Daily Dialogue — May 6, 2015

Mr. Braddock: Ben, what are you doing?
Benjamin: Well, I would say that I’m just drifting. Here in the pool.
Mr. Braddock: Why?
Benjamin: Well, it’s very comfortable just to drift here.
Mr. Braddock: Have you thought about graduate school?
Benjamin: No.
Mr. Braddock: Would you mind telling me then what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?
Benjamin: You got me.

— The Graduate (1967), screenplay by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, novel by Charles Webb

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Graduation. Today’s suggestion by Jon Raymond.

Trivia: Although Calder Willingham and Buck Henry share screen writing credit, Buck Henry wrote the shooting version of the screenplay without assistance, and Henry was not even aware of Willingham’s draft. Henry was the fourth screenwriter asked to try to adapt Charles Webb’s novel, however, and Willingham filed a challenge with the Writer’s Guild for screen credit after the movie was completed. Because Webb’s novel consists of large passages of dialogue, and both writers lifted various lines that appeared in each version, Willingham’s challenge was successful.

Dialogue On Dialogue: With the graduation theme, we have to run a post featuring The Graduate. Notice the not so subtle subtext: “It’s very comfortable just to drift here.” Yeah, as in life at the moment.

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