Daily Dialogue — August 12, 2018

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: Swimming Pool.

Trivia: Anne Bancroft loved Mike Nichols’ description of Mrs. Robinson as someone who was angry with herself for giving up who she really was, in exchange for wealth and security. This was the aspect of the book that really captured his interest. When they shot the scene where Mrs. Robinson and Ben discuss art in the hotel room, Bancroft had forgotten Nichols’ initial revelation about the character, but managed to capture that anger and regret on subsequent takes. Nichols thought this was very important because he really wanted to drive home the point about the character having bargained away her life. “That seems to me the great American danger we’re all in, that we’ll bargain away the experience of being alive for the appearance of it.”

Dialogue On Dialogue: “I’m just drifting.” Profound subtext about Benjamin in relation to his life as a whole.