On the occasion of the iconic film’s fiftieth birthday, Beverly Gray offers a close reading of ‘The Graduate’ along with vivid details from behind the scenes of the production.
Gray uses a ‘making of’ approach to examine how this mash-up of a movie made magic … Ben’s self-discovery is what attracted Gray to write Seduced by Mrs. Robinson in the first place. Growing up in the ’60s, she embraced ‘The Graduate’ because it made her understand ‘how badly we wanted to distance ourselves from the world of our parents.’ Fifty years later, she has adopted the movie as a generational template, and for most of the book she writes smartly and insightfully about how the characters were shaped by a disruptive age … The book as a whole offers a fascinating look at how this movie tells a timeless story: that life is always about making choices.
Gray cannily pinpoints why Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), a lethargic and malleable 21-year-old whose apathy has no apparent source, took root in ticket-buying Baby Boomers … Often academic in tone, Seduced by Mrs. Robinson aims to secure ‘The Graduate’ its proper place in the Hollywood canon. Gray pays special attention to the ‘sadness beneath the comedic surface’ of a film that hit theaters during a period of social unrest, the Vietnam war and growing protests.
It’s been 50 years since Dustin Hoffman got an education in sexual chemistry from Anne Bancroft in Mike Nichols’ groundbreaking movie ‘The Graduate.’ To mark that milestone comes Beverly Gray’s Seduced by Mrs. Robinson, an insightful look at the making of the movie. Most interesting is the section devoted to casting, in particular, the role of Mrs. Robinson … There are also juicy tidbits on the working and reworking of the script and how that final deadpan shot of Hoffman and Katharine Ross on the bus came to be. Prepare to be seduced by Gray’s book.
