Daily Dialogue — June 11, 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 Pool. Today’s suggestion by @drewsdrawings99, @drewsdrawings99, and @toni_director.

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: “Drifting.” A single word which holds as much thematic meaning in the movie as “plastics” does.