"The Graduate"

The clip I decided to analyze is the pool montage from The Graduate.  This whole movie is brilliant in many ways, including the editing style. Mike Nichols is clever and careful to choose how he wants to edit his scenes. This montage takes place during Ben's summer home after graduating college, and majority of shots are Ben relaxing at home or being with Mrs. Robinson. How he makes the transitions from shot to shot is what impresses me. He uses match on action editing, where the edit cuts from one shot to another by matching the action. By doing this it makes the two shots flow together, and makes the cut less abrupt even if the change in setting is completely different.

During this montage the first match on action edit is when Ben puts on his shirt and walks back inside his house, as the camera follows him through the door we see that he walks into the hotel room where Ben and Mrs. Robinson meet. We then see the camera zoom in on his face with a just a black background, as the camera zooms out he is standing back in his house and we know this because we see his parents in the background having dinner. Again the camera zooms in on his face with the same black background, and when it zooms back out we see that he is again in the hotel room with Mrs. Robinson. This same transition happens one more time and it takes us into his bedroom where he goes out to the pool where the montage started. As we follow Ben in the pool he flops onto a float but the shot again matches his action and cuts to him on Mrs. Robinson.

The use of these transitions made the montage flow with a sense of continuity instead of the cuts being choppy. The montage is obviously a time lapse of Ben spending his summer, doing nothing really other than engaging in an affair with Mrs. Robinson. What also makes the montage flow is the sense of the camera following Ben, there are very few obvious cuts in this scene but rather it is more seamless. Another factor that goes with this scene is the music played, which is “Sound of Silence” and “April Come She Will.” Both of these songs have a soft calming tone, which go with Ben’s facial expression, which is expressionless.

Overall this montage shows a lapse in time but also Ben’s current life, he is seamlessly doing nothing and just “drifting” while having an affair with his parent’s friend.