Graduate

Theatrical Release Date: 2013 05 01 (USA - Rerelease) / 1967 12 22 (USA)

UPC: 883904143567

Studio: MGM

MPAA Rating: PG   Contains:[Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language, Sexual Situations]

Summary: "Just one word: plastic." "Are you here for an affair?" These lines and others became cultural touchstones, as 1960s youth rebellion seeped into the California upper middle-class in Mike Nichols' landmark hit. Mentally adrift the summer after graduating from college, suburbanite Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) would rather float in his parents' pool than follow adult advice about his future. But the exhortation of family friend Mr. Robinson (Murray Hamilton) to seize every possible opportunity inspires Ben to accept an offer of sex from icily feline Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The affair and the pool are all well and good until Ben is pushed to go out with the Robinsons' daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross) and he falls in love with her. Mrs. Robinson sabotages the relationship and an understandably disgusted Elaine runs back to college. Determined not to let Elaine get away, Ben follows her to school and then disrupts her family-sanctioned wedding. None too happy about her pre-determined destiny, Elaine flees with Ben -- but to what? Directing his second feature film after Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nichols matched the story's satire of suffocating middle-class shallowness with an anti-Hollywood style influenced by the then-voguish French New Wave. Using odd angles, jittery editing, and evocative widescreen photography, Nichols welded a hip New Wave style and a generation-gap theme to a fairly traditional screwball comedy script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham from Charles Webb's novel. Adding to the European art film sensibility, the movie offers an unsettling and ambiguous ending with no firm closure. And rather than Robert Redford, Nichols opted for a less glamorous unknown for the pivotal role of Ben, turning Hoffman into a star and opening the door for unconventional leading men throughout the 1970s. With a pop-song score written by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel bolstering its contemporary appeal, The Graduate opened to rave reviews in December 1967 and surpassed all commercial expectations. It became the top-grossing film of 1968 and was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress, with Nichols winning Best Director. Together with Bonnie and Clyde, it stands as one of the most influential films of the late '60s, as its mordant dissection of the generation gap helped lead the way to the youth-oriented Hollywood artistic "renaissance" of the early '70s. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Comedy Drama

Awards: Best Picture – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Editing – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Screenplay – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Screenplay – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Most Promising Newcomer – British Academy of Film and Television Arts U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Picture - Musical or Comedy – null Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or – null Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical – null New Star of the Year - Male – null New Star of the Year - Female – null Best Director – null Best Screenplay – null Best Screenplay – null Best Actor – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Adapted Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Cinematography – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Director – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Supporting Actress – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Director – New York Film Critics Circle New Star of the Year - Female – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Screenplay – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Screenplay – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Director – Hollywood Foreign Press Association New Star of the Year - Male – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Picture - Musical or Comedy – Hollywood Foreign Press Association Best Director – British Academy of Film and Television Arts Best Director – Directors Guild of America

Graduate

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 06/02/2009

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DHMA null, DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 106 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) English,French

Subtitles: French,Spanish

Chapters: Disc #1 -- The Graduate
1. Main Titles [2:50]
2. The Future of Benjamin Braddock [4:15]
3. Mrs. Robinson [1:34]
4. Seduction [4:33]
5. Advice [1:39]
6. 21st Birthday [1:34]
7. At the Taft Hotel [4:11]
8. Room 568 [3:06]
9. The Affair Begins [5:17]
10. Taking It Easy [2:40]
11. "We're Going to Have a Conversation" [5:06]
12. The Date [2:21]
13. Falling for Elaine [4:08]
14. Coming Clean [3:27]
15. True Love Lost [7:02]
16. To Berkeley [3:28]
17. Third Wheel [3:52]
18. Setting the Record Straight [4:37]
19. Maybe [2:34]
20. The Other Proposal [3:05]
21. Mr. Robinson's Threat [2:02]
22. Searching for Elaine [1:04]
23. The Wedding [4:35]
24. End Titles [2:10]

Rebecca Flint Marx

The image of young Benjamin Braddock appearing at his parents' swank pool party fully clad in scuba gear remains one of the most satisfying images of youthful alienation ever captured on celluloid. Confused, cut off, and trapped in the claustrophobia of trying to figure out what he's going to do with himself, Benjamin is a model of dissatisfied aimlessness caught up in the whirl of parental and societal expectation. Not surprisingly, his character struck a chord with 1967 audiences, and The Graduate became the highest-grossing film of 1968 and a landmark in the cinema of hip, New Wave, antiestablishment disillusionment. While an enduring classic for its perpetual topicality, and a harbinger of similar dissections of youthful disenchantment that permeated the late '60s and 1970s, The Graduate was also remarkable for providing an unrevolutionary revolution. Benjamin is ultimately a bored, confused young man who has an affair with an older woman (played by an actress only six years Dustin Hoffman's senior), discovers he loves her daughter, and impetuously absconds with the girl to a future offering yet more disillusionment. To top it off, Benjamin's not even that great a guy, more of a conflicted muddle than a viable counter-culture hero. He doesn't want to end up like his parents, but he happily drives around in the Alfa Romeo they give him as a graduation present. He even ends up running off with the very girl they picked for him in the first place. But while it's easy for contemporary viewers to regard the film's message as compromised, The Graduate was something new and provocative for late '60s audiences, a slyly wrapped package of antiestablishment sentiment. Benjamin Braddock's very imperfections made him a believable vehicle for youthful malaise in the first place; to a generation disillusioned with the prosperity in which they had been raised by indulgent parents, Benjamin's brand of resentful ennui resonated on a visceral level. In painting a portrait of an imperfect youth rejecting an equally imperfect world, Mike Nichols and Buck Henry offered only satirical possibilities instead of self-affirming answers. Instead of driving off into the sunset in his Alfa, Benjamin and his beloved board a dirty city bus, hesitant to look either at each other or at the future they have chosen. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

Cast and Crew: John Neilson  Actor 
Eddra Gale  Actor 
Richard Dreyfuss  Actor 
Jonathan Hole  Actor 
Harry Holcombe  Actor 
Mike Farrell  Actor 
Dave Grusin  Composer (Music Score) 
Buck Henry  Screenwriter 
Mike Nichols  Director 
Lawrence Turman  Producer 
Calder Willingham  Screenwriter 
Dustin Hoffman  Actor 
Anne Bancroft  Actor 
Katharine Ross  Actor 
William Daniels  Actor 
Elizabeth Wilson  Actor 
Murray Hamilton  Actor 
Brian Avery  Actor 
Norman Fell  Actor 
Walter Brooke  Actor 
Alice Ghostley  Actor 
Marion Lorne  Actor 
Elisabeth Fraser  Actor 
Buck Henry  Actor 

Country: USA