The Graduate

When you graduate college, it can feel people are expecting you to have the rest of your life figured out.  For Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), he’s dismayed and worried that he has no idea what to do with his life.  He comes from a well-to-do family, who throw him a big graduation party with all their swanky friends who have watched Ben grow up.  This just puts the pressure on Ben, everyone fusses over him and asks what he’s going to do over and over.  He just wants to get away, but Mrs. Robinson  (Anne Bancroft) interrupts his alone time and asks Ben to drive her home.

Ben is too nice of a young man to deny Mrs. Robinson this simple request.  But she manipulates the ride into requesting Ben to come inside and keep her occupied, alone in the house.  Ben politely, and nervously, lets this go on with a drink and music, until he can’t deny what this looks like, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me.”  With those fatal words, the cards are on the table, there is not going back and Mrs. Robinson continues to lure Ben into her trap.  The lengths and boundaries Mrs. Robinson pushes as she tries to seduce Ben are shocking.  Ben narrowly escapes at first, but with a long summer of nothing ahead of him, it isn’t long until he takes Mrs. Robinson up on her generous offer.

Ben does not see or think of them at first, but there are huge consequences to his affair with Mrs. Robinson.  Later, when he plays with the idea of dating her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross), she forbids it.  A young man, just starting out in the world adulthood isn’t going to listen to an aging woman who only wants to casually him for sex, so he takes Elaine out to spite her.  What Ben doesn’t plan on is genuinely liking Elaine and even falling in love with her.  But Mrs. Robinson won’t let Ben have her daughter and threatens to tell everyone about their affair.

This film shows pressures and pitfalls that many young people experience to this day.  When we hit a new level and come of age in some way, there are new expectations brought on and things we are expected to have knowledge of.  Ben is worried about where his life is heading and Mrs. Robinson expects Ben to be more knowledgeable about sex.  When an idle summer is thrown in, Ben grows complacent, bored and seeks out the one thing he knows he can attain at the moment: sex with Mrs. Robinson.

There are countless things I love about The Graduate.  The camera work and editing is wonderfully inventive.  The party scene stays close to Ben’s face, giving us that feeling that he can’t get away.  There’s the scuba gear scene that even goes underwater.  And during Mrs. Robinson’s first attempt at seducing Ben, there’s quick flashes of nudity edited in, bringing us into what Ben sees, in a sort of nightmarish way.  The soundtrack is one of the best ever, featuring unforgettable songs that define the era by Simon and Garfunkle, including my favorite, the obviously titled song, Mrs. Robinson.  Unless there was some technical reason that Mrs. Robinson could not be nominated for best original song, this is one unforgivable blunder by the Academy.

The Graduate is a wonderful, inventive, funny and honest film about coming of age and the complications of physical relationships that can still be admired for generations to come.  This is one of those films that everyone should see at some point.  And everyone gets a kick out of the nervous word play in the hotel lobby.

“Are you here for an affair, sir?”

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Loosely based on historical fact, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid tells the tale of two infamous outlaws, their exploits and their run from the law.  Butch (Paul Newman) is the leader of the Hole in the Wall gang, who rob banks and trains.  The Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) is Butch’s right hand man.  Problem is, the ways of the old wild west are coming to and end and civilization, law and order are creeping closer to the gang.  After robbing the same train once too many, Butch and Sundance realize they’re being tailed, and they can’t seem to shake their trackers.  After some daring escapes, they decide to go to Bolivia with Sundance’s girlfriend Etta Place (Katharine Ross).  Bolivia should be far enough away from the law, right?  But a whole new world of challenges are there, and I can’t help but remember what Uncle Remus said, “You can’t run from trouble, there ain’t no place that far.”

The movie starts off well with some good old things we come to expect in westerns.  There’s gambling, some fancy shooting, a rivalry within the gang that Butch handles easily and a couple train robberies.  Those are all fun, especially the great scene where they use too much dynamite and blow the whole train car to toothpicks and the money just flies around them.  I cracked up.

After that, it becomes a very slow chase.  Through rocky desert, canyons and jumping into the river, it’s a great time to show off the beautiful land, but that excitement felt in the beginning is gone.  Soon they meander to New York for some photos and wind up in Bolivia.  When they arrive and see nothing but crumbling buildings, a family of hogs and a llama we were thinking the same thing:  Why the hell would they pick Bolivia?  Because it has a nice ring to it?  One thing to remember is that these were outlaws, not geniuses.  Not everyone in history made very good decisions.

In Bolivia, they fall back into old habits and start robbing banks.  Once they learn how to speak a few Spanish phrases, that is.  Nothing like pulling out a crib sheet in the middle of an armed robbery.  It’s funny, absurd and starts to bring back that fun we felt in the first half hour.

What the film does best is cinematography.  In the beginning we’re shown a little silent film explaining just a bit about Butch, Sundance and the Hole in the Wall gang.  Then the film starts up, borrowing the same sepia tones as the silent film and photos of the time and continues for a few scenes.  Color is introduced when we follow the duo out to the desert and there’s plenty of natural scenery that would be best in color.  It’s affective and the camera always captures the natural beauty we associate with the old west.

While I have some mixed feelings about the whole film, it ended well for me.  In the final scene, that excitement and gun-slinging that I was hoping for was back.  If it wasn’t for that very bad-ass last stand, I would have been disappointed.  This is not your typical western, Butch and Sundance have too many funny lines for that.  I usually enjoyed their banter, but it seemed too cute for outlaws at time.  And though Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head won best original song, the music just feels jarring in a western.  I mean, this was a western right?  It looks like it, but doesn’t sounds like it.

“You just keep thinkin’, Butch. That’s what you’re good at.”