The Graduate was a Christmas release (?!)
Pair this item with the one below and my movie tastes might seem a bit strange, but I'm setting aside two other entries in the works to put up something very timely for once. It's the 40th anniversary of The Graduate, and we read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle today not because the movie premiered on 9/11/67 (as inappropriate as a fall release of this ultimate summer film would have been, it turns out it actually premiered on Dec. 21) but because a new DVD comes out today.
Given its record, the Chronicle's an unexpected place to find such a deep, insightful film commentary. Yet when it comes to The Graduate, which I've seen a dozen or so times, my general feeling is, Never Trust Anyone East of Needles. Because although it was made by a New York stage director and co-written by a New York humorist (Buck Henry) who once said in a sneering way that it's about "the Los Angelization of America," whatever that means, to me it's one of California's home movies. It just happens to be one that takes place at the meeting point between East Coast notions of class and social order and those of our shores.
I first saw The Graduate on TV in suburban Southern California in May 1979, a few weeks after attending the Santa Barbara wedding of my Baby Boomer cousin (who, I learned later, saw The Graduate over and over again on its initial release). My sister had recently started at Berkeley, with the accompanying family drives up and down the state. So you can see where it would resonate. America's film of the moment of 1967 (really 1968) was my film of the moment of 1979. But it also encapsulated nearly everything I knew or faintly remembered about the late Sixties. I'm surprised to read that there's only one direct reference to antiwar protests, because to me it seemed like it was all about that. Credit the echoing cultural conversation about The Sixties that filled the Seventies (not a bad idea for a book, actually) and the key role of that film in it.
I'll put this out now, though I feel there's more to say. But I'll just add, it was at that moment in 1979, despite the 19-inch screen and the commercials, that I learned I loved movies.
Given its record, the Chronicle's an unexpected place to find such a deep, insightful film commentary. Yet when it comes to The Graduate, which I've seen a dozen or so times, my general feeling is, Never Trust Anyone East of Needles. Because although it was made by a New York stage director and co-written by a New York humorist (Buck Henry) who once said in a sneering way that it's about "the Los Angelization of America," whatever that means, to me it's one of California's home movies. It just happens to be one that takes place at the meeting point between East Coast notions of class and social order and those of our shores.
I first saw The Graduate on TV in suburban Southern California in May 1979, a few weeks after attending the Santa Barbara wedding of my Baby Boomer cousin (who, I learned later, saw The Graduate over and over again on its initial release). My sister had recently started at Berkeley, with the accompanying family drives up and down the state. So you can see where it would resonate. America's film of the moment of 1967 (really 1968) was my film of the moment of 1979. But it also encapsulated nearly everything I knew or faintly remembered about the late Sixties. I'm surprised to read that there's only one direct reference to antiwar protests, because to me it seemed like it was all about that. Credit the echoing cultural conversation about The Sixties that filled the Seventies (not a bad idea for a book, actually) and the key role of that film in it.
I'll put this out now, though I feel there's more to say. But I'll just add, it was at that moment in 1979, despite the 19-inch screen and the commercials, that I learned I loved movies.
posted by Steve at
6:53 AM
1 Comments:
Yes. This movie made me realize the art of cinema. I thought I would be a director some day, I ended up with a screen acting career instead - Mothra is coming out soon to a video blog (Junk Thief TV) near you. I sing counter tenor. There'll be a link on Judy Meat, of course.
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