulfil.

Compare the opening shot with the closing two shots. Ben’s head fills the space to the right hand side of the screen and in the penultimate shot the left side of the screen is filled by Elaine’s angelic presence. Now look at the next shot: it is taken from a 180 degree reverse of the previous shot. For logistical purposes (to get the surprised/amazed faces of the other faces into the shot, perhaps), Ben is turned slightly to his right and there is a clear physical space existing between Elaine and he that was not present in the preceding shot. Perhaps, in a fantastical reading of the film (just as, say, some critics have suggested that the events of Vertigo all occur in Scotty’s imagination as he dangles precariously from the San Francisco rooftops – just how did he get down from there?) one could imagine that the events between Ben on the aeroplane and Ben finding himself next to a beautiful woman on a bus all occur in Ben’s imagination. Perhaps.