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18 Apr 2012
“Ben, what are you doing?” his father asks from the side of the pool, the first line of dialogue for nearly five minutes, to which Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) leans up from his lilo and says, “Well, I would say I was drifting, here in the pool.” This is not the iconic shot in The Graduate, but it is without a doubt the most powerful. While that shot of Benjamin dwarfed under Mrs. Robinson’s (Anne Bancroft) leg with the (often misquoted) line, “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me” is the more famous, the film is never really about femininity, sexuality or repression – they are merely vices as Benjamin grows apathetic and jaded in his young adulthood; and time after time this is shown through the Braddocks’ pool.