Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate, Kramer vs. Kramer, Rain Man) just wanted to say one word to the huge crowd that came out to see him at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in the Czech Republic on Saturday: Plastics.
Sorry, I got carried away there by the famous line from the iconic The Graduate, a special screening of which Hoffman introduced on Saturday. No, the Hollywood legend had quite a bit more to say to an adoring audience in the Grand Hall of the Hotel Thermal, the legendary “headquarters” of the Czech festival, which welcomed him with a rousing standing ovation.
Asked how he got cast in The Graduate, Hoffman replied: “It was an accident. Mike Nichols was the director of the moment. He was like Steven Spielberg today.” But the filmmaker faced a casting challenge. “He had spent almost two years looking for this person that was to be the graduate, and after two years, I know this because he wrote it later in his autobiography: he was willing to say we can’t make it, and he was going to not make the film.”
Lucky timing then? “Literally, the last day he was going to see people, it was my turn and Katharine Ross’ turn,” the actor recalled. “Had we been there two years before, we would not have gotten the role.”
Since the movie came out in 1967, can it still provide inspiration for people in their 20s today? “It’s actually the same,” Hoffman argued, highlighting that Charles Webb’s novella, on which the movie is based, was written in 1964. That was “before the Vietnam crisis, which divided America as it is divided today.”
About the state of mind of people in their 20s, the Hollywood legend offered: “I don’t think we know who we are when we are in our early 20s. … And the idea is that we spend years trying to find out who am I, and I think I’m still trying to find out.”
Hoffman on Saturday also highlighted a key social and societal aspect explored in The Graduate. “The parents were coming out of the Great Depression of the 1930s when no one could get a job, and suddenly now, because of the war, they were able to work, and instead of giving themselves, they gave objects. So the generation that was living then was not given love – they were given objects.”
During the Friday opening ceremony in the double anniversary year of KVIFF, its 60th edition in the 80th year, Hoffman had been honored with the fest’s Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contributions to World Cinema.
He is one of many stars attending the Czech fest, which runs July 3-11 this year. Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Bride!, The Lost Daughter, Secretary, The Honourable Woman) received its President’s Award on Friday night, followed by Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, A Real Pain) on Saturday. Harvey Keitel (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs) was also among the famous names walking the expanded red carpet of the festival in the Czech spa town on Friday. Also scheduled to visit the festival over the next week are the likes of Juliette Binoche, cinematographer Robert Richardson, Jeffrey Wright, and Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick.
