Reviews

Written, directed, and starring Woody Allen, Annie Hall is a hysterical movie about a relationship that was never really meant to be. Allen plays a memorable role as the Jewish comedian Alvy Singer, who is unlucky in love and completely neurotic about the rest of his life. He falls for a beautiful young girl named Annie, played by Diane Keaton, but the relationship falls apart. Alvy takes the viewer back through time, to his relationship with her, his childhood, and his other romances, showing the viewer the wild and funny ride that has been his life.

The films flies in a variety of directions, flashing back at odd times, and the chronology of events is sometimes hard to follow. Basically, Alvy is from Brooklyn, a young Jewish boy who grew up with a pessimistic view on most aspects of life. Because of his interesting upbringing, his Jewish heritage, and his short, wiry frame, he grows up to be a successful comedian. He is married two times, both unsuccessful, and during a tennis match with his tall, bearded friend Rob (played by Tony Roberts), he meets the long-legged Annie. She gives him a ride home, and although he is terrified of her driving skills (or lack thereof) they are attracted to each other and develop a relationship.

Allen shows us bits and pieces of the relationship; high times, low times, and everything in between. Allen shows us a silly scene of the two of them trying to boil lobsters, and having some trouble since both of them are somewhat afraid of touching them. When one lobster gets stuck behind the refrigerator, Alvy tells Annie "maybe if I put a little dish of butter sauce here with a nutcracker, it will run out the other side." Another scene, after the two have taken a break, is when Annie calls Alvy over to kill a spider in her bathroom. This scene shows both character's fragility, and how much they still rely on each other.

However, in the end, Alvy and Annie's relationship can never work out. Alvy is too stuck on New York, and Annie wants out, wants to try new things and move around. Alvy tries proposing to her, flies out to California to see her after she moves there. But it never works out. Alvy is eventually arrested for tearing up his driver's license when it is requested by a policeman (he tell the cop he has a "problem with authority"), and goes back to New York, trying to forget about Annie.

Many people wonder what this film is about. Because it is so disjointed, and seems like more of a 90 minute joke than a movie, people have trouble finding a point to it. However, Allen seems to tell us something pretty valuable about life, and the human experience. Relationships are a part of life. They're funny, and heartbreaking, and terrible and wonderful. At the end of the film, Allen speaks to the audience, and tells us another bad joke about a man thinking he's a chicken and somebody keeping him around for the eggs. He says this joke is a lot like relationships. He says "they're totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd but, uh, I guess we keep going' through it because, uh, most of us... need the eggs." Despite how crazy and weird relationships are, and although they don't always last, humans need them to experience life. I think Allen portrays the idea of relationships perfectly in Annie Hall. However, he uses comedy to disguise the importance of this film. Despite this, it is still powerful, enjoyable, and certainly deserving of its various awards.

From actor and independent writer/director John Cassavetes, A Woman Under the Influence gives the viewer a look at a working class family with a problem of mental instability. The husband, Nick (played by Peter Falk) is a blue collar worker who has trouble showing his wife, Mabel (played by Gena Rowlands) the amount of attention that she deserves. From the onset of the film, it is obvious that Mabel is very quirky and strange, but only a few minutes later it is clear that she is much more than that. Crazy. Bonkers. Out of her damn mind. Nick tries his hardest to hide this from his co-workers, and after she has a particularly strange incident at dinner, he asks her if she'll be okay, as if he's trying to deny Mabel's illness. Her problem only spirals from there.

I did find some particular problems with this film. I guess these problems were mostly present in the story, and the way some of the character acted toward the end. Mabel has been committed, because, frankly, she's nuts. Then, six months later, she's ready to come out of the hospital, and her husband throws a party to welcome her back. He never acts stupid in the beginning of the movie. Why would he invite all these people, some of them strangers to Mabel, over to his house when his wife is in such a fragile state? It's simply idiotic. Later, after Mabel comes in the house, Mabel's father has a huge outburst at Nick, screaming at the top of his lungs about not wanting to eat spaghetti. His daughter has just gotten back from six months of rehabilitation, and the thing you want to do is keep her calm, and he goes nuts over spaghetti? A few minutes later in the film, Nick brings Mabel into the stairwell and forces her to do the things she did when she was mentally unstable; make her weird noises and gestures. Didn't he send her there to make her better and not do those things? There were various other parts that occurred after this, but it would just be redundant to look at them in more detail. I guess I just had a serious problem with the decision by Cassavetes to have his characters act in this way. It simply didn't make sense.

However, although I had problems with the ending of the film, there was one aspect that really redeemed it; the acting. Gena Rowlands played an amazing crazy woman. There were times when I forgot she was acting, where I got so caught up in her wild gesticulations and crazy talk that I was actually scared of her. She was amazingly convincing and intense. However, I was also impressed by the rest of Mabel's family. Peter Falk played a very strange character, and I almost thought he was crazy himself, because of the awkward way he handled his children, his job, and especially the situation with his wife. I also usually don't appreciate child actors. But the young people who played Nick and Mabel's children in this film were phenomenal. It really felt like they were Mabel's children, because they seemed so attached to her and were so interesting in helping her with her problem. I think their performances are one of the things that kept this film together, and without them it would have made the film less realistic and less intense.

In general I wasn't impressed by this film. The story was jumbled and unclear, and the characters acted in ways that made me wonder who wasn't insane in the movie. The only saving grace were brilliant lead acting roles of the Longhetti family. Their realistic dialogue and powerful acting kept the film together, and are probably the only reason the film has ever amounted to anything.

Based on the film screenings I have seen from 1974, it appears as if that was the year to make movies about paranoia, conspiracy and murder. First, there was The Conversation, by Coppola, then shortly after came The Parallax View. The latter of these two films showed viewers the concept of political assassination, something that was highly prominent in the 1960's with the motivated murders of President John F. Kennedy, his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many others. The Parallax View, directed by Alan J. Pakula, takes the viewer through a story of mystery and intrigue that makes some serious implications about real life politics and possible cover-ups from the turbulent days of the 1960's.

At the beginning of the film we are shown an assassination of a prominent United States Senator who is shot atop the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. The assassination is eerily similar to that of Robert Kennedy's in the 60's, giving us the sense that the film will have some connections to real life situations and events. Following this exciting event, a political commission gives an announcement claiming that the assassination of the Senator was planned and executed by just one man. This, again, mirrors real life events, as Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who was convicted of John F. Kennedy's assassination, was said to have acted alone as well.

Three years after the assassination, eye witnesses to the event slowly start dying, under strange circumstances. They all die due to common accidents, however, one journalist, Joseph Frady (played by Bonnie & Clyde's Warren Beatty) becomes suspicious that these witnesses are being killed off to keep a conspiracy from being found out. This sets him out on a personal vendetta to discover the truth, and find out who's behind the cover-up.

After a dangerous encounter with a sheriff in Salmontail, Frady ends up going to one of the witnesses, Austin Tucker (played by William Daniels, from The Graduate), in order to gain information. Tucker shows Frady a photograph of one of the men who was present at the assassination, who he believes is involved in the murders of the other witnesses. However, before Tucker can tell Frady more, the boat they are on blows up, and everyone on board perishes, except Frady, who dives off just in time.

Frady decides to sign up for Parallax, a corporation he learns about in a briefcase that he found at the sheriff's house in Salmontail. Parallax is a place that specializes in Human Development, and Frady suspects this is where they train assassins for their politically motivated crimes. He follows members of Parallax to two different assassination attempts. In the first, Frady is successful in preventing it, as he informs the plane he is on (with a successful Senator on board as well), that there is a bomb onboard. They land, and evacuate all the passengers just before the plane explodes.

However, when Frady again attempts to investigate a possible assassination, he is not as lucky. As he looks down at a rehearsal for a speech that a Senator will give, he realizes that members of the Parallax Corporation are planning to assassinate him. He attempts to learn more, however, as he is watching, the Senator is shot as he is leaving the rehearsal. Frady realizes he has been framed, as he is the only one snooping in the rafters, and a sniper rifle has been planted close to him. He tries to escape, but to no avail, as he is shot as he nearly reaches the door to freedom.

In the end we realize that Frady was doomed from the start. Like Harry Caul in The Conversation and Jake Gittes in Chinatown, Frady is just one man fighting against a powerful system that he does not fully comprehend. When he decides to go up against this unknown force and try to uncover the truth, he is sealing his own fate. He cannot defeat this system and cannot uncover any conspiracy although there has obviously appeared to be one. This film says a great deal about our nation's history, and institutions that have an overwhelming amount of power. The Parallax View seems to hint that the political assassinations of the 1960's were not committed by one man, but were instead a conspiracy that we will never be able to fully understand.

This film, which came out in 1974, is truly one of Francis Ford Coppola's (writer, director, and producer of the movie) most under-appreciated movies. The Conversation, starring Academy Award Winner Gene Hackman is a film of mystery, suspicion, paranoia and murder. Hackman plays a professional surveillance man, or "wire taper" named Harry Caul. Caul is one of the best in the surveillance business, and he is very secretive and personal about his business. During a seemingly routine surveillance job, Caul gets caught up in the conversation between the young couple he is spying on, and suddenly doesn't wish to bring his evidence to his employer. His suspicion and paranoia slowly come to a climax as he comes closer to discovering the truth in this mystery.

The part of this film that has the most long lasting effect is the character of Harry Caul, and the emotional turmoil he goes through deciding whether to do what is humanely right, or to do what is professionally right. When he suspects through his analysis of the tapes that the couple having the conversation is in danger of being murdered, (based on the man saying "He'd kill us if he got the chance") he becomes suspicious of everyone, and acts in unkind ways to his friends, lovers, and colleagues. His partner, Stan (played by John Cazale) quits when Harry first becomes obsessed with the conversation. The woman Harry seems to be seeing, Amy (played by Teri Garr) says the wrong thing and Harry walks out on her, never to see her again. Harry's paranoia is tearing his life apart. We see this tearing apart of his life in the ending, when he complete demolishes his apartment in search of a bug that was planted in his house to spy on him. Harry's paranoia and suspicion of everybody is one of the reasons this film is so strong.

Harry decides to finally bring his client, "the director" the evidence he and his team have found. However, the assistant director, Martin Strett (played by a very young, and very convincing Harrison Ford) wishes to take the evidence instead. Harry, as paranoid as he has become, refuses to give the tapes to Strett and leaves the building to try to warn the young couple of their impending doom.

Finally, Strett sets up a plan, and a young woman who Harry sleeps with steals the tape from his loft and brings them to Strett. Harry feels a personal responsibility to help the young couple, and goes to the hotel where he suspects the murder will take place. He hears an argument beginning, and from the adjoining room, he sees part of the violent act being committed. On further inspection of the hotel room hours later, he finds that the murder has been concealed, and finds blood soaked towels in the toilet.

He again goes to see the director, to confront him about the murder of the couple that he believes has happened. However, there he sees the couple alive, and finds out the director has died in a car accident. He realizes that the young couple have killed the director (who was the young woman's father) and fixed the car crash to make the murder look like an accident. During the conversation that Harry listened in on, the young man said "He'd kill us if he got the chance" emphasizing the "us", showing that the young couple, and probably Strett and the rest of the organization, have constructed the murder of the director.

This film, certainly one of Coppola's greatest of his illustrious career, is one of mystery and paranoia. The great performances of Hackman and Ford make this stand out, and the mystery that surrounds the plot create suspense that keeps the audience focused and interested throughout. In general, this is one of the best mystery and suspense thrillers I have seen.

A film that came out in the early 1970's, Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show is a far different movie than the other films we have studied in this course. It is a film set in a different time period, but instead of being a time of excitement, it is a time of confusion between the Second World War and the Korean War. Bogdanovich shows us the small town of Anarene in Texas, and in particular the fragile lives of some of the younger people who live there. It is true that this movie contains no big car chases, no murders, and no truly exciting scenes. However, through the realistic portrayal of these mundane lives by the director and cast, the viewer can see how awkward things can be in a small American town during a time in history that has been disregarded.

The film mainly focuses on the character of Sonny, and his interactions with the characters of Duane, Jacy, Sam the Lion and Ruth. All of these characters help us to realize what life is like in a small town, and what it is like to be unsure of one's future. Right away we can get a glimpse of a typical night for these teenagers, as Sonny meets his girlfriend at the picture show, where most people his age go on weekend nights. Sonny, who has been "going steady" with this girl for a year, forgets their anniversary, and then, after getting rejected in the front seat of his car, breaks up with her. This is our first sign that Sonny is tired of the typical life he leads and is interested in a change.

Then, Sonny is given a new opportunity for change, as the wife of his football coach, Ruth, throws herself at him. They begin to have an affair that lasts for some time, and it appears as if Sonny has realized that the future he wants is with Ruth in Anarene. As their affair continues, Sonny's best friend Duane gets dumped by his long time girlfriend Jacy. His world is turned upside down by this, as he believed that Jacy was his future. Jacy is changed as she begins to look for a new future husband, and considering the possibility of going to college to get away from her small town life.

As all this is going on, Sonny's mentor and friend Sam the Lion passes away while he and Duane are in Mexico for the weekend. Sam leaves Sonny his old pool hall in his will, and suddenly, Sonny's future seems totally mapped out. He'll stay in town, work at the pool hall, continue his affair with Ruth, and look after Sam's son Billy. However, Jacy, still looking for her future husband, moves Sonny's interests away from Ruth toward her.

In the end, Sonny and Duane have a fight over Jacy, and ultimately make up before Duane is shipped out to Korea. Jacy goes off to college in Dallas, and Sonny goes back to Ruth, realizing that he is going to be living in Anarene the rest of his life, and he has to get to used to his mundane life. The film ends in confusion.

In general, the Last Picture Show is a film that is difficult to look at in sections. The best way to understand and realize the greatness of this film is to take it as a whole, and look at the film for what it shows. Despite being set in a small town, during a forgotten time, the people who live there are real people, with real emotions and real hearts, and their lives, although not as exciting as others, can still be moving and empowering.

Five Easy Pieces, written and directed by Bob Rafelson, seemed to defy the expectations of most films from its time period. Unlike films like Easy Rider and The Graduate, Five Easy Pieces is not a period film, and is timeless in its various messages. Instead, the film focuses on the individual; is a film about the study of a character who has trouble confronting his fears and his past. It shows the story of Bobby Dupea, played brilliantly by Jack Nicholson, a man who was born as an aristocratic music child prodigy, but hated this lifestyle so much that he escaped from it to live as a blue collar, almost white trash American far from his home. Throughout the telling of this story the viewer is given many views into the differences between social classes and how this makes Bobby confused about his place in the world.

Rafelson gives us our first glimpse of Bobby as a blue collar working man who lives and works in Southern California with his girlfriend Rayette, an idiotic waitress overplayed by Janet Black. Bobby surrounds himself by other low class people, like his good friend Elton, who lives in a trailer and works with Bobby on the oil rigs. At first, the viewer believes that Bobby is like these people that he is surrounded by. He drinks beer, plays five card stud after work, and does tough manual labor. But through a few of his actions we can see that he is not exactly like his companions. We see his unfair treatment of Rayette at the bowling alley, when he calls her "pathetic" for sitting in the car when Bobby talks down to her. He treats her badly, and there are obvious tensions between them that seem fueled by her low intelligence and different upbringing. Bobby also shows that he is more sophisticated than those around him when he talks to the two girls in the bowling alley who believe he is the man they see on the television in used car commercials. Although later he enjoys their company, specifically with Betty when he has sex with her behind Rayette's back, Bobby treats the girls as lower class people, playing into their naïve belief that he is famous.

We see the most obvious example of this social difference a bit later in the film, when in a conversation with Elton, Bobby learns that Rayette is pregnant. Elton believes it is a blessing that Bobby will be having a child. But Bobby tells Elton off, calling him trailer trash, and basically saying that he is better than all these people that he has been living around. Here we see the truth about Bobby's character. Although he wishes to escape his aristocratic life, he does not want to be totally absorbed and held down in his current position as a blue collar worker. He realizes that staying with Rayette, marrying her and having children will tie him down in this lifestyle, and he wants to keep drifting, keeping his life interesting and not mundane.

Eventually, after meeting with his sister and finding out about his father's illness, Bobby returns home on an amusing road trip to Washington State with Rayette and a few liberal lesbians that they pick up on the way. Once at home, (after leaving Rayette in a hotel room on the mainland) he is again absorbed in the boring and meaningless life that he left behind. His sister, brother, and his brother's girlfriend Catherine do little except practice classical music, eat and sleep. During his brief stay there, Bobby has a romantic fling with Catherine, hoping she will realize how worthless the aristocratic life is and leave with him. However, we see further differences here as Catherine truly enjoys her lifestyle.

Finally, Rayette finds her way to the house, and is patronized by some of Paul and Catherine's friends. Bobby is very upset, believing it is unfair to make fun of Rayette for her low intelligence, and he states his opinion in a very firm way, calling the woman pocking fun at her a "pompous celibate". It is obvious here that Bobby has had it with his old, cultured life, and can never again live with it.

In the end, Bobby has an emotional, as well as one-sided, conversation with his father, who can not respond in any way because of his stroke. In his speech to his father he apologizes that he didn't turn out the way he should have, justifying it by saying he wasn't that good at the piano anyway. Although he has talked to his father and tried to come to peace with his old fears, Bobby does not change his life. After leaving his home, he deserts Rayette and continues on his path, searching for a more exciting, and un-aristocratic life.

This film, directed by John Schlesinger, was certainly deserving of its Best Picture Oscar in 1969. A hugely American movie, taking place in Texas, New York City, Florida, and places in between, Midnight Cowboy tells the story of two startlingly different people who end up relying on one another to survive because of their similar situations. Joe Buck, played by a young Jon Voight, is a cocky, innocent, and totally unprepared young Texan who moves to New York to become a male hustler. During his time there he meets up with Enrico Salvatore Rizzo (Ratso), played by Dustin Hoffman. Ratso has an appearance that is similar to his nickname, but despite his gross exterior, he is an experienced New Yorker who knows how to survive on the streets.

The film opens in Texas, following young Joe as he begins his journey from his tiny rural town to the metropolitan area of the Northeast. The naïve, gum chewing Joe is in high spirits as he moves slowly (in a cramped Greyhound bus) toward his intended future as a hustler. In these scenes on the bus, the director gives us various shots of people on the bus and around it that seem to symbolize something to Joe. The old man who he offers the cigarette to seems to show him what he would have become if he wasn't leaving Texas. The old woman who takes the old man's seat further in the trip spurs a transition to a flashback of his grandmother. Outside the bus the camera focuses in on signs like "Jesus Saves" and other obvious aspects of Texas life, creating a great comparison for when Joe reaches New York.

When he finally arrives in New York, Joe's attempts at becoming a male hustler are not successful. Then finally he does have sex with an older married woman, but when he asks her for money she cries, making a scene and forcing him to pay her. In a state of slight desperation and complete failure, Joe allows himself to be played over by Ratso. Here, Joe's New York life goes to hell. As his situation worsens and he is forced into doing unwanted things (such as homosexual acts in movie theaters) the makers of the film give the viewers more quick flashbacks, and we begin to understand why Joe has come to New York, and what he is running away from.

Eventually, through an interesting turn of events, Joe and Ratso begin living together in an abandoned apartment complex that Ratso has been squatting in. Things begin with Ratso using his fiendish ways to help Joe clean his clothes, steal food and start to get back into the hustling business. But later, when winter sets in on the city and Ratso gets a fever and stops walking well, Joe is forced to take care of this scumbag turned best friend. This occurs when Joe has just had sex with a woman for money he met at a tripped out drug party, and his hustling business seems to be gaining steam again. Instead, he is forced to resort to his homosexual ways again in order to get money. He even steals from a man, beating him and perhaps killing him in the process in order to get money to bring Ratso to Florida, the warm place of his dreams.

In general, Midnight Cowboy is a film about desperation, avoiding one's past and mainly the failure to fulfill ones dreams. We see this through both main characters. We see through Ratso's daydreams that he wishes to live in Florida and be the manager of a resort for older people. This daydream is shattered at first by Joe's failure to pick up the woman in the hotel, and ultimately destroyed when Ratso dies on the bus upon entering Florida, his dream place. His true life is the complete opposite of his dream. Joe, on the other hand, realizes that his dream of becoming a male hustler can lead to nothing. He is trying to escape a troubled past where his girlfriend (and probably Joe as well) was raped, and where he had a strange and perhaps sexually abusive relationship with his grandmother. Joe fails in New York, and then fails to get Ratso to Florida alive, and is left on his own. This film ends in a depressing way, and although Joe is alive, with fresh clothes on his back, we get the sense that without Ratso to help guide him, he will be lost in this new location like he was in New York.

This film, directed by Dennis Hopper found its roots in the ideas of the hippie movement of the late 1960's, about the concepts of freedom and love. Ironically, the film came out onto the scene in 1969 as the hippie movement was dividing and losing strength in the country. Easy Rider is a very unique picture and was a key film in the advancement of the American film industry in the late 60's. One way to delve into this movie in a more precise way would be to focus on the idea of the American dream of freedom and how it is discussed and represented in this film specifically by the characters Wyatt, Billy and George.

This idea of freedom is seen early and often in the movie. After Wyatt and Billy purchase and sell the drugs, and begin their journey across the country to the warm area of Florida, they make their first interaction with a family that lives on a farm, who live and survive off the land. Even though Wyatt and especially Billy (who begins eating before grace is spoken, and with his hat still on) feel out of place with this family, Wyatt makes a comment, saying how proud the father should be of his family and the way he is living his life. It appears as if Wyatt has seen his first example of what it is like to live the American dream of freedom, which appears to be what he is striving and looking for throughout the movie.

Later, after picking up the hitchhiker and bringing him to his commune by the canyon, Wyatt gets his second glimpse of the American dream. The people living in this place are trying to distance themselves from the metropolitan areas, living of the land like the farmer's family. However, although they have less luck, Wyatt seems more drawn to their way of life. One girl, who seems very interested in Wyatt (she even calls him "beautiful") implies that she wants him to stay there, and the hitchhiker they pick up also wants him to stay. However, Wyatt still wishes to explore America, to find more meaning in this country that he lives in.

Unfortunately, as Wyatt and Billy move away from that place and continue further south and east they move farther away from their dream. They are treated unfairly and with prejudice when they are arrested for riding their motorcycles in a parade ("parading without a license") and further south they are ridiculed, beat up and eventually killed by conservative southerners. In the campfire scene before George Hanson is killed, George and Billy have a conversation about their country and what has gone wrong with it. Although Wyatt keeps quiet during this scene, the conversation seems to say what Wyatt believes. Billy is upset about how they are being treated by Southerners, and George tells him it is because they represent freedom and equality, which is something that southerners are scared of.

Later, after George's death and after Wyatt and Billy have left Mardi Gras and have made it to Florida, the two have one last conversation around a campfire. Billy tells him that they have done it, completed their task because they are rich and have made it across the country. But Wyatt responds by telling Billy that they "blew it". This line is debated over its meaning, but it seems to mean that the reason behind the hippie movement has been lost; that Wyatt and Billy and the others involved in this movement have blown it because these other areas of the country are still filled with hate. Of course, this is made even more clear when they are killed by the rednecks in the pickup truck in the conclusion of the film.

Easy Rider is an impressive film, one that is mostly driven by the need for the fulfillment of the American dream. Billy is searching for it in terms of wealth and retirement in a tropical place. Captain America (Wyatt) is looking for it in terms of a realization and a completion of what the hippie movement set out to accomplish. In the end the two fail at gaining this as they are shot down by rednecks who portray the opposite of the love and equality that Wyatt was searching for all along.

A film produced in 1967, Bonnie and Clyde has been celebrated as being one of the turning points for the modern age of film. It seemed to pave the way for other films, changing conventional wisdom and adding new and more extreme elements to the movie industry.

As I watched the film I noticed a variety of examples that exemplified these groundbreaking changes in the industry. The most obvious of these examples is the high amount of violence in the film, and the very explicit way in which it was shown. At the time the movie was made, in the late 1960's, movie audiences were not accustomed to high levels of violence in full length films. In the various scenes when Buck, Clyde, Bonnie, and even Blanche were wounded by bullets, the director had no problems showing the wounds, and showing the violent actions that produced them. And of course, the final scene of the movie, which concluded with the realistic portrayal of Bonnie and Clyde's assassination and the final shot of the bullet ridden car and bodies of the bandits, proved to be a shocking ending to the film. Basically, the violent aspect of this movie not only gave it a sense of realism, but set it apart from earlier films and paved the way for realistic, effective violence in future movies.

Another part of Bonnie and Clyde that changed the face of film was the change in the conventions of typical film. A typical movie during this time portrayed the "good guys" as the main characters, and the "bad guys" as characters you felt no sympathy or good will toward. However, Bonnie and Clyde and the rest of the Barrow gang were all outlaws and bandits, yet they were the people you admired throughout the movie. This changed the face of the common movie, making it acceptable for "bad guys" to be important, likable characters. It took historically dangerous characters, and romanticized them, turning them into folk heroes and movie legends.

Also, the realism of making Clyde have a sexual problem was a new and unusual aspect in the movie industry. To have a main character with such an odd flaw was a very new thing. Usually, lead male characters were "lover boys", yet Clyde struggled throughout the movie to satisfy Bonnie. Warren Beatty's portrayal of this outlaw who believed himself to be "the best" while having such an obvious problem, simply made the film more realistic and moving.

In general, this film paved the way for future films with its originality and its destruction of past film barriers. Bonnie and Clyde could effectively be described as the beginning of the modern age of film in America.

This 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols portrays the story of a young man who has just graduated from college and is that awkward stage, a state of limbo, between his education and the real world. Right away we get the impression that Benjamin Braddock, played by a young Dustin Hoffman in the film, is being pulled inexorably toward an unwanted future, and he feels trapped in his current situation of confusion. We get a great sense of this through the camera work and the odd ways in which some of the scenes are shot.

The opening scene of the movie, when the title, cast, and some credits flash by on the screen, we get a shot of Ben on a conveyor belt at the airport, after he has gotten off his flight to return home from the east coast. The camera moves with him as he is drawn forward on the moving walkway. Because of this shot, coupled with the empty, lost look on Ben's face, the viewer gets a very clear sense that Ben is being dragged toward a future and a place that he does not wish to face.

In the next scene, Ben is forced by his parents to leave his room and go downstairs to his welcome home/congratulations party. Once he gets downstairs he instantly wants to get out, and tries to avoid conversations and the people in his house. However, whenever he turns somewhere to leave he is encountered by one of his parents' friends. This shows that he feels trapped in his parents' life, a life that he is doomed to lead if he does not figure out his future.

Later, after Ben drives Mrs. Robinson back to her house and she asks him to come inside, we get more images of entrapment. Mrs. Robinson continues to corner him in her daughter Elaine's room, eventually, coming into the room naked and closing and locking the door behind her. This is an image of actual entrapment, but it still further exemplifies the theme that runs throughout the movie of Ben being trapped in an unwanted part of his life.

A few scenes later, when Ben goes into the pool with the gift his father gave him (a full body scuba suit) we see a different scene of entrapment. As Ben enters the water, with all these people around him clapping and cheering (many of whom Ben hardly knows or cares about) he stays in the deep end of the pool, his back against the wall. The camera pans out a bit and we can see that Ben is staying there to keep away from this life that he wants no part of. In this case, he is choosing to be literally trapped under the water to stay away from this other life (the life above the water) that he has been trapped in.

When Ben goes to Berkeley to find Elaine and marry her, the viewer sees another scene of entrapment, in this case because of some brilliant camera work by the director. After Ben follows Elaine to the zoo and sees Carl go off with the woman he wishes to marry, the camera shows a shot of Ben looking very defeated. However, it is shot from the other side of a cage in the zoo, giving the viewers that Ben is the animal trapped in a cage, his life consisting of this tight place that he can't escape from.

In general, The Graduate is a film about entrapment, about a part of ones life where they are no longer young but aren't ready to be thrust into the real world. Nichols and the cast of this film brilliantly show how trapped a young man can feel during this time in his life, and how his world can fall apart and then be regained.