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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack--they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson. The script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham is still offbeat and dryly funny, and Mike Nichols, who won an Oscar for his direction, has just the right, light touch. --Anne Hurley
Beyond The Graduate
 Amazon.com's Essential 100 |  Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park |  More from Director Mike Nichols |
Stills from The Graduate
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Customer Reviews
Also worth noting in particular is the direction of Mike Nichols. He truly gives the film a unique visual style to make it an experience rather than just a comedy/drama. Note the opening credits with Hoffman on an airport moving sidewalk set to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence". Nichols' uses cuts very interestingly in several scenes such as the scene where Benjamin jumps up on his raft in the pool, and lands in bed with Mrs. Robinson. He also uses zooms to great effect throughout the film. Nichols' Best Director Oscar for this film was well-deserved. I think that Hoffman's performance should have won also, as well as the screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry.
One other thing that I must mention is that The Graduate absolutely must been seen in its original aspect ratio! If you're not watching a widescreen version, then you're not watching The Graduate. The film was shot in the Panavision process with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Mike Nichols makes wonderful use of the 2.35:1 frame, so the film will be absolutely botched in pan and scan. If you watch The Graduate in full-screen pan and scan, you're really, really missing out. The visual impact of the film will be irreparably damaged.
The DVD is adequate, but this film deserves much better. The disc is labeled a special edition, but it's really too skimpy to be that. At very least you're getting a widescreen version of the film. However, the transfer is not enhanced for 16:9 televisions. What we need is a fully remastered 16:9 transfer which would be immensely beneficial. The picture quality is fair, but could be so much better. It's really stunning what difference a brand new remastered 16:9 transfer can make for an older film like this. Just look at the new DVD of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. The film also deserves better supplemental materials. A better documentary and a commentary by the filmmakers would be great. A seperate commentary by Dustin Hoffman would be even better. I'm convinced that someday The Graduate will receive a worthy DVD edition, and I will wait until then to purchase it.
The Mike Nichols film has suffered through the DVD era so far, represented by a series of double-dip issues that perpetuated the same sorry source materials: grainy picture, grating audio -- the typical first-generation DVD blahs.
Here comes "The Graduate: 40th Anniversary Edition," due Sept. 11. Fox's specs show 2.35:1 widescreen with DTS and Dolby Surround. This appears to be in true widescreen. (The previous DVDs' version apparently was created by throwing letterboxing atop the full-screen version. Seems the guy who was so big on plastics got into the home video business.)
Check out the new extras:
* Commentary by Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross
* Commentary by director Nichols and Steven Soderbergh
* Retrospective documentary that interviews "Graduate" write Buck Henry, producer Lawrence Turman, Richard Roeper and some random others.
* "Coming of Age: The Making of The Graduate" featurette
* "Would You Like Me To Seduce You: The Seduction Scene Revisited" featurette
Along with some odds and ends ported over from the older discs.
Disc 2 has a pleasant surprise: Simon & Garfunkle's soundtrack, in CD form.
I'll be revisiting the film for Hoffman's sonic boom of a breakout performance; the "Mrs. Robinson" song and seduction scene; and Ross' beautifully naturalistic presence. Koo-koo-ka-choo.
I give the film "The Graduate" from 1967 as many stars as any ratings measure can grant, but this DVD is a very poor represntation that is disrespectful of the genuine classic piece of cinematic art and cultural revolutionary comedy-piece that this movie was and always will be!
It's a shame. The picture is still grainy and the "widescreen" is still a full-screen image with black bars at top & bottom and NOT a true 16X9 formatted image for widescreen televisions! This true masterpiece of film demands nothing short of the best optimization that current-day technology can (and should) provide! Anything less is completely unacceptable! I'm sorry, but this is a travesy. The Graduate deserves the most pristine image and sound quality that the DVD format can give and viewers should demand nothing short of that high-standard of excellence.
The sound is in a lousy mono and the picture is fuzzy at times, desaturated, grainy, noisy, and compressed too much. The producers of this DVD obviously aren't die-hard fans and did a half-a** job here. Most fans of this film would gladly pay a few extra dollars for a better version, so why go cheap on such a great classic is beyond me?!? That's just a moronic business decision of a cheap corporation that doesn't know art from a hole in the ground, always cutting corners to salvage every penny. For shame!
I wish the Criterion Collection would remaster the Graduate and finally do it right! Amen.
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