Daily Dialogue — November 16, 2017

Man: Hey, there’s the award-winning scholar!
Woman: We’re all very proud of you, Ben.

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

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Celebration.

Trivia: Two interesting camera techniques are used in the film. In the scene where Benjamin is running, he is shown at some distance running straight at the camera, an effect which makes him look as if he getting nowhere as he’s running. (This technique is accomplished with a very long telephoto lens, which foreshortens distances in relation to the camera.) In another scene, Benjamin is walking from the right side of the screen to the left, while everyone else in the scene is moving from left to right. In western culture, things that move left to right seem natural (think of the direction you read words on a page), those that move right to left seem to be going the wrong way. These two visual techniques echo the themes of the film, Benjamin is going the wrong way, and getting nowhere in life.

Dialogue On Dialogue: We all remember the famous line of dialogue which ends this scene: “Plastics.” But the setup is Ben wandering through the party feeling completely out of place and wishing to escape from the celebration.