Posted on 04/28/2017 7:10:08 PM PDT by Enchante
....
...The song helped. Years and years ago, at his home in Montauk, Paul Simon showed me his draft sheets for the lyrics. He was late delivering the three new pieces he'd promised (Dave Grusin wrote the orchestral score) so he told Mike Nichols he'd had an idea for a song that was a remembrance of things past - about Joe DiMaggio and whatnot. "But I don't know if the song's called 'Mrs Roosevelt' or 'Mrs Robinson'," he said.
"We're making a movie here," snapped Nichols. "It's 'Mrs Robinson'."
....
Their cleverest scene together is the one in which Benjamin asks Mrs Robinson if they can't, for once, talk about something. Conventionally, that would make him the "sensitive" one - the one who wants a meaningful relationship, rather than just uncomplicated rutting. But it comes across as cruel and heartless: He's too insensitive to sense her vulnerability, and too uncaring to try to figure it out. So, even in the New Hollywood, Benjamin is a traditionalist - opting for romance and conversation over sex and compartmentalization. Mike Nichols' genius was in finding the sweet spot where edgy sells, providing you smooth out all the rough stuff.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Naughty movie about adultery but it was comic so somehow I never could take it seriously, it was as though the whole movie was just a bizarre dream had by the Dustin Hoffman character.
Per the Mark Steyn anecdote about Paul Simon writing the title song, imagine if it really had been "Mrs. Roosevelt".... liberals never would have stood for that, so of course Mike Nichols didn't allow it.
Plastics !!!
Fantastic movie-—”plastics”-—and it took me until years later to see the expressions on Ross and Hoffman’s faces after just a few minutes when reality set in-—that they didn’t even know each other, that they hadn’t lived at all yet, and that they had just alienated all their friends and families for the equivalent of a practical joke.
Watch, “Rainman” back to back with, “The Graduate” and you will be amazed at how narrow his acting range really was.
Both good movies, but...
That movie was what got me liking Simon & Garfunkel. Well not them personally but their music.
Well, apparently nobody likes Paul Simon.
I saw this film when I was around 12yo (that would be during the Bush years). Didn’t see the significance, the appeal, or the overall merit. At all.
The scene on the bus was downright weird. He acted like he’d just taken a satisfying bowel movement rather than a bride.
Had it not been for Anne Bancroft I wouldn’t have watched it.
Just one chick is so old school. ;-)
Paul Simon is apparently a lefty jackass but “Kodachrome” was one of the swinging est songs ever.
Driving through the Gaviota Tunnel backwards.
(You have to have been a real Californian at the time to catch this.)
It’s generational, you had to be around before 1980 to properly appreciate it.
Kodachrome was good.
The album Graceland was wonderful
“Didn’t see the significance, the appeal, or the overall merit. At all.”
I always thought the movie’s “merit” was overblown. That’s heresy to many people.
Richard Dreyfuss was in this movie.
Good article and analysis of the movie. One question lingers.
Look at the very first sentence; “Years and years ago, at his home in Montauk, Paul Simon showed me his draft sheets for the lyrics.”
Who is supposed to be speaking here? Who saw Paul’s
lyrics of that movie score?
It can’t be Mark Steyn, at 57 y/o, he’s far too young.
I was 22 when it came out, didn’t think much of it until dozens of people kept telling me I looked just like Dustin Hoffman. Made me mad....an insult......thought he was ugly with a huge nose- which I do not have.
One waitress in Fla (I was from Indiana then) refused to believe me and kept insisting I give her my autograph - which I finally did. But then she said, “NO!” and insisted I sign it Dustin Hoffman instead of my real name.....think I finally agreed, tho not willingly.
In more recent years, some (one beautiful woman my age) have said I look like Dennis Hopper (similar beard) - and I consider that a compliment......
Feigned nonchalance and exaggerated shows of apathy were very big back then. Bob Dylan still does that today. “Whatever, Man. Don’t be so uptight.”
As a pop tunesmith, his level of ability is off the charts.
One talent, that’s it!
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