Summary
The following scene is an extended erotic dream sequence, shifting fluidly between time and place. First we see Benjamin lying in the bed at the Taft in a white button down shirt, which Mrs. Robinson comes over and unbuttons. She caresses his bare torso. The scene shifts back to the Braddock residence, and Benjamin closes the door to have more privacy from his parents and watch television in peace as “The Sounds of Silence” ends. The scene shifts yet again, zooming out to reveal Benjamin in bed watching television in the room at the Taft, sipping a beer. A different Simon and Garfunkel song plays, and we see Mrs. Robinson cross in front of the television in a white bra, then come back the other direction putting on a white shirt, then finally putting on her jacket and leaving the room. The camera zooms in on a close up of Benjamin’s face as he smokes a cigarette. As the perspective shifts outward, we now see Benjamin is back in his bedroom in his parents’ house. He gets up and puts on a swimsuit and throws a towel over his shoulder, going downstairs to the pool.
As Benjamin makes his way to the pool, Mrs. Braddock turns from arranging white flowers in a vase to watch him dive in off the diving board. Benjamin is shown in tight close-up swimming through the pool, and when he swoops up towards the camera, the scene quickly shifts to show him lying on top of Mrs. Robinson. We hear Mr. Braddock’s voice asking Ben, “Ben, what are you doing?” as Ben looks up to where his father’s voice is coming from. With the sun positioned right behind his head, Mr. Braddock is shown standing above Benjamin on the flotation device. Benjamin tells his skeptical father that “it’s very comfortable just to drift here.” When his father asks if he’s considered graduate school, Benjamin says he has not, which frustrates Mr. Braddock. Mr. Braddock has grown impatient with Benjamin’s aimlessness, urging him to “take some stock in himself…and start to think about getting off his ass.” Mr. Braddock’s rant is interrupted by Mrs. Braddock, who announces that the Robinsons have just arrived at the house.
Benjamin looks up at the backlit silhouette of Mr. Robinson, who greets him in a friendly manner. When Benjamin says that he has not been up to much, Mr. Robinson mutters to himself, “that’s what I’d do, if I could,” and then tells Benjamin that he should call his daughter Elaine when she is in town the following week. Ben agrees, before his mother asks him to say hello to Mrs. Robinson. Mrs. Robinson is shown in near-silhouette, wearing large sunglasses, and the two greet each other cordially, as the scene transitions to show Benjamin shaving in a steamy bathroom.
Mrs. Braddock comes into the bathroom to speak to Benjamin while he shaves. She cautiously asks him where he goes when he goes out at night, which catches Benjamin by surprise. While she tells him that he does not have to tell her if he does not want to, he assures her that he drives around at night. Pressing him further, Mrs. Braddock asks what else he does, as he certainly cannot drive around until noon. Mrs. Braddock asks if he has met someone, which causes Benjamin to cut his finger with his razor. Benjamin denies that he has met anyone, which only seems to upset his mother who says she would rather he not say anything than be dishonest. Even though she came for answers, Mrs. Braddock leaves asking Benjamin not to explain himself.
In a jump cut with rather Freudian logic, Benjamin asks his mother to “wait a minute,” as the scene changes to a dark hotel room in which Benjamin is asking Mrs. Robinson to “wait a minute” before they begin having sex. Benjamin leans over Mrs. Robinson to turn on the light, asking if they could talk a little before jumping into intercourse. Mrs. Robinson assures him that they don’t have much to say to each other. The more Benjamin prods her to have a conversation, the more she wryly mocks him, at one point asking, “Do you want to tell me about some of your college experiences?” Mrs. Robinson lights a cigarette as Benjamin asks her to think of a topic. Mrs. Robinson flips off the light and posits, “how about art?” which pleases Benjamin. When he asks her to start the conversation, she assures him that she does not know anything about art, and that she is interested in neither modern nor classical art.
Sensing a dead end, Benjamin reorients the conversation, asking Mrs. Robinson what she did that day. Sighing, she tells him she got up and made breakfast for her husband, which prompts Ben to ask her more about her relationship with her husband and the ways she is able to choreograph leaving the house every night. Mrs. Robinson reveals that they have separate bedrooms, which piques Benjamin’s curiosity further. When he asks her why she married Mr. Robinson in the first place, she says, “See if you can guess.” Still confused, Benjamin slowly puzzles together that Mr. and Mrs. Robinson got married because she got pregnant, and Mrs. Robinson tells Benjamin not to tell Elaine. When Benjamin presses her for more details, Mrs. Robinson insists they go to bed, but eventually reveals that she met Mr. Robinson when she was an art major and he was a law student at the same college. Benjamin realizes that Mrs. Robinson’s disdain in art has been cultivated over many years in a loveless marriage dominated by obligation. Benjamin finally gets Mrs. Robinson to admit that she conceived Elaine in a car, and Benjamin is delighted to learn that the car was a Ford.
Mrs. Robinson refuses to talk about Elaine, which confuses Benjamin, and when Benjamin mentions he plans to take Elaine out on a date, Mrs. Robinson becomes furious, abruptly turning on the light and grabbing his hair, telling him to never take Elaine out on a date. Benjamin jumps out of bed and asks Mrs. Robinson why he is forbidden from taking Elaine out, to which she replies, “I have my reasons,” and puffs anxiously on her cigarette. Insulted, Benjamin says he suspects Mrs. Robinson of not thinking he is good enough for Elaine, and his anger crescendos until he pulls off the sheet that is covering Mrs. Robinson’s naked body. Finally Mrs. Robinson agrees that she does not think Benjamin is good enough for Elaine, and the two argue, Benjamin finally calling Mrs. Robinson a “broken down alcoholic” and calling their affair “the sickest, most perverted thing” that ever happened to him, a side effect of boredom. Her feelings hurt, Mrs. Robinson asks Benjamin if he really thinks of her as sick and disgusting. When Benjamin tells her he is angry because she implied that he is not worthy of Elaine, Mrs. Robinson apologizes and insists that she did not mean it, as Benjamin puts on his blazer to leave.
Mrs. Robinson elegantly puts on her stockings, as Benjamin stands looking at her on the bed, now disappointed that she is choosing to leave, in spite of having threatened to leave her just a moment ago. Expressing contrition, Benjamin attempts to apologize and make amends, and Mrs. Robinson limply tells him that she understands why she is “disgusting” to him. After Benjamin assures her that he does feel affection for her and would not keep coming to the hotel if he actually found her “disgusting,” Mrs. Robinson is shown smiling on the bed, and asks permission to stay. Benjamin agrees, sheepishly telling her that he wants her to stay. Having regained her control of Benjamin, Mrs. Robinson flips her hair back, and makes him promise to never ask Elaine out. Again agitated by Mrs. Robinson’s controlling request, Benjamin moans and groans before finally agreeing. Mrs. Robinson takes off her stockings, and Benjamin tells her he does not want to talk anymore.
In the following scene we find Benjamin sitting at the kitchen counter as his mother cooks and his father drinks his coffee. His father tells Benjamin that Elaine is back from school, and that he ought to ask her out. When Benjamin remains silent, Mrs. Braddock shoots him a look and glances at Mr. Braddock. The scene shifts to the three Braddocks in the pool, Benjamin floating on the raft with the scuba mask on, and his parents floating beside him, pressing him about why he doesn’t want to ask out Elaine. His father questions him about his mysteriously busy evenings and threatens to tell Mr. Robinson that Ben is just too busy with “God knows what” to ask Elaine out on a date. Benjamin pushes his head underwater in protest, and when his mother insists that if he doesn’t take her out, she will invite all of the Robinsons over to their house, Benjamin slides off the raft and submerges himself underwater.
The sound of a doorbell transports us to the Robinson residence, as the camera zooms down the hallway towards a visibly distressed Mrs. Robinson, smoking and reading a magazine. Mr. Robinson can be heard greeting Benjamin at the door for his date with Elaine as the camera closes in on Mrs. Robinson, her eyes narrowed, and her cigarette burning into a long ash. Her gaze is threatening and she ignores Benjamin as he greets her. Mrs. Robinson watches “The Newlywed Game,” and Mr. Robinson pours Benjamin a bourbon. When Mr. Robinson goes to check on Elaine, Benjamin surreptitiously whispers to Mrs. Robinson that none of this was his idea. Mrs. Robinson remains coldly disapproving, even as Benjamin tries to explain his case. They are interrupted by the arrival of Elaine, who greets Benjamin as her mother looks on, fuming.
Analysis
After the affair has begun, the audience sees a fundamental shift in Benjamin’s behavior and confidence, as he becomes much less nervous and more self-assured, if no less lazy. The dream sequence, in which the scenes shift back and forth between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson’s erotic entanglements and Benjamin’s leisurely afternoons at home, highlights this change in Benjamin. He is no longer the worried, nervous college graduate who could barely stand to be at his own party, but rather a careless indulger, floating on a pool raft and drinking in the middle of the day. In this way, the film equates sex—and particularly sex between a young man and an older woman—with transformation, confidence, and an unusual brand of coming-of-age. Benjamin does not necessarily become a full-born swaggering playboy or a self-assured professional, but he can derive a sense of self from his erotic abilities after beginning his affair with Mrs. Robinson.
in the scene of Mrs. Robinson and Benjamin’s confrontation, we again see the use of visibility and perspective as integral to Mike Nichols’ storytelling. In the clumsy conversation that Benjamin attempts to initiate, the two flip the lights on and off on one another, at moments that reflect their alternate discomfort and disapproval. Benjamin turns on the light to get the conversation started, and Mrs. Robinson continually turns it off when she is pressed to be more emotionally revealing. The moment Mrs. Robinson does finally turn the light on is when Benjamin references asking Elaine out on a date. Visibly upset, Mrs. Robinson turns on the light and pulls Benjamin’s hair, and it remains vague how much of her emotion is protectiveness and how much is jealousy. The use of perspective and distance is again used to illuminate Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson’s relationship when Benjamin is shown looking at Mrs. Robinson’s foregrounded legs as she puts on her stockings. The stockings, symbols of Mrs. Robinson’s sexual appeal and feminine seductiveness, become the focal point of the shot, and reveal Benjamin’s ambivalence around leaving the hotel room, the site of their taboo affair.
After Mrs. Robinson has put on her stockings and regained her power, the camera angle shifts to Benjamin’s side of the room, and we see her sitting on the bed. Having threatened to leave, Mrs. Robinson is able to feel her own power yet again. In the face of a bumbling and nervous Benjamin, she is once again smiling and receptive. When Mrs. Robinson is in control of the situation, she feels generous, and willing. She only wants to keep sleeping with Benjamin if she can get insurance that he will never ask Elaine out. Even though Benjamin hesitantly assents, Mrs. Robinson’s coercive tactics have dampened his warmth, and he no longer wants to have a conversation.
The swimming pool once again features as a central site of Benjamin’s emotional struggle. While the beginning of this section of the film shows Benjamin floating across the top of the pool, worry-free and indignantly slothful, it is not long until he is submerged again. Caught in between his promise to Mrs. Robinson and the urgings of his parents to ask Elaine out, he descends into the pool, wearing a scuba mask, and floating under the surface. He is at once lost and captive, unable to make a decision for himself, trapped in a complete catch-22. The swimming pool symbolizes his relative ability to feel control over his own actions and decisions. Even though Mrs. Robinson and her erotic power held the initial key to Benjamin’s feeling a sense of control, her powers and the expectations of his parents thwart him soon enough.
In spite of the drama becoming heated and complex, the film remains comic and retains a light touch. When Benjamin becomes despondent, realizing that he will not be able to avoid disappointing either his parents or Mrs. Robinson, he dons the clownish scuba mask and takes his place on the pool raft. Benjamin’s despair has a comic tone, always highlighting his neurosis and adolescent response to conflict. Similarly, while Mrs. Robinson’s visible disapproval of Benjamin’s date with Elaine is cutting and terrifying, the drama of her tragic repose and the camera’s rapid zoom in on her scowl are surprisingly humorous. Anne Bancroft manages to push Mrs. Robinson's jealousy and contempt to such an extreme, that we are simultaneously amused and horrified. As tense as the dramatic stakes are, they are also absurd, and the tone of the film skillfully toes the line between comedy and drama. The film’s intelligent and dark humor make it a classic.
