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Beneath the surface, The Graduate’s subtext is entirely satirical. It criticises both the older generation’s neurotic need for control and the youth’s tendency to find subjectivity in futile defiance. Nichols balances these heavy themes with moments of silly humour, insisting that it is just as important to take a step back and laugh at the moronic innocence of youthful passion and the sententious hypocrisy of adulthood.

The year 1967 was significant in cinema history, and if you're trying to make sense of why, you don't have to look much further than Mike Nichols' The Graduate. It is a film which appears at a great turning point in Hollywood film history, at the moments of transition between one era tied to the strictures of classical storytelling and codes self-imposed censorship, and the beginning of a new American perspective on film influenced by artistic innovations from the cinema of Europe.

The Graduate might seem to belong to another age. But in truth it straddles both the old and the new. It survives not just as a peerless Hollywood entertainment but as a one-of-a-kind cinematic portrait of America when it, like Benjamin Braddock at the edge of his parents' swimming pool, teetered on the brink.

The Graduate completely fails its female characters since their esteem is always filtered through Ben's perspective, but in a way that naturalizes, rather than draws attention to, that representational relationship.

Nichols had made only one previous feature, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, a deliberately claustrophobic chamber piece. Here, he shoots widescreen compositions that use the entire width of the frame to striking effect, and alternates between lengthy choreographed shots and jarring cuts... His use of Simon & Garfunkel's music was equally revolutionary—movies had employed pop songs before, but never by combining one artist's back catalogue with original material composed expressly for the film.

Basically, it operates as a giant confidence trick, with flash shots of discreet nudity to suggest Rabelaisian frankness, a handful of irrelevant protest songs to turn it into a symbol of student revolt, and some lush Lelouch-style photography to give it all a disarming wrapper.

It takes about three minutes – roughly the length of time it takes Hoffman to get down the moving walkway to Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence and from the airport to the suffocating atmosphere of his graduation party, where he gets gradually trapped into a relationship with one of his parents' friends – to realise that The Graduate is actually a very nasty film, and a very, very funny one.

This undeniable crowd-pleaser never digs particularly deep—something especially evident in the treatment of its most iconic character. As conceived, Mrs. Robinson is pure cougar caricature, all bra-strap tan lines, predatory poses and garish wardrobe—yet Bancroft makes her into a robustly tragic figure, a shattered woman saddled with a life she never wanted and all too aware of her fading bloom.

Director Mike Nichols lets the film unfold in unbroken takes of long, awkward exchanges that give way to highly stylized moments and time-compressing montages set to songs by Simon And Garfunkel. The disparate approaches shouldn't work together, but the film thrives on its contradictions.

It is to his lasting credit and Nichol's belief in the symbiosis of opposites that his portrayal of Benjamin Braddock has become a benchmark performance, heralding an era of anti-heroes. Ben's evolution throughout the film from virginal wet rag to self-possessed leading man is cleverly and credibly conceived.

For the actors, this set-up brings out tantalising performances that can only be rivalled by the achingly witty script. Director Mike Nichols provides a masterclass in using the widescreen frame to elucidate complex emotional situations with ease and understatement.

It ushered many lamentably flashy stylistic tics into the canon of American filmmaking. Regular assaults on the eye and ear are guaranteed by Nichols' ceaseless recourse to a fast zoom lens, and his penchant for meaningless montages (Ben walking, driving, pondering blankly) to fill out the bits where Simon and Garfunkel's famous songs take command of the soundtrack.