The Graduate

The Graduate was a 1967 film, starring Dustin Hoffman. It was directed by Mike Nichols. Nichols is one of twelve people to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and a Tony Award. The Graduate was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, but only  won for best director. The story line was originally written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham. It was one of the first true youth rebellion movies, and depicted the actions of college graduates. The values of society were shown through examples of social satire throughout the movie. The rapid cutting, editing, and use of sound to connect scenes are some of the respected techniques used in the Graduate. 

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19671226/REVIEWS/712260301/1023

This Article by renown movie critic, Roger Ebert. He describes story line on how Benjamin was trapped into an affair with Mrs. Robinson, who was the wife of his father's business partner. After the affair ends, he then falls in love with her daughter, Elaine. He, also briefly focused on the actions of Benjamin in the movie and how his attitude progresses from start to finish. 

This can be related to the movie because this was a youth rebellion movie. The progression of Benjamin's attitude was reflected through his actions. In the very beginning of the movie he was very stand-offish, naive and shy, for a 21 year old. However that reflected the way children were in society at the time. Then, towards the end of the movie, Benjamin was rebelling the advice and orders of his elders and thinking much more independently. This all reflected different changes going on in society.

The way the Graduate represented a new age of cinema was through the content of the movie. It was much more vulgar with appropriate adult content, with a lot of the brilliant filming and editing techniques used in film prior to it. So clearly in this transition there were similarities along with the differences. Despite the sexuality and the affair, the underlying love story was very classy, and makes you think more of Benjamin s a character. The Graduate was a great film, and was the beginning of how we view our modern films today.

Casablanca

Casablanca was a film released in 1942. It was Directed by Michael Curtiz. The film was starred by; Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. The film won numerous awards. It won best picture, best screenplay, as well as best director. Most of all, Casablanca is ranked as one of the top three films, on the AFI top 100 list. Humphrey Bogart is the #1 male actor on the AFI male actor list, and Ingrid Bergman is the number three female actor on AFI’s list, in the female category. Casablanca is a story of love, known for its romantic theme during a time of war. Casablanca was based on an unproduced play called; Everybody Comes to Rick’s by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The film takes place in Casablanca during the early 1940’s while the war is going on, where two of the characters are try to obtain visas to go to America to get away from the Nazis. An affair that went on created a conflict in the story making it quite a thrill in the movies outcome. This truly was one of the best movies of all time.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1003707-casablanca/

This article was found on the movie review website, Rotten tomatoes. This was the highest approval rating I have ever seen on this website. It is a 97% professional and a 94% audience. The movie definitely deserved its outstanding reviews. The reviews I payed a lot of attention to was the ones written by members of the audience. There were many posts, I reviewed them all and there wasn’t one singe negative one.

Reading this article helped me appreciate the importance of this movie. The famous quotes such as Here’s looking at you kid, Round up the usual suspects, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship,We’ll always have Paris, Of all the gin joints,  in all the towns, in all the world, and she walks into mine are just a few of a long list of quotes that are heavily influenced on todays films.

While I was watching Casablanca, I couldn't help but appreciate the story line. Movies now-a-days, put too much effort into romantic dramas. This was not the case in this movie, the acting was phenomenal and seemed effortless. I am so glad this film got the recognition it truly deserved. It most definitely deserves to be one of the top three movies of all time.

Citizen Kane

1) The film Citizen Kane was released in 1941 and was both starred and directed by a 24 year old man named Orson Welles. Before its release in 1941, the film was almost never released by RKO, because it was a commercial failure. In fact, RKO almost burned the negative. Luckily it was a blessing it was released because, Citizen Kane became the number one, all-time, rated film in 1998 by the American Film Institute. Im sure that since Citizen Kane was Welles’ first movie, that he made, he was not expecting such a great result. In the year 1942, Citizen Kane was nominated for nine academy awards, however it only won for best writing, and original screenplay.  After the Oscars were all said and done, RKO put the film into a vault and Welles wasn’t allowed to have full control in filmmaking anymore, since he had no previous movie-making experience. Welles was known for his radio dramas, and mainly for “War of the Worlds.” The film was based on the life of,wealthy, William Randolph Hearst. Charles Foster Kane, who is the main character, depicts the life of Hearst who wasn’t amused by the film,very much. The newspaper business was the main theme of this movie, as well as the flashbacks, in an attempt to try and figure out what Kane’s last world “Rosebud,” meant. 

(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kane2/)

2) This article in regards to the film Citizen Kane, this article from PBS goes into some detail about the synopsis of the film. It mainly covered the comparison to William Randolph Hearst. It describes how Hearst tried his hardest to prevent the release of the film. Welles was very dead-on with his depiction of the wealthy newspaper tycoon and because of it, he was determined to not be embarrassed. Although he was almost successful he clearly ended up failing, and Citizen Kane became the best film of all time.

3) In relation to the film, it shows how the depiction of Hearst was very accurate. For his first ever film it was astonishing, that he struck such a nerve with the 76 year old newspaper tycoon. If not for its release it wouldn’t have topped the list of most notable movies in American history.

4) Citizen Kane is the number one film in history for a reason. It pioneered in its different lighting scenes for many films in the future. Seen throughout the film in numerous scenes was the motif of the snow globe, which reminds Kane of his mother and his childhood. Overall, I am pretty upset that this is considered to be the greatest movie of all time. The content was interesting but it was clearly the quality of how it was made, won people over in the end.