The Graduate Film Analysis

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In response to the American New Wave, Hollywood began to establish a new form of cinematic creation with more youthful directors that offered up ideas and conveyed emotion that had not yet established as a form, which resulted in New Hollywood Cinema. The Graduate, a common film referred to as the basis for America’s fresh film techniques, was directed by Mike Nichols and released in 1967. A key cinematic element that Nichols chose to highlight and use to express a variety of emotions emulating from the characters would be a great amount of close up shots from the beginning to the end of the film. Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), The Graduate’s protagonist recently completed college with a lot of expectations and confusion following him out the door. The initial scene of the film already begins to express the bewilderment emulating from Ben’s eyes as the camera essentially sits on his blank face. The pilot’s voice begins to grow in the background, and the audience is provided with the opportunity to ponder what may be running through Ben’s mind while also …show more content…
Once inside Ben’s childhood bedroom for the first time, the audience is immediately fed a highly zoomed in close up shot of his face looking more lost than the previous close up. At this point in the film there has yet to be any dialogue that blatantly describes why Ben seems to be so sidetracked, but the close proximity between the camera, or the audience and Ben gives away much more than a script could. Visually within this initial shot, Ben is seen alone looking down as to not make eye contact with the camera; in the background to the left is a miniature scuba diver that appears to be sinking in his own fish tank. Given that both the foreground holding Ben and the background showing the fish tank are equally in focus, Nichols clearly laid out the scene in this way so as to subtly foreshadow future events in the movie that Ben will be