The Graduate and New Hollywood

The decade between the late 1960s and 1970s represents an important period of changes within the American Film industry. This period was characterised by major social and political events such as the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that had a massive impact on the American society and culture. It is from then that the American dream lifestyle and materialistic standards began to fall apart in favour of new counter-cultures and overall artistic diversity that influenced, as a consequence, the movie industry in the United States. This decade is also characterised by the rise of new independent film studios that surprisingly succeeded in overcoming the eradicated Hollywood canons of filmmaking. This analysis will explain how the New Hollywood cinema was born with a specific reference to the award winning film The Graduate (Nichols, 1967) produced during this period of changes, with an overall comparison of the main differences between this film and other Hollywood classics such as Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945) in order to explain and highlight the major points of innovation in New Hollywood Cinema.

 Filmmaking in America has always developed alongside culture, and every important social event or crisis has somehow affected its process and determined its topics. During the late 1960s, the social instability of the country arose a feeling of rebellion and alienation amongst young people that reflected in many cultural aspects. The younger film makers started to produce atypical films that did not necessarily respect the Hollywood standards of a well-made picture for the critic.  The Graduate is in fact one of the best examples to the aim of explaining the changes occurred in the film industry during this decade.

 The film is inspired by the 1963 novel by Charles Webb, and features the brilliant newly graduated Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) in his return from university to a materialistic life and parents that “try to make him a walking advertisement for their own affluence “(Harris: 2008: 382) .This parental behaviour was actually often reoccurring in upper class families in America that could afford to send their children to study at expensive universities. Benjamin somehow manages to mentally escape from his own feeling of social alienation and uncertainty about his future that he has to face after finishing school by engaging in a secret relationship with the fascinating, older family friend Mrs. Robinson. As Benjamin grows a desire of being in a real couple, the affair he got himself into will become another thing to escape from when his lifetime friend and Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine returns from school making him fall in love with her. When the affair is revealed, Elaine leaves and decides to refuge in further studies away from home at Berkeley University, resulting in Benjamin following her with the aim of proposing. The two eventually run away together from the families they depend on and suddenly realise the trouble they got themselves into. The final shot of the last scene in fact gives to the film an ambiguous ending, perhaps leaving the audience with confused feelings of satisfaction and uncertainty about the outcome of Benjamin and Elaine’s escape.

 The Graduate boldly shows American society as it actually is, materialistic and centred in older aged individuals of an upper middle class that considers young people and their children a tool to improve their own image. In fact, “The Graduate draws more directly on the 1960 culture of youthful alienation” (King: 2002: 15) which represents the principal topic of the film and indeed it represents the main reason why this film was innovative in its era.  Another element that, although indirectly, represents the alienation of youth in the 1960 was the fact that Benjamin was actually described in the novel as a stereotypical handsome blond guy, but in the reality of the film, Benjamin’s actor Dustin Hoffman is short, with dark hair and Jewish. This was a bold innovation in the New Hollywood cinema, as Dustin Hoffman was chosen for his acting skills over his look, choice that would have not been made by an earlier Hollywood film production. In Mildred Pierce (Curtiz, 1945) in fact, a classic Hollywood studio film, the actors featured resemble more the American dream stereotype look than those cast in The Graduate. The employment of new and young actors in the production of films in America was real news as, until then,  it was not considered safe investing budget money in actors with little or no experience instead of popular actors that would have driven a much higher profit by attracting a wider audience.

  Nonetheless, the American film critic was predominantly harsh and sceptic towards The Graduate because of its lack of narrative drive compared to a film produced by a major Hollywood studio. It was thought to be a second hand film, and an overall flop.  Instead, it revealed to be a major success that grossed way more than it was budgeted and it determined, alongside other films such as Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967) and Easy Riders (Hopper, 1969), the birth on the New Hollywood cinema.

 The Graduate was a film made for young people targeting audiences in their mid-late twenties. Thanks to this and films like those cited above the young age group was finally recognised also by the business driven studios that, after the unexpected social and monetary success of The Graduate, started to take on younger filmmakers and, as a consequence, to produce films tailored for this specific group. The acknowledgment of this age group as a potential audience filled the generational gap between teenager and over thirties in the production of films representing another important innovation within the American film industry during the late 1960s.

 Another interesting arguable point about The Graduate is its release date. Coincidentally, the film was released in America during late December in 1967 when many university students were on holiday for the Christmas period.  During this occasion to rest from their studies, young people needed something to entertain themselves with and the release of The Graduate certainly did fit like a glove for the occasion. Releasing the film at this time was perhaps a smart marketing strategy. Besides, while being off studies the young audience was also free minded and, therefore, even more likely to embrace new concepts.

 Music as a non-diegetic tool was also an innovation alongside the particular picture. The soundtrack and other songs employed throughout the film had been produced by an emerging duo, Simon and Garfunkel that won a Grammy award in 1968 with their song “Mrs. Robinson”, purposely written and composed for the film. Differently from classic Hollywood films such as Mildred Pierce, or even films belonging to the same 1960s decade such as Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960), the songs featured in The Graduate are actual tracks composed by contemporary artists and they have been used to set the mood of the scene just as successfully as the instrumental opera music that was previously used in classic Hollywood productions determining another important development within the industry.

 The Graduate was one of the first successful films produced by an independent studio and therefore, the award winning director Mike Nichols had a notable freedom to experiment new ways of filmmaking without the need to follow the classic studio production code originally set in the 1930s and abandoned in 1967 in favour of start rating system. This was also possible thanks to the birth of other New Hollywood films. The film making freedom permitted reflects visibly throughout the movie. For example, The Graduate lacks of establishing shots which are instead essential, almost compulsory in the classic film Mildred Pierce in order to maintain its narrative structure. Besides, the exploitation of sexuality in Nichols’ film represents a substantial change in the film imagery. In fact, as a reflection of youth and rebellion, on The Graduate he does not hesitate to show explicit nudity, even though in a light form if compared to that in contemporary movies. For instance, intimate situations such as Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin’s together did not respect the “one foot down the bed” rule that characterised classic Hollywood film scenes of intimacy and for which the characters depicted in intimate situations had to keep one foot on the floor in order for the scene to be passionate but discrete.

  Although The Graduate is not the only film that brought substantial changes in its era, with elements such as the theme of youth alienation in the 1960s and its successful independent production, it exponentially set the bases of New Hollywood cinema that keeps its reputation high, since 1967.

Bibliography

Harris, Mark. ‘Chapter Twenty-Nine’, in Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood (Canongate, 2008), pp.380-390

King, Geoff. ‘New Hollywood, Version 1: The Hollywood Renaissance’, in New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction (I.B.Tauris, 2002), pp.11-48

Kauffmann, Stanley. ‘The Graduate’, New Republic, 23 December 1967, reprinted in ‘How Mike Nichols and The Graduate Changed American Movies Forever’, New Republic, 20 November 2014 https://goo.gl/oY8AFo  [accessed 03/01/2016]

Lecture notes

Smith, H  “New Hollywood”, lecture notes distributed for module “Introduction to Cinema” at Birkbeck University of London, 1 December 2015.

Smith, H  “The Graduate”, lecture notes distributed for module “Introduction to Cinema” at Birkbeck University of London,  27  November 2015

Filmography

The Graduate (1967) Directed by Mike Nichols [Feature Film]. USA : Embassy Pictures

Mildred Pierce (1945) Directed by Michael Curtiz  [Feature Film]. USA : Warner Bros. – First

National Picture.