Text: Overnight flowers
Youth films are a popular genre of movies by audiences. On the one hand, its charm lies in writing the collective memory of a specific era, based on the personal experience and life experience of a generation, so it has emotional empathy; on the other hand, rebellion and resistance, self-pursuit and breaking stereotypes are almost the inherent themes of youth films. The commonality of youth makes youth films have the power to transcend the times.
A "Young You" allowed Zhou Dongyu to achieve a double harvest of box office and word of mouth in the genre of "youth films". Throughout the history of Hollywood's "youth films", as early as the 50s, "Rebel without a Cause" made James Dean a youth idol. However, there is also a misunderstanding in "youth films", if the emotions themselves are exaggerated, divorced from the background of the times and the soil of real life, they will often fall into a kind of empty and weak routine mode of disease-free moaning.
The reason why I chose the movie "The Graduate" as an example of a "youth film" is because of my preference for "New Hollywood" films in the sixties and seventies. The confusion and rebellion of youth, anxiety and madness, exile and struggle, loss and pursuit can be seen in the same traces in later films.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01. Why did "The Graduate" lose to "Hot Nights" at the Oscars? </h1>
The Graduate lost to "Hot Nights", which reflected on racism, in a competition for best film at the 40th Academy Awards. This situation is not difficult to understand for modern audiences who are accustomed to watching the Oscar season. Just as Twelve Years of Slavery and the Green Book triumphed over Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity and Rome. The attribution of the best film is usually to focus on the social significance of the theme itself, reflecting a group's call for ideal values and expectations for a better humanity.
Therefore, the failure of the best film in "The Graduate" is not a loss in technique and film quality. The film achieved a box office success of $105 million, and also won the Oscar for best director, which shows that filmmakers within the industry who are Oscar judges fully affirm the ability of directing.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02. From Old Hollywood to New Hollywood: An open interpretation of "the future."</h1>
The "road" that runs through the whole film is the key to understanding the spiritual core of the film.
For the film, it is the protagonist's path of rebellion, resistance, and self-pursuit. Instead of settling on the paved path of his family and being a mediocre middle-class upstart with no edges and personal characteristics, Benjamin began to rebel against his parents' will and ponder the true value of his self. He is eager to break through the shackles of his family on the road and find the true meaning of career and love.
For film culture, it is the road from old Hollywood to new Hollywood. Traditional Hollywood commercial films, through the big stars leading the story, the climax of the plot direction, the reunion ending, showing the characteristics of stereotype and pattern, is a mechanized dream-making tool. The emergence of new Hollywood is a call for a kind of innovation in thinking that breaks the stereotypes. The openness of the "road" is indicative of an unknown of the future. This is epitomized in the characters: the protagonist Benjamin's motivations, growth process, and ending are all vague, unclear, and undefined states.
Therefore, this is the significance of the era of "The Graduate", in the turbulent late 60s, the emergence of "New Hollywood" is due to the unprecedented golden age of literary and artistic creation.
The turbulent external environment of war has made the audience's rebellious mood soar, and they are unwilling to see the clichés of routine, and it is urgent to see this kind of writing of the current mental state and criticizing and lashing out at stereotypes through literary and artistic works. The disintegration of the old order and the deconstruction of the old rules are giving birth to a new way of life and code of conduct, which is the environment in which youth culture dominates the discourse.
Therefore, works such as "The Graduate" and "Hermaphrodite Thieves" and "Midnight Cowboy" came into being. Ethnic equality, women's liberation, reflections on war, rock 'n' roll and hippie culture, became the main themes of the film. The subtle influence of European New Wave cinema has brought mainstream audiences a refreshing film experience in terms of form and content.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03.Reflection on the value order of the decaying middle class and the reshaping of young people's ideals</h1>
Although the film "Graduate" emphasizes the emotional drive of the audience and chooses to dilute the story, it still metaphorically describes the spiritual world of a wider group through the interaction between typical characters.
In the film, the role of Mrs. Robinson is no less important than the protagonist Benjamin. Like the ladies played by Padrisia Nell in Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's, the blurring and nihilization of their identities is precisely the director's reinforcement of their rise from the personality of the character to a typical middle-class woman—that is, Mrs. Robinson symbolizes the value system of the middle class family, and is the defender of conservative and decadent middle-class morality.
On the one hand, she is elegant, personable, sophisticated, representing a delicate and gorgeous image of middle-class women; on the other hand, in the face of Benjamin's youthful ignorance and ignorance of the world, she is extremely clever, strategic, and calm, like a sleek and old-fashioned look, behind her cynicism, it is impossible to hide the hypocrisy and coldness.
Although she showed her sensitivity and fragility in front of Benjamin, the helplessness and drowsiness under the shackles of marriage, she did not want to exchange thoughts with Benjamin, but to maintain the order of the whole family. Therefore, she lied to her daughter Elaine to marry the children of the medical family, continuing to practice the hypocrisy and decay of the middle-class family.
The director grasps the irony of the middle-class flashy vulgarity, greed and hypocrisy of the decadent values, and does not have a positive piercing of the veil of hypocrisy and warm pulse of greetings, but uses a light comedy tone, whipping into the jokes, satires, and ridicule, which is not too sharp to show the sharpness, but also loses the strength.
The reflection and criticism of the middle-class order corresponds to the reshaping of the ideal values of young people. Benjamin was born in this kind of family, and his parents wanted him to follow the path arranged and manipulated by his family and carry out a stable road to continue the conservative inheritance of this middle-class family. Thus, Benjamin's love for Elaine was not simply a matter of attraction to each other, but also a way of rebelling against the will of his father and the domestication of morality.
The young people represented by Benjamin, they try to find their own value in the law of family interests, the money chain of society, and the stale middle-class shackles, and this rebellion, resistance, and pursuit are the spiritual portrayal of a generation of young people in the 60s.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >04.Mike Nichols: Presenting the alienation of the times and the confusion of the individual in a tone</h1>
Director Mike Nichols played a crucial role in the success of "The Graduate", the resonance and empathy of the content determine the instant audience tendency, and the significance of transcending the era lies precisely in the breakthrough of the image. If Mike Nichols showed the scheduling ability from stage to film in "Spring Supper", the vivid expression in "The Graduate" gives a sense of picture to the alienation of the times and the confusion of the individual.
The first is to pay attention to the use of picture performance and imagery to hint at the inner experience and psychological dilemma of the characters.
Fish trapped in the water tank, orangutans struggling in barbed wire, just like a new generation of young people, in the face of the inheritance of the will of their fathers, in the face of the domestication of social machines, in the face of the laws of the human world, the inner Anyan has nowhere to find, and the freedom of the spirit is difficult to touch. The director does not stack the images, but presents them in the daily activities and subjective world of the male protagonist.
The subjective shot of a scene in the swimming pool is a portrayal of this trapped beast. The process of diving is like a rite of growth, the unworldly Benjamin jumped out of the ivory tower of the school, jumped into the complicated adult world, and unexpectedly saw his parents and elders through the water, always a distorted, blurred, blurred phantom picture. Whether it's a splash of water, a distorted diving goggle, or an adult portrait in backlight, it's always hard to see.
In terms of light and color, the interior is mostly low-key photography, gray and yellow dark tones dominate, the dark, ambiguous, and confused atmosphere is like Benjamin's lingering depression and sleepiness, and at the end, the open picture leads to a wider world, and Benjamin's forward vision is more accessible.
The second is the clever use of music, not to render that kind of noise and madness, but to slowly show that alienation and sadness with a kind of elegance and tranquility.
Paul Simon's folk-style interludes are fresh and timeless. Compared with "The Sound of Silence", "Scarborough Bazaar" also has endless meaning, and the four herbs of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme not only have a simple and mysterious color, but also symbolize love and eternity, peace and beauty, purity and calmness, bravery and determination.
It is not only the yearning for beautiful things such as love in Benjamin's heart, but also the generation at that time, in the alienation and confusion created by scientific and technological change, war turmoil, and cultural trends, eager to regain the psychological projection of firmness and beauty.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >05</h1>
"Graduate" is a film with strong characteristics of the times, it is about youth, love, growth, attitude towards life, although cruel but not beautiful, although confused but not lost the vision.
Although the film ends with a victory for the young: Benjamin breaks into Elaine's wedding and eventually escapes his parents' arranged marriage with his lover, breaking the shackles of the decadent values of the middle class. But when they got to the bus and began to be satisfied and smiled at each other, the crowd looked at each other with surprise, and Benjamin's rebellion still needed to face constraints from the whole society. At this point, the camera stays on Benjamin and Elaine's faces, and "The Sound of Silence" sounds again, and Benjamin's eyes are still the initial confusion and confusion.
What was the reason for Benjamin's rebellion? What was the outcome of the struggle?
The significance of the movie "Graduate" is that it is not only a documentary image of the times, it also touches on the essence of a kind of youth: even if there is no cause for rebellion and no result in struggle, the charm of youth lies precisely in its infinite possibilities - the deviance of exalting passion and courage, the ignorance and throbbing when looking forward to love, the sadness and emotion in the impermanence of fate, the fear of future self-escape but the hope of curiosity and expectation.
Perhaps, we do not need to think about the causes of rebellion and the results of rebellion, but only need to feel the fleeting beauty and inadvertent touch in youth and growth, and explore and explore the way of life and the principle of life in breaking stereotypes, which is the purest and most sincere beauty of youth.