84. As promised, I will be granting you two performances today to make up for my Easter absence (I also haven't watched a film yet this Easter, which I must surely take on this weekend-maybe I'll work on some homework and indulge in a little Kurosawa).
Anyway, back to the task at hand, the dapper young man at the left-for how could one pay attention to my weekend when we have the fantastic Dustin Hoffman, master of the comedic and dramatic everyman, glaring so needily at us? Though he was thirty-a tad old for a graduate, but who are we to judge?-he captured youth and vigor in his Ben Braddock.
My favorite part of Hoffman's performance, is of course, that tender need/lust/amour that he carries on with the sensational Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson. The fumbling with the cigarette kiss, the shocked look he exudes with her thigh bared to the audience and he alike. The "Singleman party" line-Hoffman is a man in love, but he isn't quite sure what love is. There's something endearing and yet very real about not being to identify the emotion-and adds all the more to that ambigous ending. Hoffman may have become slightly arrogant in his old age, but look at this role-isn't a little self-love deserved with something so capable?
A Hoffman film festival? Hmm, while you could go with his creepy antics in Marathon Man or the walking man in Midnight Cowboy, I should probably recommend a film festival where I've seen the movies. Therefore, I'd lead in with The Graduate, break out the laughter with Tootsie, and end up with a good cry in Kramer vs. Kramer.
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