Sunday, April 25, 2010

My favorite still from "The Graduate".

Continuing on with my "Graduate" jag, this is my favorite moment of the film. It begs "what did we just do?" or "what do we do now?" I have this friend in my life that I feel this way about - uncertainty.

What does it mean to you? Kazu Watanbe publishes the blog, Naive Cinema, and he wrote about "The Graduate". Here are his thoughts on the picture above:

The most curious scene for me is the last one in which Benjamin and Elaine get on a bus to escape and sit in the back. The shot duration lasts a little longer than expected and instead of embracing or showing some sign of affection, Benjamin and Elaine sit and do not look at each other, but rather smile slightly. It's an ambiguous image which does not fulfill the romantic notions of their escape nor entirely discredit them. In one sense, it could seem that their riding a public bus reinforces the idea that they are actually not in control after all, but rather are being moved forward by society, which the public city bus could certainly embody, in the same way Benjamin is being moved by the conveyor belt in the airport at the beginning of the film. In another sense, Benjamin's abandonment of his parents' car for the city bus can be seen as his final cutting off (along with the church scene) which finally establishes his removal from his parents' world.

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