Analysis Of The Mise-En-Scene In The Graduate

In The Graduate (1967), director Mike Nichols tells a story about a high strung young man named Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) who is seduced by his parents friend Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and later falls in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross). Benjamin spends the rest of his time chasing after Elaine trying to convince her to marry him – despite the fact, Elaine’s family has fallen apart after the affair was exposed. During the creation of this formalistic film, the director uses very interesting mise-en-scene, in particular, the aspects of movement.
Throughout the film the actors utilized many different movements in order to express a feeling or to demonstrate how the actors themselves are feeling. For example, Mrs.

Robinson’s first attempt to seduce Benjamin was at her home and while she was standing naked in her daughter’s bedroom Mr. Robinson pulls up. Benjamin quickly runs downstairs and as he is talking to Mr. Robinson you can see he is shaky and sweating. This was one-way movement was used to express how scared Benjamin is at that moment. As it was displayed in that scene, and every other scene up until this point, Benjamin is a very high strung young man.
After his first experience with Mrs. Robinson, Benjamin’s demeanor changes. He begins to worry less. Beforehand, he was constantly talking about how he didn’t know what he was going to do with his life. After he began his affair, he didn’t seem to worry about his future any longer. To illustrate, the scene directly after his night with Mrs. Robinson in the hotel, Benjamin was floating along in his pool sun bathing, careless and carefree. His father walked up and told Benjamin that it was time for him to start looking at what he wanted to do with his future. Throughout the course of the film Benjamin demonstrates very awkward movements such as, tripping over tables, and not knowing what to say. all in all, his kinetics are natural everyday movement.