Debacle at the movies

humour

Many moons ago, there was a new Hollywood release in town — The Graduate. It starred a young Dustin Hoffman, and everyone was going gaga over the film, a morality tale about a young man fresh out of college, just wishing to be by himself and with his inner conflicts. But the world around him had other ideas.

 “Get into plastics”, they said. “It’s the next big thing since sliced bread. Or get a girlfriend, it’s unhealthy to be sitting around, moping”.

Our protagonist then gets involved in a messy affair with his mother’s friend, and falls in love with her young daughter. And melodramatically rescues the girl of his dreams from the throes of another wedding hurriedly arranged by her parents. Though a bit formulaic, this tragi-comic film was an iconic hit, with a memorable music sound­track from Simon and Garfunkel.

So what’s all this got to do with me? I was an impressionable teenager when The Graduate was released, and was so taken up with the cinematic treatment that I felt I must take all my family members to enjoy it. We were holidaying in Madras at the time. As a cousin of mine was in the plastics business, I felt this was the clincher. In my naivete, I thought they would all like the film, and I will earn valuable brownie points for my precociously good taste. So, off we went to see The Graduate at the Midland cinema house.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I led this motley pack of aunts, uncles and cousins, driven by an evangelistic zeal. It’s all very well applauding Sivaji Ganesan’s endless soliloquies, I thought, but this is cinema verite. From Sivaji’s hyperbolic histrionics to Hoffman’s understated method acting, I wanted my family to experience the direction in which world cinema was headed. “You don’t just watch The Graduate, you live it,” I announced pompously to the comfortably seated group. Popcorn in hand, we waited for the lights to dim.

The film started promisingly enough, with the hero’s career prospects being discussed at a family party. My relatives nodded approvingly. Next thing I knew, the elderly Mrs Robinson, (played brilliantly by Anne Bancroft) was seducing Hoffman. This is actually a hilarious sequence, an awkward young man with a worldly wise, attractive woman, looking for a bit of excitement on the side.

Unfortunately, the scene involved some…..well…..scenes, if you get my drift. Even with the Indian Censor Board’s strict editing, a bit of baring and daring had crept in. Nothing untoward mind you, by today’s standards, but it got the gaggle of relatives shifting uneasily in their seats.

During the interval, dark looks were directed at me. One of those ‘wait till you get home’ looks. The film ended with the hero and heroine riding off in a bus, to live happily ever after. I was beginning to get that uneasy feeling myself, of riding off in a bus about to plunge into a deep ravine.

The journey back home was deafeningly silent. On arriving, I was immediately accosted and subjected to the third degree. “How could you drag us all to a film like this?” I admitted that was a foolish error of judgment. I meant well. “How was I to know,” I remonstrated bravely, “that all of you would carry in your memory bank, just five minutes of the film which contained ‘the scene’, and forget all about the 100 minutes of intelligent filmmaking?” But my protestations fell on deaf ears.

The family had had enough. They were already making plans to see Sampoorna Ramayanam the next day, presumably to expiate their sins. I was not among those invited.

Wallowing in self-pity, I ruefully considered the prescient opening lines of one of the great songs from The Graduate. Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. 

I was all of 17 and I welcomed the sounds of silence.