Word: nicholses
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Structurally, the last hour resolves a conflict, but unfortunately not the conflict set-up in the first hour; The Graduate splits in two with scant transition, ultimately cancelling itself out. Nichols effects the break and abandons his premise by destroying the character of Elaine, reducing her to mere plot function...
The lack of direction in Elaine's characterization points up similar flaws and inconsistencies in The Graduate. Nichols' conception of Benjamin turns him into a high school sophomore. His confrontation with a hotel desk clerk reveals a fear and naivete inconceivable in a 21-year-old; and if we accept...
Equally inconsistent, Nicholas goes to pains to humanize Mrs. Robinson in the single-take hotel scene where Benjamin insists on talk before sex, then allows her to become a stock villainess who appears in the last hour for five minutes to serve an archetypal function as Dracula's daughter. Sensing...
Combining this with the truly sloppy stereotyping of Benjamin's parents and Elaine's law-school suitor, The Graduate doesn't hold water dramatically or structurally, and ultimately says nothing. Nichols' satire of the uppermiddle class establishment dates back 15 years, and has the impact of a butter knife. A...
Cinematically, the chief influence on Nichols remains the photographer of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Haskell Wexler, also cameraman on In The Heat of The Night. When the sun shines, Nichols points his camera at it; if a car approaches the camera, Nichols bounces the headlights off the lens...