'The Graduate'

'The Graduate' (1967) was directed by Mike Nichols. This film is based around the life of Benjamin, a confused 21 year old who has recently graduated from college and is worried about his future, as his parents have high expectations of him. At his celebratory "homecoming" party, the wife of his fathers business partner, Mrs. Robinson, tries to seduce Benjamin after insisting he drives her home. A sordid affair grows from this, which eventually ends, but comes back to haunt him when he finds himself falli in love with Elaine, the daughter of Mrs. Robinson.
At the very beginning of the film when Benjamin is sat on the plane, there is a close up of his face, this introduces his character straight away, and also shows the audience his facial expressions, telling them what he is feeling. When he gets back home, he is sat in his room in front of the fish tank looking sad and down. There is a close up of his face so we can clearly see the emotion in his face. We can also hear the bubbles from the fish tank (diegetic sound) in this scene. It adds a sense of tranquility and calmness to the scene, which contrasts the excitement of the party downstairs. Benjamin clearly doesn't want to go down and join in with the party, it makes the audience wonder what's wrong with him, so they watch on to find out. When Benjamin takes Mrs. Robinson home, the scene cuts from the doorway outside of her house to the inside of her house. The two scenes are spliced together to speed up the narrative of the film. The film also keeps doing lots of quick cuts when Mrs. Robinson is stood naked in Elaine's bedroom. The camera keeps quickly cutting to exposed parts of her body, so we don't see too much detail, this leaves a little to the audiences imagination aswell, which engages them. An example of cross cutting in this fim is when Ben and Mrs. Robinson are talking on the phone. We see shots of each of them at seperate locations speaking on the phone at the same time. It shows the audience what each of them are doing at the same time. There is a quick cut from the kitchen scene where Benjamin tells his parents he is marrying Elaine, to the scene where he's driving across the bridge. Moves the narrative of the film along quicker, and could suggest he is rushing.
On Ben's birthday, he is bought a scuba diving suit, and his parents insist that he wear it in front of the guests. We can see the people and under the water from his point of view, and we can hear him breathing too. This allows the audience to feel part of the scene. There is a high angle shot of Ben's dad talking down to him at a low angle shot when he's in the pool. This shows that the father has a higher status than Ben. There is a scene where Mrs. Robinson and Ben are in the bedroom together, which fades out into the next scene. This shows the audience that time has passed since the previous one. In the scene where Ben waits outside Elaine's classroom at college, all the lights in the coridoor are off and it is empty, this shows he is alone and vaunerable. He waits until her class finishes, but the whole time he's waiting is not shown (also speeds up the narrative of the film). Close up of Ben's face when he is told Elaine has left college, allows the audience to see his facial expression, shows them he is sad/upset. This makes the audience feel sorry for him, and makes them want him to find her. There is also a close up of Elaine's face when Ben gatecrashes her wedding, she looks confused and shocked at first, but then the audience can see by the expression on her face that she realises she loves him. We see her smile, which makes the audience happy too. Finally, on the bus after they run out of the wedding together, they look out the back window as if they were newly weds being wisked away in a wedding car. But they are not actually married.
The whole soundtrack of this film is done by Simon and Garfunkel. They produce some very emotional music, so it works very well with the film. When Benjamin is rushing to stop Elaine's wedding, his car runs out of gas. As the car slowly comes to a stop, the music slows down as the car does. It links in with the scene and makes it much more effective.
Overall, I think 'The Graduate' was a good film, with an awesome soundtrack... I love Simon and Garfunkel (: The only part I didn't really understand was the end. I was confused as to why they both looked so down. The music went well with the film and highlighted the important bits for me. I would be happy to see oer films similar to this one in the future.