The Graduate (1967)
Directed by Mike Nichols
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
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What critics compared The Graduate to
A feature debut for the director, Mr. Webb, the film is an odd combination of self-referential, in the spirit of its lovers, and insistently referential in its wink-and-nod homages to such classics as “The Graduate” and “The Seventh Seal.”
The script, by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, references a lot of movies, from "The Seventh Seal" to "The Graduate," but the one it seems to be channeling the most effectively (and most unconsciously) is "Annie Hall."
Zach Braff’s Garden State may be the closest analog—both explicitly reference The Graduate, that touchstone of generational uncertainty—but (500) Days Of Summer is more thoughtful, and thus more maddening in its shortcomings.
The kickoff entry for the Philadelphia Film Festival / Cinefest '09, (500) Days uses that Miller quotation (loosely) and adds a bit more cultural heft to its helium-balloon romance by referencing the French new wave, The Graduate, and art deco architecture.
For a movie about heartfelt connections, its characters have no depth or substance; for one about love, it has no chemistry or spontaneity; the action takes place in Los Angeles, though we see almost none of it; and a reference to “The Graduate” does the film no favors.
Near the end of Tom and Summer's 500 days together, they go to a matinee of The Graduate, and as they watch the final scene (Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross in the back of the bus, staring numbly ahead), Summer weeps miserably, while Tom appears transported by the romance of it all.
Great scene: A sly parody of the swimming pool scene from "The Graduate."
They're remaking The Graduate with bees?
At its core, the story is a play on The Graduate, with just-graduated Barry pressured by his suspiciously Jewish-seeming parents (Kathy Bates and Barry Levinson) to choose a job and settle into a hive existence; there's even a pool scene patterned on the Mike Nichols classic.
Resisting his drone-ish destiny as a drone (his post-college floating in the pool under his parents’ (Kathy Bates and Barry Levinson) anxious gazes recalls The Graduate), Barry discusses options with his best friend Adam (Matthew Broderick) (who, by the way, embraces his own destiny, signing up for an assembly line sort of job rather than imagine beyond the norm).
Seinfeld voices Barry B. Benson, a new college grad (in accelerated bee time, it takes three days to earn a degree) who is still pondering his future, like Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate.
In this regard, the film parodies "The Graduate," and that's also a cute bit, but, of course, it will go right over the head of any youngster.
Impressive writing-directing debut from TV's Zach Braff, a small, contemplative updating of "The Graduate", shows a good ear for thoughtful, observational humor and a gift for understated angst.
Braff has made no secret of the fact that he was influenced by such films as Harold & Maude and The Graduate (the use of Simon and Garfunkel on the soundtrack is a bit of a giveaway), but presumably, he also watched David Gordon Green’s movies and one would guess he’s seen Beautiful Girls (which also starred Natalie Portman) way too many more times than can be considered healthy.
The upstart director intuitively uses this particular brand of cinematic shorthand with a skill and economy that matches similar such visual flourishes from directors like Mike Nichols ("The Graduate") or Richard Linklater ("Waking Life").
The fact that the above synopsis applies equally well to 2004's Garden State and 1967's The Graduate forces us to ask just what relationship exists between the films.
While it appears to aspire to a sort of Harold & Maude balance, instead of mellifluous, Garden State really just feels like a car crash--the misbegotten child of The Graduate and The Exorcist .
"Garden State" inspires obvious comparisons with " The Graduate ," not least in the similarity of the two heroes; both Benjamin and Andrew are passive, puzzled and quizzical in the face of incoming exhortations.
It's a sweet, knowing, bracingly deadpan coming-of-age story that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve – Wes Anderson's Rushmore, Harold and Maude, and Mike Nichols' The Graduate spring immediately to mind – and it's set in a grim and gritty Swansea, replete with concrete council flats and muddy, muddled dreams that'd do Morrissey and Marr proud in their existential despair.
A better descriptionin terms of comparisonswould be that its like a Wes Anderson movie as if it was directed by Richard Lester in the 1960s with nods to Mike Nichols The Graduate (1967) and Hal Ashbys Harold and Maude (1971).
Lifting from Wes Anderson , Noah Baumbach , Danny Boyle , Whit Stillman and older avatars such as Richard Lester (let's not even start on its tributes to tributes to Truffaut 's " The 400 Blows "), it's so relentless in its piling on of snappy effects -- perfectly frozen freeze-frames, "quirky" mismatches of narration and image, and more, more, more -- that it kind of plays like " The Graduate " going through steroid psychosis.
"A Hard Day's Night" is one of the influences below the surface here, along with American love stories from "The Graduate" to "Garden State."
Whatever flaws the film may have, it’s certainly unlike anything else in theaters right now and yet will likely remind certain viewers of beloved films like “The Graduate,” “Harold and Maude,” and “Rushmore.”
A deadpan adolescent romance in the vein of The Graduate , Rushmore , or Harold and Maude , this wistful little movie can feel thrillingly new one moment and familiar as an old sweater the next.
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To be sure, The Graduate is better known to current audiences for its influence on Wes Anderson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums), most obviously in his continual use of water imagery and expert incorporation of pop rock songs.
I was impressed by Anderson's filmmaking and the cast, but the film never quite overwhelmed me like some of my favorite coming-of-age comedies ("Say Anything", "The Graduate", "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", etc.).
Told through the fish-eye lens of a teen-ager's obsessive, self-aggrandizing vision, "Rushmore" -- which often resembles a contemporized, bizarro version of "The Graduate" -- will also appeal to anyone who can find its nerdy hero enchanting, despite his grating eccentricities.
For me, the experience was much like seeing Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" and George Lucas' "American Graffiti" before the hype machines kicked in.
(Anderson’s nostalgic and lyrical employments of this music often recall the more extended uses of Simon and Garfunkel in The Graduate, a quintessential pop expression of the 60s.)
A quirky, sometimes hilarious and often touching comic fable, ‘Rushmore” is at times reminiscent of both ‘The Graduate” and ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
It's more like a reversed "The Graduate" done by a less talented Wasp Woody Allen.
Too much has happened in the arena of sexual politics since " The Graduate ," and I kept thinking that since Oscar was 15 and his stepmother and her friend were about 40, this plot would have been unthinkable if the genders had been reversed.
The story, slyly reminiscent of predecessors including "The Graduate", makes its own mark not only because 15-year old Oscar isn't one, but through a style of effervescent charm, a lighthearted script crafted by screenwriters Niels Mueller and Heather McGowan and tightly directed (78 minutes!) by Gary Winnick for laughs stemming from human foibles -- a comedy of errors in modern terms.
Maybe that's because it has the pedigree of an instant classic such as "The Graduate" and the resounding reminiscence of Wes Anderson's 1998 charmer "Rushmore".
Zingers are plentiful, especially when it comes to the May-December relationship, with catty references to "The Graduate" and 40-15 tennis scores.
Scenarios like this one end up being the latest scandal about town, rather than being prime material for a comedy— The Graduate and Rushmore have explored this area.
“It reminded me of The Graduate ,” he says.
The film has been compared with coming-of-age tale, The Graduate , for the reason that it portrays a man with no future and no idea what to do with his life.
This story has a lot more in common with The Graduate than it does with The Matrix.
It’s a coming-of-age stratagem that fits perfectly within Fincher’s previous films and taps into films like "Taxi Driver," "The Graduate," and "A Clockwork Orange."
Ecranizare a romanului omonim semnat de scriitorul american Chuck Palahniuk si publicat in anul 1996, Fight Club a fost comparat in istoria cinematografie cu Rebel Without a Cause (1955) si The Graduate (1967).
Building on the innovations of the landmark releases The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969), Harold and Maude explores outsider mentalities through fragmented cutting, using those music montages to embellish its themes and create a feeling of emotional suspension.
Hal Ashby’s film, also sort of a sweeter, gentler, less satirical companion to The Graduate, which preceded it by three years, follows Harold (Bud Cort), a morose young man given to faking suicide scenes, driving a modified hearse, and quietly crashing funerals as his distracted mother (Vivian Pickles) looks on with a combination of concern, distaste, and disinterest.
Mainstream audiences also steered clear, suggesting that the trail for artful, left-of-center Hollywood films blazed by The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) was already starting to shut down long before Spielberg’s little shark movie launched the summer blockbuster craze four years later.
The pair fall into a romantic relationship that shouts in the face of societal mores as Cat Stevens's uplifting score does for the movie what Simon and Garfunkel did for "The Graduate."
The film’s suite of songs, by Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf) is exquisite, possibly the best collection of pop songs by the same artist in a movie besides Simon & Garfunkel’s songs for The Graduate .
Like The Graduate , the script for Harold and Maude has the idea of a doomed generation but shows every generation is damned.
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Her frazzled, single mom is played by "SNL" alum Molly Shannon, who brings a boozy floozy quality to the character, clearly modeled after Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson from that earlier generational touchstone, "The Graduate."
Instead, they take on that crunchy, echo-y sound of movie quotes swallowed up into club music, like how that George Michael track “Too Funky” spliced in a sample of “The Graduate's” Anne Bancroft purring, “Would you like me to seduce you?”Likewise, the visual style is so attention-grabbing that the cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, appears to have been told to cross off every technique: freeze-frames, slow motion, character dissolves, extreme sweat droplet closeups, riveting long takes where the acting glows.