The Graduate

     I've been watching a lot of dramatic comedies lately to get into the mindset of what I want my movie to 'feel' like. The Graduate might be the most famous dramatic comedy, or dark comedy, of all time. So I rewatched it to try to get a quick master class of funny/sad that Mike Nichols seemed to do so well. 

     The Graduate is a movie that seems to defy explanation. Even Roger Ebert was greatly divided on the film. When he first saw it he called the movie "the funniest American comedy of the year". When he reviewed it again for the 30th anniversary special he called it "a movie about a tiresome bore and his well meaning parents."

     What I think divides the younger and older Roger Ebert, and people in general, is that Dustin Hoffman's character, Ben Braddock, doesn't really change. The beginning of the film tells a lot thematically. Ben is on a moving walkway in an airport and while he is "moving forward" he is not walking or moving himself anywhere. People pass him and he watches them go by. Ben is also facing towards the left, which in traditional American film means going backwards or against the grain.

    Throughout the course of the movie Ben doesn't do much. He sits in his pool and ignores his family friends. The main conflict of the film, Ben's affair with Mrs. Robinson, is started not by Ben but by Mrs. Robinson. The argument can be made that Ben changes when he falls in love with Elaine and follows her to Berkley and then again follows her to her wedding. 

     But Ben's reasons are still completely selfish. He is in love with Elaine because she is in the same "not moving" position he is. There are several moments where this is implied in the cinematography, most famously the runnning scene.

   This begs the question that is asked every god damn semester in every film class. In film, does the main character have to change? I'd argue no. Ben doesn't change much in The Graduate. But what does have to happen is that audience has to see that the character has the ability to change but, for whatever reason, does not. Nichols shows this inability to change as a tragedy as Ben and Elaine pull away. What we thought was a happy tale of romance is just the characters realizing they haven't changed.

     My goal for this semester is to make a movie where a character is given multiple opportunities to change but ultimately fails to do so. I think it's a powerful form of story telling that encourages introspection. While it is easy to say this, and showcase a movie in which this happens, it will be difficult to pull off. It will require constant rewriting and meticulous shot planning. I never thought I would say this but I disagree with Roger Ebert. The Graduate is a film that stands the test of time. Not as a comedy, but as a complex movie about depression and the selfishness in passiveness. 

RIP Mike Nichols

I was saddened to learn Wednesday of the passing of Mike Nichols. Nichols had a long, esteemed career in the arts, becoming one of the few winners of the EGOT -- winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award. He's also responsible for two of my favorite films, 1967's The Graduate and 1996's The Birdcage.

The Graduate is one of the films that got me interested in film in the first place. It was the first film shown in my high school's film study class, and the first that I had to look at with a critical eye. The film's use of cinematic techniques to create thematic meaning is easy to spot, but never over-the-top or cheesy. The film also features perhaps the most iconic ending in American film, the now-famous bus sequence.

The film deserves its status as a classic, mainly due to Nichols' excellent directing (and Dustin Hoffman's performance as Benjamin). It stands as one of the great looks into the lives of young people, people who may be floating through life without anything to anchor them.

Nichols was best known for The Graduate, but continued to direct films and theatrical productions for the rest of his life (his last film was 2007's Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks). He had several other major successes in both mediums. My favorite film later Nichols film, and one of my favorite comedies of all time, is 1996's The Birdcage. An adaptation of La Cage aux Folles, the film tells the story of a gay couple who must present as a husband-and-wife to ensure that their adopted son can marry the daughter of a conservative politician. Nathan Lane and Robin Williams turn in fantastic performances as the couple (the film is one of my favorites of Williams' career, and one that I re-watched following his death earlier this year), and Gene Hackman is hilarious as the politician. If you haven't seen the film before, I can't recommend it highly enough.

One of Nichols greatest works, and one that I've had on my to-watch list for a while, is his 2003 HBO miniseries Angels in America, about AIDS and homosexuality in 1980's New York City. I think that I'll take the time to watch it over Thanksgiving break as a tribute to Nichols. 

MY DEFENSE OF MICHAEL CIMINO AND HEAVEN'S GATE

I know by this point all of you must be getting pretty sick of me defending things that are critically and popularly reviled, but I am back again with the latest issue of Ted's Defense of the Indefensible. In today's installment we are going to discuss the director Michael Cimino and his 1980, critically and commercially panned, western film, Heaven's Gate.

However, in order to properly defend Heaven's Gate, I first need to make concessions that people will point to in an effort to debunk or discredit my apology of the film. Those are....

1) By the sheer fact of the numbers Heaven's Gate was a flop as it cost 44 million dollars to make and only took in 3 million dollars at the box office

2) It is generally considered to be the largest box office bomb of all times as a result of the money spent on it versus the money that it took in.

3) Cimino, who at the time was one Hollywood's rising star, hot shot, directors was hired by United Artists to direct Heaven's Gate on the back of his Academy Award winning movie and because of his star power he was able to negotiate a contract that gave him carte blanche and lots of other fiscal allowances that were never given to any film maker previously. This made him one of the most lawsuit-proof film director to ever work on a picture.

4) The movie was such a financial disaster for United Artists, the company that produced that movie that it, that its parent company Transamerica Corporation became nervous and abandoned film making all together, selling United Artists off to MGM. Beyond the immediate effect that this had for United Artists, the failure of this movie also had a tremendous impact on the film industry at large. From the 1960's, with films like Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, until the 1980's, which was around the time of this fiasco, the demise of the studio system led to a 20 year long period known as New Hollywood, where studio lost the majority of their control and because of this young directors arose that began to take more and more control over the industry but because of failures such as these, the studios began to take back more and more control from these directors in an effort to prevent the gross decadence and profligate spending that went into disastrous movies such as this one.   

5) The movie faced many budget overruns, high shooting demands that were made by Cimino, and endless retakes. A legend from the set said that on the sixth day of shooting, the whole shoot was five days behind where it should be.

Now of course one may wonder, Ted what is there for you to possible defend with this movie? It seems like it is such a train wreck that not even the best lawyer in the world can argue for this movie. Well, I have one response for you, watch the 216 minute cut of the movie instead of the awful 149 producer influenced dreck that was released in the 80's as a reaction to all the bad press that surrounded the movie. The 216 minute cut of the movie was first screened at the 69th Venice Film Festival and then again at the New York Film festival which I was fortunate enough to attend and see and by which I was blow away with sumptuous visuals such as these below...

Which to me proves that no matter what rumors, exaggerations, half truths or even truths are said about Mr. Cinimo, he is a clear master of his craft who no matter what can deliver a visual that is completely on point and undeniable. Throughout the entire film, the way that visual is treated reminded me of early photography that would have been prevalent around that time.  

The reason that I and others have such with the 149 minute cut of the movie is because it was a slap dash job that was ordered by the producers of the movie in a last minute rush to make the Academy Awards. Indeed, director Steven Soderberg was so interested in the massacre of this movie that he made what he entitled "The Butcher's Cut." This cut can be found here:

http://extension765.com/sdr/16-heavens-gate-the-butchers-cut

Which shows an extensively cut film to the point where key details of film are completely obliterated. Also Mr. Cinimo , in several trade papers blamed this excessive cutting on the failure of the movie, which given the fact that I have seen the 216 minute version I tend to agree with.

So here are two lessons to be applied after reading this blog post....

1) Critics don't always get right.

2) Don't a judge a book or in this case a film by its cover.