Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 205: Top of the Class

As I've noted throughout my journey round the 1960s Oscar nominees, it seems that this decade was a time of great change within the industry. Though the same colourful epics were being made, there appeared to be a move to more character-based stories which employed innovative camera techniques. I would say that a film that definitely fell into the latter category was The Graduate, which was nominated for the Best Picture prize at the 1968 ceremony. The film has a very basic story as it follows Benjamin Braddock's return to his LA home following his graduation from a college on the East Coast. It sees him attempting to decide what to do with the rest of his life while beginning an affair with the much older, married Mrs Robinson, a friend of his parents. As the affair continues, Ben realises that he and the unhappy Mrs Robinson have very little in common and she's later appalled when he's forced into a date with her daughter Elaine. Benjamin initially attempts to sabotage the date, but later bonds with Elaine and falls in love with her. When Mrs Robinson finds out about their growing relationship, she threatens to tell Elaine everything but Benjamin gets there first. The rest of the film sees Benjamin trying to win Elaine back against the wishes of both her parents and the new man in her life.

From the opening sequence, in which the camera tracks Benjamin as he journeys through the airport, I fell in love with The Graduate. It's a film that it's incredibly hard not to like as it combines a simple story with a number of complex characters and plenty of visual flair. There are so many scenes that I love so I won't name them all, but one that sticks in my mind is Ben jumping into his parents' pool wearing a diving helmet. This scene is so great as we watch everything from Ben's point of view, so the sound is muted and all we see are the expressions on the other characters' faces. Obviously the final ten minutes is particularly iconic and has often been copied but never bettered. The film more than benefits from the score by Simon and Garfunkel with both 'The Sound of Silence' and 'Mrs Robinson' going onto become massive hits for the group. The Graduate was the first film to put Dustin Hoffman on the map and even though he was playing a much younger character, he was 30 at the time, he was still utterly believable. Hoffman perfectly exemplifies Benjamin's nervous energy and you never really tire of watching him even though he's in every single scene. Meanwhile Anne Bancroft was perfectly cast as the cold, calculating Mrs Robinson who was only interested in bedding a younger man to break up her monotonous life. I also though Katharine Ross put in a great turn as Elaine, who was a lot more open and was everything her mother wasn't. Buck Henry and Calder Willingham's script was just superb as it jumped from comedy to tragedy with great ease. Unfortunately The Graduate was nominated for the Oscar in a fairly strong year so didn't win the top prize, however Mike Nichols did take home the Best Director trophy which in my eyes makes it the second best film of that year.

Matt's Big Oscar Challenge Day 187: Parental Guidance

It's often easy to spot a film based on a successful play by the way it's constructed. If there's plenty of scenes set in one location and parts of the film where one character dominates the dialogue then it's pretty likely that it started life on the stage. That is definitely true of the 1966 nominee A Thousand Clowns which was based on the play by Herb Gardner. The story sees eccentric unemployed TV writer Murray Burns try to care for his nephew Nick while at the same time trying to dodge doing any work. Murray's situation changes when the child welfare board come to meet Nick and inspect Murray's apartment to see if it is suitable for a twelve year old to live in. During their visit, Murray is able to charm child psychologist Sandra and the two strike up a relationship based on her love of Murray's infectious personality. Despite him charming Sandra, the child welfare board deem that Nick must move out of Murray's apartment though he does have the chance to appeal. Sandra tells Murray that he must get a job in order to show that he is attempting to change his ways however Murray really despises being a worker. Murray eventually asks his agent brother Arnold for help getting work but Murray quickly tires of the TV executives that Arnold gets him to meet. At the same time Murray's relationship with Sandra sours when she realises he doesn't live in the same world as everybody else. In the end Murray realises that he must reunite with his old boss Leo, who plays the role of kids' favourite Chuckles the Chipmunk, in order to keep Nick living with him.

Despite A Thousand Clowns being mainly based in Murray's apartment I still really enjoyed this film mainly due to the script and the performances. I found all of the characters incredibly likeable and by the end of the film I was willing there to be some sort of fulfilling conclusion. Writer/director Fred Coe makes sure that A Thousand Clowns is well-paced and in most scenes all of the supporting players get to showcase their abilities. But this was mainly Jason Robards show and he gave a tour de force performance as the conflicted Marty who loved his nephew but at the same time really didn't want to work. I was surprised then that Robards didn't even receive a nomination for his performance. Instead the acting recognition went to Martin Balsam who didn't really make much of an impact on me as Arnold. Of the supporting cast I thought Barbara Harris was a joy as the scatty, unsure Sandra and William Daniels also gave a good accounting of himself as child welfare officer Albert. Overall I found A Thousand Clowns to be a delightful little comedy with plenty of great performances along the way. If you don't find yourself humming 'Yes Sir That's My Baby' after watching this film then you haven't enjoyed it nearly as much as I did.