Daily Dialogue — August 21, 2019

Mr. Braddock: Ben, what are you doing?
Benjamin: Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.
Mr. Braddock: Why?
Benjamin: Well, it’s very comfortable just to drift here.
Mr. Braddock: Have you thought about graduate school?
Benjamin: No.
Mr. Braddock: Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?
Benjamin: You got me.

— The Graduate (1967), screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, novel by Charles Webb

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Swimming. Today’s suggestion by @pauldecesare41.

Trivia: Mike Nichols said that the use of images to suggest Ben is “underwater” and out of his depth in life (the fish tank, the pool, the scuba outfit) was deliberate, although he didn’t care if anyone understood this or not. He also used glass barriers to represent people cut off from each other and from the life around them.

Dialogue On Dialogue: When we think of The Graduate, we all remember the word “plastics,” but there’s another one-word theme at work in the movie: drifting.

The clips also includes one of the best edits in cinema history, when Ben leaps onto the swimming pool float, then cuts to him ‘leaping’ atop Mrs. Robinson, then Mr. Braddock’s voice — “Ben, what are you doing” — and Ben turns to look at the camera (as if looking at his father). Brilliant directing there.