Compare And Contrast Coming Of Age Films

The Graduate and Dead Poet’s Society are both coming of age films. Although they both share a similar theme, they are quite different in relationship issues, messages from adults to teens, camera work, and power shifts. Coming of age films can be completely different from each other in many ways. Even though coming of age films may not share the same characteristics, they all have one purpose. The purpose of coming of age films is to show empathy to teens and young adults.
One way of how they are different is of the relationship issues. In The Graduate, Ben had relationship issues with pretty much everyone. He had problems with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, Elaine, and even himself. In Dead Poet’s Society, the boys only had a relationship …show more content…
In The Graduate, the message is straightforward from all the adults. All the adults want Ben to do what they want him to do. They all want Ben to act like an adult, but they all make his decisions. In Dead Poet’s Society, all the adults were conveying different messages. The school administration and teachers would tell the kids to act a certain way and to listen to the rules. On the other hand, Mr. Keating would tell them to think for themselves, do what they want to do, and express their own feelings. Also, Neil’s dad would tell him not to do anymore extra curricular activities while Mr. Keating would tell him to go for it. The messages from The Graduate were more clear than those in Dead Poet’s Society. This shows teens that you will get mixed messages from adults, but learning how to cope with them is what’s …show more content…
The Graduate possessed a lot more dramatic camera shots, such as the point of view shot when Ben was scuba diving, and the extreme close of when he was shaving. These camera shots show that the director wants to get a certain message across. The point of view shot was shown to convey the way Ben was feeling versus how everyone else was feeling. Ben was super quiet and it was clearly shown that he was not excited to go diving while everyone else was ecstatic. The extreme close up happened while he was shaving right after the night he was with Mrs. Robinson. Ben’s mom was asking him where he’s been. In the extreme close up, you can tell that he starts to get nervous because he hesitates and cuts himself shaving. In Dead Poet’s Society, the camera work was much more smooth and a lot less noticeable. There were plenty of medium shots and medium-long shots; nothing that stands out. There were also a couple of montages in The Graduate while Dead Poet’s Society didn’t have any. It seemed like whenever “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel would come on, there would be a montage in The Graduate. The camera work was more noticeable in The Graduate than Dead Poet’s