 This is the opening shot of The Graduate, a 22-second non-verbal introduction to our protagonist Benjamin Braddock. Despite nothing being said, this shot conveys almost everything we need to know about Ben, first and foremost that he is alone, obviously not in a literal sense, but even when he's a round people he is unable to connect with them. They don't understand him and he doesn't understand them. In addition to telling us about Ben, the first 22 seconds also tell us the film's main idea, that a generation gap leads to isolation through a lack of communication. This shot works so well for a number of reasons, the direction and camerawork by Mike Nichols and Robert Surtees respectively being just two pieces of the puzzle. But I think of the utmost importance is the honesty captured through subtlety in Dustin Hoffman's performance. I don't think you need me to tell you how great of an actor Hoffman is, his two Oscar wins and half a dozen nominations can speak for themselves. Instead, I want to take a look at how perfectly he plays Ben, and in order to do that we're going to have to flip back to Charles Webb's 1963 book which was adapted into the film. In terms of story, there weren't a lot of significant changes. Both follow the same story, a young man graduates college, starts an affair with an older woman, falls in love with her daughter, and then stops her daughter from marrying someone else. Moreover, a lot of the dialogue was lifted right from the pages of the book onto the screen. The biggest changes came from humanizing the characters and making them feel like real people not just characters on a page or on the screen. Originally Ben was snarky, arrogant, and self loving and was originally going to be played by a much more traditional movie star. Robert Redford was originally going to lead the movie, however that led to a few problems. Here is Mike Nichols breaking down the trouble of casting someone like Redford. This is what made Hoffman so perfect for this role. He was your every man, someone who most people watching could see themselves as. He is easy to relate to, easy to connect with, and turned the movie into an underdog story. He made Ben feel awkward, and like he didn't belong. He was surrounded by a sea of people who he doesn't know. He just knows their titles and what to call them. But on a personal level, they are total strangers and that is exactly what he is to them. Just a list of accomplishments with a high GPA. Throughout the film we see Ben surrounded by everything yet he focuses on nothing. This is shown off in two main ways, first through a very cluttered but out of focus frame. There is almost always something going on in the background and yet we are always supposed to focus on the foreground. This reflects Ben's philosophy on life. He knows he is looking for something, but he doesn't quite know what for. The other way is with these long takes. Throughout the movie, Nichols preferred to keep the camera rolling, which added to the claustrophobia of the film. In this scene as we watch Ben try and navigate his way through the homecoming party, we watch as guests jump out from nowhere trying to talk to him. Through these long takes we are brought into Ben's world. We see the discomfort that he experiences. He is out of place and out of touch, and through the moving camera we are stuck in the world with him. And just like we are stuck with him, Ben is stuck in life. He doesn't know what to do with his life. He knows he wants to do something, but doesn't know what or how to do it yet. All he knows is that he wants to be different from his parents and his parents' generation. However, as the film goes on, he slowly sees himself falling into the same cycle that the older generation fell into, starting a relationship without truly wanting to. The movie is chock-full of symbolism, imagery, and different techniques that drive home the point. That Ben's attempts to try and split from the path that older generations expect him to follow are ultimately what puts him on that path. Before this video ends, I want to take a minute to explore an aspect of film that is exemplified by the graduate, and that is how it has a different meaning depending on where you are in life. At the age of 20, I really haven't experienced this yet, but I do think it's still worth discussing. So I want to take a look at Roger Ebert's writings on the film to make this point. He first wrote about the graduate on its release in 1967 when he was 25. In his review, he gave it a perfect four-star rating and called it the year's best comedy and ended the review by saying, Be graduate is a success, and Benjamin's acute honesty and embarrassment are so accurately drawn that we hardly know whether to laugh or to look inside ourselves. Thirty years later, he discussed it again, this time giving the movie only three stars in saying murky generational politics were distorting my view the first time I saw this film, and ended his review by saying, To know that the movie once spoke strongly to a generation is to understand how deep the generation gap ran during that extraordinary time in the late 1960s. The graduate is undeniably a very personal movie. That's part of what makes it so great. It perfectly captures angst and the struggles of maturity. I can only see the movie from one perspective, and thirty years from now, who knows how I'll view it. I might even agree with Roger, but what I think I'll always disagree is that this isn't a movie about the late 60s. The movie famously doesn't include hippies, flowers, drugs, or rock and roll. Instead, it is a movie about adolescence and adulthood, and the bridge between the two. And in order to cross that bridge, it takes just one word. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed. Like just about everyone discussing movies today, I am influenced by Roger Ebert more than any other individual. His reviews are almost always the first and last steps in my research process, and I think his two discussions of the graduate are two of the most interesting companion pieces to explore. I've put links to both in the description, and I would highly recommend checking them out. I'd also highly recommend hitting that subscribe button and checking out my last video where we looked at Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. Be sure to check that video out if you haven't seen it yet, and I will see you next week. Thanks for watching.