Charles Webb’s timeless novel The Graduate tells a story of a naive college student who has an affair with his parent’s good friend. However, its success was not based on the story, the sensation was on how the story was told. In Mike Nichols’ 1967 classic The Graduate based on the novel, young Benjamin Braddock is a rising scholar with no direction. Unaware of his promising life he finds himself troubled and confused as to what he wants. The film brought the novel to life with authentic characters with sympathy and edge, the novel The Graduate was the foundation of one the most successful and iconic films in history.
Charles Webb the author of The Graduate was fresh out of college when he wrote the novel in 1963. Only twenty-four years old he produced one of the most influential stories ever told, about the seduction of an older woman towards a young man. The story was based on one of Webb’s fantasies which the reader most definitely gets sense of. In what world would you find a beautiful, charming, experienced, seductive woman wanting the pleasure of a small, young, naïve boy that just graduated college? “The Graduate was about going to college and then actually it was a lot of things, I got interested in the wife of a good friend of my parents and realizing it might be better to write about it, than do it.” (Charles Webb). Charles Webb distinguishably produced fictional characters that were the audience’s private fantasies.
The film’s director Mike Nichols, one of the most influential directors on Broadway at the time, read the novel and immediately wanted to work on it. Although he was in production of [Who’s afraid of] Virginia Woolf he gave the project to different writers until he finally got his hands on it to do it him...
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...ere done seamlessly. The suttle differences between the two make this one of the most influential films in American history. The use of musicality in the film also made the film a success and Simon and Garfunkle’s contribution made people even sing the star character of the films name and is referenced frequently.
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Escoffier, Jeffrey. "The Second Sexual Revolution." Sexual Revolution. New York: Thunder Mouth, 2003. N. pag. Print.
"Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of The Graduate." Vanity Fair. Vanity, Mar. 2008. Web. 13 Nov. 2013.
Kingston, Victoria. Simon & Garfunkel: The Biography. New York: Fromm International, 1998. Print.
"Mike Nichols on The Graduate." Time Out. N.p., 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.
Whitehead, J. W. Appraising The Graduate: The Mike Nichols Classic and Its Impact in Hollywood. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2011. Print.
Even though Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb screened in the midst of the sobering Cold War, critics were keen on praising the film for its mastery of humor applied to such a sensitive matter. The film is exceedingly loaded with metaphors, innuendos, and allusions that nothing can be left undissected or taken for face value; the resulting effect is understood to be part of Kubrick’s multifarious theme. Kubrick has stated that what began as a “the basis for a serious film about accidental war ” eventually birthed an absurd and farcical classic comedy. The director fuses together irony, satire, and black humor to create a waggish piece but most of all the situation of the times and its gravity is the essence of what the audience finds so hilarious . Using caricatures rather than characters, exaggerated script, and sexual undertones, Kubrick manifests to the audience their own predicament and just how ridiculous it is to even consider brinksmanship as a means to preserve the American lifestyle.
Accordingly, I decided the purposes behind women 's resistance neither renamed sexual introduction parts nor overcame money related dependence. I recalled why their yearning for the trappings of progression could darken into a self-compelling consumerism. I evaluated how a conviction arrangement of feeling could end in sexual danger or a married woman 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, regardless, ought to cloud an era 's legacy. I comprehend prerequisites for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the area of women into open space and political fights previously cornered by men all these pushed against ordinary restrictions even as they made new susceptibilities.
"Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me," says Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman). The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols in 1967 is an influential satire/comedy film about a recent East Coast college graduated who finds himself alienated and aimless in the changing, social and sexual general public of the 1960s, and questioning the values of society. The theme of the film is of an innocent and confused youth who is exploited, mis-directed, seduced (literally and figuratively) and betrayed by a corrupt, self-indulgent, and discredited older generation (that finds stability in “plastics”) that I found to be quite clear and understanding, while also capturing the real spirit of the times and allows America's youth to perceive onscreen an image of themselves which they can both identify with and emulate. The Graduate is a significant film even today due to its use of abstract camera angles, telephoto lenses, excellent cinematography, and great acting. Few visual effects were used, however, matting and numerous point of view shots were used. These characteristics and the fabulous use of mis-en-scene, great writing and the era of the film all made The Graduate what it is today, magnificent.
Irigaray, Luce. “That Sex Which is Not One.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. 1467-1471.
The movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was created based on a play with the same name by Edward Albee, which was already a huge success in New York in 1962. For that reason, it was a great risk and challenge for the director and the actors to create a movie based on a play with such high standards.
In the “coming of age” films, The Graduate and Dead Poets Society, the characters are faced with a conflict and must find a way to deal with this conflict. The messages from authority figures to the main characters, the relationship issues, the music used, and the characters’ fathers in both films compare and contrast very well. The films have similar themes, and dissimilar motifs. While both films possess similarities, they also possess differences.
Connelly, Marie. "The films of Martin Scorsese: A critical study." Diss. Case Western Reserve University, 1991. Web. 07 Apr 2014.
Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books.
Halperin, David. "Is There a History of Sexuality?." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry
When deciding what movie to do for this particular paper I faced a few issues. I knew what the requirements were, but I wanted something different and something I could have fun watching and writing as well. So, after looking around and pondering movies for weeks I finally decided on a perfect choice The 60’s directed by Mark Piznarski?
Ebert, Roger. Rev. of Almost Famous, dir. Cameron Crowe. Rogerebert.com. Chicago Sun-Times, 15 Sept. 2000. Web. 29 March 2011.
Miller, Arthur. “Death of a Salesman”. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. Dana Gioia and X.J. Kennedy.10th Ed. New York: Pearson, 2007.
Essay #1: Sexual Politics It has been said that “Society has always defined for us what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, what a man should be like and what a woman should be like, and these traditional definitions of gender roles have limited and even harmed individuals”. The theme of sexual politics comes to mind in this quote. One can define sexual politics as the relationship of the sexes, male and female, regarding power. Society’s definition of this can limit an individual in their gender role and restrain a person from being themselves.
"People and Events: The Pill and the Sexual Revolution." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
... decades ago. This book is one that will allow the reader to view many aspects of sexuality from a social standpoint, and apply it to certain social attitudes in our society today, these attitudes can range from the acceptance of lesbian and gays, and the common sight of sex before marriage and women equality. The new era of sexuality has taken a definite "transformation" as Giddens puts it, and as a society we are living in the world of change in which we must adapt, by accepting our society as a changing society, and not be naive and think all the rules of sexuality from our parents time our still in existence now.