I don't think The Graduate does that. The internal logic that fuels the character's motivation seem to be missing completely. Maybe people fell in love differently in the 70s, maybe people talk differently then. But then again maybe this movie wasn't made for people like me.

The final 5 minutes were wild though.

What I can't believe is someone would presume to try and start a debate by insulting the person they are debating. This is why the Internet is slowly becoming a useless tool. I assume you may be someone I would enjoy debating with, however you have chosen the path of least resistance and told me how I should think as opposed to simply offering your opinion. Too bad, could have been fun.

As a child of the times, I agree with "dgsweet" that you really had to be there to get this movie. Many of the reasons have already been covered, such as the fact this movie is a metaphor for the angst the entire nation was beginning to feel with Vietnam, racial tension and a major change in social mores (from repressed emotion to the Free Love generation).

I think the title of the movie "The Graduate" is meant to be an ironic question. Graduate from what? From some Ivy League school doing what his parents wanted to a meaningless corporate life "in plastics"? Ben has big questions; Elaine has big questions; and so did we all in 1967.

The reason this film had so many Academy Award nominations is it so succinctly captured all the social currents in a way that was poetic in a Beatnik sort of way (I doubt "brad" would get Beatniks and their poetry either). It is definitely schizo and therefore, a little tough to watch. But we were all "confused" during the late 60s.

Regarding the "stalking" comments, like "dgsweet", I don't find this at all strange given the confusion of the times. Stalking is an idea borne of the death of Princess Diana, John Lennon's murder, and many more media star situations since the 70s. We weren't so security concious in the 1960s. Did anyone notice how Benjamin walked right in the unlocked backdoor of the Robinson house in the middle of the night? And this house was in Los Angeles or Belair? Would that happen today? Or how about the constant smoking by everyone in the movie not named Ben? Does that make this movie strange? Or just a movie of its time?

And finally, no one has given the Simon and Garfunkel music track in this movie any credit for its success. But for me, the music is almost better than the movie it highlights. S&G were the soul of our nation during the late 60s. The folk music sounds combined with Paul Simon's dazzling and brilliant poetry, captured the mood of our generation. S&G should not go without mention as to what makes this film one of the best of all time.

bradbrevet said: I was actually talking just about Benjamin in that question, not the movie itself. I think we already established I didn't like the movie but you guys like it. I was just getting the impression that some people believed Ben to be a normal guy simply lacking direction.

I do like Benjamin. I think he's without malice, for the most part. He doesn't look to chase after Mrs. Robinson, after all. She goes after him, and rather aggressively. And he keeps trying to make a human connection with her, which she rejects. Even in cheating, he's trying to make their affair be based in something human, to find something to talk about that means that their relationship isn't based just on sexual mechanics. But she has turned him into a sex object and, out of her own bitterness, tries to infect him with her cynicism and despair. He ultimately is trying to fight his way out of that, and so is Elaine. No, he and Elaine may not ultimately make it, but they will have escaped from a world that is poisonous to them. A world that a lot of us at the time thought was poisonous. I like THE APARTMENT, too, and I think they're very similar movies, except Anne Bancroft is a lot prettier than Fred McMurray as the symbol of cynicism.

I think most people — somewhere between their early teens and when they slide exhausted into their thirties — have confused and "creepy" phases. Anybody who isn't embarrassed by the memory of something they did during those years was probably in a coma.

I am basically trying to figure out how you guys interpreted him because that is a major reason why I did not like the film, but it seems to be a reason some of you actually connected to it. I think that is interesting.

Benjamin is a weird guy. No doubt. Is he crazy? confused? or just a killer to be? For me, it doesn't matter because his weirdness, his problems drives the film. It makes the film great because on some level we all connect with the obvious issues he struggles with. We all want to find the idea of love and, to quote Dgsweet again, "a non-hypocritical and potentially healthy life." but he is still a messed up individual. Crazy or confused, that's up to the individual viewer.

Jules in Pulp Fiction, Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, Michael Corleone in Godfather, Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver or Joker in The Dark Knight. All despicle bastards but we love them all. And none of them can come withing a miles radius near my daughter (if I had one).

Character connection is important to feel like a part of the universe the film depicts but it's not alfa and omega when it comes to liking the film.

dgsweet said: I don't have to be able to defend a character to find some kinship with him. Though I didn't sleep with a lot of older women and their daughters in those days, I could still identify with the confusion that he felt.

I guess I should rephrase since you seem intent on definitions. For those that don't think of Ben as a stalker or a crazy person would you allow your daughter to date him? I am under the impression that you think of him as confused and not at all creepy, which is what I felt while watching. This leads me to believe you think he is normal. Am I reading this wrong?

dgsweet said: So the film doesn't work for some people. Fine. There are lots of approved classics that leave me old. I'm sure that's true for everyone. But there might be something to learn about why people respond to films we don't.

I definitely think we can learn from other people's responses, that is actually the #1 reason I try to revisit these older films. I may not like them but it lets many people realize there are more films out there about more than just Transformers and Batman.

If you are interested you can find my other Cinematic Revival articles right here.

bradbrevet said: For everyone that is defending Benjamin, are you saying you would gladly let him date your daughter?

I don't have to be able to defend a character to find some kinship with him. Though I didn't sleep with a lot of older women and their daughters in those days, I could still identify with the confusion that he felt.

I don't approve of the characters in GLENGARRY or THE GODFATHER. I don't approve of most of the behavior in THE APARTMENT. But my sense of identification with a character isn't based on my approving of the character's behavior. (I don't approve of much of Hamlet's behavior for that matter. I do relate to his turmoil though.)

Watching characters do things I would never do out of impulses I understand is part of what can make drama interesting. They do these things partially so I that I don't. (That's intended as half a joke.)

By the by, anybody who has kids knows that when they reach Elaine's age, you don't "let" them do anything.

Oh, Elaine is rushed into the marriage — partially, one guesses, by her parents — in order to put her (they think) beyond Benjamin's reach. The marriage is an even bigger mistake than running off with Benjamin since it's done to satisfy her parents' impulses and what would make a neat package for their social world.

So the film doesn't work for some people. Fine. There are lots of approved classics that leave me old. I'm sure that's true for everyone. But there might be something to learn about why people respond to films we don't.

I often wonder that about many films and books.

dgsweet says it the best:

"To call him a "psycho stalker" is to trivialize what's happening. Yes, his behavior is — certainly by today's standards and values — unsupportable. But he sees Elaine as being the direction in which his idea of a non-hypocritical and potentially healthy life might lie, so he pursues her out of that motivation. She's hardly unwilling. She too senses that there is something unsupportable about her parents' life and values. The fact that these two kids share a common oppononet doesn't by any means automatically make them right for each other, and the final few seconds suggest this."

He does stalk/pursue Elaine to a degree that is a bit disturbing. But he thinks Elaine is his only chance for a normal and healthy life. And at the end Elaine believes that too about Benjamin. And maybe they are both wrong as suggested by the ending.

No matter what. Personally I love this film and I believe this one of Dustin Hoffman's greatest film.

dgsweet said: The word "stalking" only acquired the meaning it now has for us years after THE GRADUATE, so nobody at the time would have thought he was "stalking" her. It might have occurred to people that he was acting like a selfish jerk, but then this is something Boomers get called a lot, and Benjamin is nothing if he is not a Boomer.

Just because the word stalking didn't have the same meaning in '67 as you say, doesn't mean that what he is doing isn't stalking. That is a rather odd way to present your case if I am understanding you correctly. It sure appears to me that by following a person and learning their routine is exactly what stalking is.

Benjamin creeps me out in this film and I never understood why Elaine, troubled or not, would even think about getting together with the guy that was involved in an affair with her mother. On top of that, there is never a time I see Benjamin as a stable individual, he is off from the very beginning.

He follows her, he knows her routine and she doesn't look at all happy when he confronts her on the bus. He follows her around the zoo, seemingly (to me) uninvited. The late night conversation they have in his room when they discuss marriage is creepy and the following day he begins following her around school pushing the idea of an immediate marriage on her after one conversation and waiting for her without moving after class.

You also mention how Benjamin's actions have to do with him thinking Elaine had been coerced into marriage. However, when he first begins following her he had no idea about Carl. Elaine ten tells him, "I told him I might marry him." Personally I don't see how the hell the marriage went through so quickly, it appeared out of left field.

What "The Graduate" proves, I guess, is that very often our own life experiences play directly into our evaluations and reactions to particular motion pictures. Having seen Nichols' film a good half-dozen or so times, I can honestly say this is one story that really spoke and affected me quite deeply, and as favorite features go this one is very near the top of my list. I understand Benjamin's alienation and respond to his search, and while much of what he does is unfocused and misdirected I don't find him to be even slightly crazy.

Again, very nicely done, Dgsweet. This debate between the two of you has been fun to read.

Well, let me give you an example. In MY FAIR LADY (and indeed, to a lesser extent in PYGMALION), Freddy also moons around Liza with no particular encouragement, yet, within the context of the times, we in the audience gave him license to do so, partly because he sang a nice song, "On the Street Where You Live." The word "stalking" only acquired the meaning it now has for us years after THE GRADUATE, so nobody at the time would have thought he was "stalking" her. It might have occurred to people that he was acting like a selfish jerk, but then this is something Boomers get called a lot, and Benjamin is nothing if he is not a Boomer.

The reason why most of the audience accepts Benjamin's actions is because we sense — as he does — that she wants to be rescued from the coerced, approved marriage she's being rushed into.

I always thought that Mr. Robinson has a great deal of justice on his side in expressing his rage at Benjamin. And what a lot of Boomers I know now see in the film is that we view Mrs. Robinson with a great deal more sympathy. Which is a sign of how they film has grown with some of us, or maybe that we've grown some.

Even then, I thought Mrs. Robinson probably had more to offer by way of conversation and life experience than Elaine. But neither offers the prospect of something that will last.

I'm sort of sorry that nobody made the sequel that showed Benjamin turning into another version of Mrs. Robinson himself …

I have no idea what you mean when you say "by today's standards and values" when referring to his actions. By any standards and values what he is doing is stalking her and just because she is confused and rebellious doesn't justify it.

This is why the film didn't work for me, because the only moment of clear sanity the two have is at the very end and it is unearned. However, I will admit it inspires conversation like this, which isn't exactly a bad thing.

You say that Benjamin is crazy. I would suggest that the country was just about to go into a massive nervous breakdown, and this film — whether out of calculation or pure dumb luck — managed to catch some of the reasons so vividly that a generation took it as something that spoke for them. Personal crisis in film often says something about societal crisis, often makes it comprehensible.

I've heard that Nichols and Richard Lester had a meal together when they were both filming in San Francisco. Lester was working on PETULIA. The two reportedly figured out that, though their stories were different, both films were reporting on the same phenomena. They're both sharp guys and I think they're right. That you don't agree is absolutely fine, but I suggest you're missing something. But then lots of people think I'm missing something when I sleep through the Peter Jackson-Tolkein movies, which I cannot tell apart.

People who have been raised with movies and television look at CITIZEN KANE and say, "What's the big deal?" The things that were revolutionary in that film have been so assimilated into our language that it looks almost conservative to contemporary eyes. Similarly, THE GRADUATE introduced elements that have been so assimilated into subsequent films that it cannot truly be seen by people who were raised on the films made since then.