Films from Different Decades - Essay Example

The film The Graduate premiered in December of 1967 and the film Dirty Harry premiered in December 1971. Both films were led by major stars, Dustin Hoffman, who’s debut in The Graduate, catapulted him to instant stardom, and Clint Eastwood, who was already famous but had yet to establish himself as a “cult hero”, something that the film Dirty Harry, and the subsequent films that followed along that mystique, did for him. Although these two films arrived in different decades, with stars that had very different persona’s along with the characters they portrayed, they do share some very important similarities that put their characters at odds with mainstream culture and the mainstream ideology of the Sixties and Seventies, that have catapulted these films into noted classics, with immense popularity after their respective releases, that have endured the test of time today. As the writer Lawrence L. Murray notes in his essay “Hollywood, Nihilism and Youth Culture of the Sixties: Bonnie and Clyde” in the book, American History/American Film: Interpreting The Hollywood Image, when the movie Bonnie and Clyde first opened at the Montreal Expo in August 1967, it was mostly panned by the mainstream press, with The New York Times Film Critic, Bosthley Crowther, leading the way with an especially derogatory review in which he took the filmmakers to task for their irresponsibility over the “uneven” and “inaccurate” depictions of violence, among other things, in a classic stand that he would be taken to task for by the many readers who wrote in to decry the film’s brilliance, and one that signaled the end of his career as a film critic. It soon became clear that Arthur Penn’s shocking new film was the breath of fresh air that the mainstream American film movement had been waiting for since the French New Wave took hold in the late Fifties and early Sixties, with young, adult, literate audiences and New Wave generation film critics alike pouring out in droves to view, re-view and discuss the film, once the buzz that there was something revolutionary in the air caught on. Bonnie and Clyde went on to gain the respect of the Hollywood establishment with 10 Oscar nominations and two wins, for Supporting Actress and Best Cinematography. More importantly, Bonnie and Clyde changed the way mainstream Hollywood studios viewed the movie-going public, recognizing that the target demographic had shifted from the tastes of older, working to middle class parents, breadwinners, to those of the youth, the immense Baby Boomer generation. And their values were completely different, something only younger, more liberal filmmakers and producers could comprehend. This was the cultural awareness that was beginning to emerge when The Graduate opened in December 1967. Indeed, a movie about a privileged, young college graduate, who, having lost direction with his life, begins an illicit affair with his father’s best friend’s alcoholic wife, out of sheer boredom and psychic pain, only to discover he’s really in love with her daughter, was not the makings of a successful film in 1967 or any year, for that matter. The story had “loser” written all over it. This was apparent from the previous (failed) attempts at turning Charles Webb’s novel into a successful screenplay. Along came the brilliant combination of screenwriter Buck Henry and theater director/comedian/newly minted film director (Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) Mike Nichols, and The Graduate was born. It took a true visionary of Nichol’s (theatrical) stature to pair the comic nuances of Webb’s novel with just the right writer, cast and crew to bring to light the subtle ironies and dramatic ephannies to the screen. Even holding firm to casting, the relatively unknown, New York theatre actor, Dustin Hoffman, who was a dark, Jewish, all of five foot five, thirty year old, in a role that was written for a tall, blonde, blue-eyed, 21 year old WASP, was a risk, one that Nichols never heard the end of, right up through the film’s first screenings at the DGA in Los Angeles. But who else could of brought Benjamin Braddock to life, with all his inner conflicted, morally upright, consciousness in a world about to turn itself upside down, than Dustin Hoffman? Who else could say to Anne Bancroft, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me…..aren’t you?” and have it convey so many contradictions at once? Once Benjamin heads down the lonely path of his sexual indiscretions, he is longing for anything to wake him up, to set him on his path and pull him out of the empty affair, because he clearly can’t do it himself. He is just as shocked when the impetus he needs turns out to be his desire for Elaine Robinson, his lover’s daughter, as, indeed, Mrs. Robinson is. The ultimatum that she gives him, to stay away from her daughter, is the initiate that begins Benjamin’s quest into manhood. The movie takes an exciting turn at this point when Ben follows Elaine back to Berkeley, California, where she is still an undergraduate. Against ridiculous odds (Elaine is shocked by her mother’s affair with him, Mr. Robinson threatens Ben with legal action if he doesn‘t stay away, Elaine is about to elope with another boy, running out of gas on the way to the church to break up the wedding), Ben is not deterred in winning Elaine, and succeeds, right down to their crucifix-waving getaway. When The Graduate first began screening, especially after the new year when colleges and universities were back in session, young people began standing and cheering Benjamin Braddock in his quest to win Elaine at the end of the film, triumphant that he won her against the odds. What they were really fighting for, in Dustin Hoffman’s character and the ironic tone of the movie, was for the youth to “win” over the tired establishment of their parent’s generation, one that said if you get a good education, follow in your parent’s footsteps into their chosen profession for you, (“plastics”), settle down and marry a girl from the same scio-cultural background, you’ll be happy and have the fulfillment of the American Dream. But in 1967 and 1968, the scio-political landscape of American was in crisis. The Vietnam war had just begun, in 1965, to send thousands of young, American servicemen oversees only to be slaughtered and maimed, sent home in body bags, broadcast, in living color, on the nightly news, sending shockwaves into America’s youth. On college campuses everywhere, a large movement was organized to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, carried out through groups like SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, and people were speaking out everywhere against the “status quo” and middle class values, what was perceived as the right-wing establishment that was elect(ing) President Richard Nixon. Young people wanted revolution, which involved a rejection of the formal tradition of marriage, for experimentation with cohabitation, including living in political communes and inter-racial couplings. Although Benjamin Braddock is successful in winning Elaine Robinson and carrying her away from her (perceived as) “evil” family (evil in the sense that they want her to do what they want for her, their upper-middle class life style), in the end, we really don’t know what fate awaits the couple because the film ends there. When the city bus pulls away, and all the people on the bus turn to face them, almost as if to ask, “What now?”, they really have no answer because the point of the movie was for Benjamin to fulfill his quest, which he does by capturing Elaine, but you get the sense that he has no idea where to go from there, it’s an unwritten slate. Viewers could read this as a potentially wonderful thing, they’re free to start a new life away from their family’s expectations, or a disaster, what could they possibly do with each other now? It is all dependent on the context the audience is viewing the film in and in 1967-68, the mood was more about taking risks, following an utopian ideology and being open to experimentation, essentially smashing the established values of the previous generation. The Graduate remade today, may leave many youth with the notion, What, you’re going to leave behind that cushy upper class lifestyle, for what, a chick? A college degree doesn’t even get you what it used. The dude should just go back to graduate school. When Dirty Harry premiered in December 1971, the United States had become a much more jaded place. The Vietnam War was still churning on, despite heated protests by the millions. Brutal violence was becoming commonplace to the weekly observer of the nightly news and those out on the battle lines. Charles Manson was convicted, along with his “family” of a conspiracy to commit mass murder in Los Angeles; the National Guard had killed civilians, unarmed college students, for protesting on their own campus at Kent State; prison riots broke out and prisoners took control of their prison at Attica, New York; political assassinations and race riots had erupted in every major city across America; the utopian quest for the new American Dream was dying, and in it’s place was a new cynicism that could be found in the character of Inspector Harry Callahan, aka Dirty Harry, played by Clint Eastwood. Harry Callahan got his name because the brass always asked him to do the “dirty work”, (deliver the money in a high-stakes serial killer game, talk a crazy guy down off a ledge), and because he was reported to “hate everyone equally.” In fact, Harry could of appeared sullen and downright racist, completely unlikable, in another actor’s hands, but Clint Eastwood brought a razor-sharp-vigilante moral justice to the role that won him great popularity in Dirty Harry and established him as the first rate movie star he is to this day. Back in 1971, the idea of a crazed, serial killer, ready to hold the city of San Francisco hostage in terror, was still new and it was the “shock” value of this type of film (pre-Silence of The Lambs, circa 1991) that held a great appeal. The fact that there was a real serial killer that was eluding police, by the name of Zodiac, made the argument for Dirty Harry’s vigilante justice even stronger; if the police and the D.A. can’t stop this killer, than justice needs to be taken into the hands of the police, the renegade cop. Even though Harry is anti-police, anti-government cop who chooses to do things his way, by shooting the killer in the end instead of taking him in, he is still a morally correct character, one worthy of much identification by a battle worn public. In the end, he rejects society, but does what is right by his own code, something he is loved and admired for by the audience. Benjamin Braddock and Harry Callahan are two very different men, in two very different “Americas”, each searching for what they want, where they belong, each on a quest to “do the right thing”, in essence, by their own moral code. The one thing they could agree on, despite their different desires and pre-dispositions, is that, in America, freedom to choose a way of life for a man (or woman) is paramount. No one has the right to tell you how to live your life, or take away your freedom, although many may try. In the end, we are the only ones responsible for the lives we lead, and sometimes, you just have to ask yourself, “Do I feel lucky?” and roll the dice. Works Cited 1) “Hollywood, Nihilism and Youth Culture of the Sixties: Bonnie and Clyde” by Lawrence L. Murray, American History/American Film: Interpreting The Hollywood Image, John E. OConner and Martin A. Jackson. 2) “From Counterculture to Counterrevolution” by Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner. Hollywood’s America: United States History Through its Films. Mintz, Steven & Roberts, Randy. 3) Pictures At A Revolution, Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, Mark Harris. 2008 Read More