Subject: The Graduate
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From: JW
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 12:25 AM
To: TS, DS
Just watched The Graduate for the first time and I was curious whether
the scenes with Ben pursuing Elaine were meant to be creepy or
romantic or neither? Obviously to modern sensibilities he's quite the
stalker but perhaps in the 60s following a girl around was seen as
romantic? Certainly she does end up reciprocating...
J
----------the scenes with Ben pursuing Elaine were meant to be creepy or
romantic or neither? Obviously to modern sensibilities he's quite the
stalker but perhaps in the 60s following a girl around was seen as
romantic? Certainly she does end up reciprocating...
J
From: DS
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 4:04 PM
To: JW
Cc: TS
The way I read it was as a subltey creepy and perhaps solipsistic pursuit and ending. The very last shot is the most damning one of the film, they're on the bus, grinning, not talking, consigned to spending the rest of each others lives together in relative alienation. I don't remember exactly, but aren't they surrounded by old, decrepit couples on the bus?
To me that's the central concern of Dustin Hoffman's character, the fear of the alienation of being an adult and entering the modern world of wage labor and shallow relationships, (like the oedipal one he has with Mrs. Robinson.) Hello darkness my old friend indeed.
From: TS [Me]
Date: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 4:55 PM
To: DS
Cc: JW
I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I'd always read the end as a testament to his persistent immaturity and as a damning realistic take on romance. Ben spends most of the movie in over his head without doing much about it: he doesn't know what he's doing with his life after school; he falls into an affair, more out of curiosity and laziness than anything else, while not making any career moves; and then he finally finds something in his life to latch after he connects with Elaine, but he finds he doesn't know how to go about it. His relationship with Elaine is the first thing he has been forced to fight for, and he goes about it with no grace whatsoever. I don't think they were meant to be romantic as much as clumsy and embarrassing. He's lucky Elaine likes him at all, because he played all the wrong cards. By the time they leave the wedding and get on the bus, I think they're both faced with those facts: wow, this tactic worked...what now? He's over his head again, and she's stuck with the guy who acted the way he did, on all counts (banged his mom, took her to a strip club to turn her off of himself, pursued her to Berkeley, etc.). Lots of movies have their characters do these ridiculous things, and they're rewarded for it without stepping back to think, hm, what does it really mean to be the person who does that kind of thing? Though the rom com in its current form didn't exist back then, the grand "romantic" gestures sure did, and I saw this movie as a contrasting reality check to those gestures. We're supposed to feel a bit creeped out, I think. Also, keep in mind that this is Dustin Hoffman here: the original beta male, he became known for playing complicated, yet somehow likeable underdog characters. He wasn't Robert Redford or Warren Beatty, and I think this peculiar star status lends itself to the role.
These are just impressions I remember from my last viewing. I also like [DS]'s reading of the film.
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If you guys have other readings of the film, let me know in the comments below.
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