Bridge Over Troubled Water

The Graduate
Directed by Mike Nichols Written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham With Anne Bancroft !ustin Hoffman "atherine #oss William !aniels Murray Hamilton $li%abeth Wilson and Brian Avery& Rating '' Worth (eeing

By Jonathan Rosenbaum

If I feel myself as the producer of my life, then I am unhappy. So I would rather be a spectator of my life. I would rather change my life this way since I cannot change it in society. So at night I see films that are different from my experiences during the day. Thus there is a strict separation between experience and the cinema. That is the obstacle for our films. For we are people of the !s, and we do not belie"e in the opposition between experience and fiction. --#lexander $luge, %&''

The (raduate opened in December 1967, the same month the first
successful human heart transplant was performed. t was a few wee!s after the premiere of Bonnie and )lyde and about three months before the launching of *!!%+ # Space ,dyssey. "mong the albums that came out the same year were the #eatles$ Sgt. -epper.s /onely 0earts )lub Band, the Rolling %tones$ Their Satanic 1a2esties Re3uest, and the &others of n'ention$s #bsolutely Free. %imon and (arfun!el$s Sounds of Silence and -arsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme had both come out in $66, and The (raduate appropriated trac!s from both of them on its sound trac!. )*he +&rs Robinson+ lyrics were added for the sound trac! album., -or many fans, including myself, of &i!e .ichols and /laine &ay who had seen them perform li'e or heard their ferociously funny records, .ichols$s early career as a director seemed tame, considering both his comic gifts and the political cast of the 60s. The (raduate, his second feature )his first was 4ho.s #fraid of 5irginia 4oolf6 in $66, was entertaining, but hardly the rallying cry of a rebellious youth e1plosion that some claimed it to be once it too! off at the bo1 office )it was the second highest grossing mo'ie of the 60s, after The Sound of 1usic,. /'en now, when new prints of the mo'ie struc! from the original internegati'e are being released, the only +re'olutionary aspect+ of The (raduate described in the press boo! is the use and impact of the %imon and (arfun!el songs--not the songs themsel'es but the new mar!eting possibilities deri'ed from transplanting +found+ material into a 2ollywood hit, which clearly set a lot of wheels spinning. 333 +%he was always bra'e,+ .ichols said of &ay during their partnership as a comedy team. +#ut became more and more afraid.+ *his certainly appears to be the case if one compares their subse4uent careers as directors. )-or a candid loo! at the comple1 dynamics of their relationship during the height of their fame as a team, see /dmund Wilson$s posthumously published 5ournals, The Sixties., 6n the other hand, according to 7anet 8oleman in her boo! The )ompass--a fascinating study of the mid-90s 8hicago impro'isational comedy wor!shop from which .ichols and &ay sprang-they both, along with comedian %helley #erman, lost some of their edge when they became famous: