Dead Poet Society - Review

Directed by Peter Weir. Written by Tom Schulman. Starring Robin Williams (John Keating), Robert Sean Leonard (Neil Perry), Ethan Hawke (Todd Anderson).

Bottom line: Dead Poet Society is a powerful and unique motivational movie that I will almost certainly see again.

3.5/4

We open to an opening ceremony held in the chapel of a very old, very traditional, all male, prep school named Welton Academy. Led by a young man playing bagpipes, a line of boys walk to the front of the chapel. Four of them hold banners which state the four pillars of the school: tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence. This staunch tone is reflected in the students (and their parents) of the school. One student, Neil Perry (Leonard), has a domineering father who dictates the course for his son’s life; Neil will go to Welton, then to medical school, then become a doctor.

A new English teacher, John Keating (Williams), was hired to replace the one who had retired. His methods are unorthodox. For one of the first few days of class, he has his students read an excerpt from the introduction of the official poetry textbook. It states that one might plot a graph whose x and y axis is meter and importance, respectively. The “greatness” of a poem can be defined by its placement on that graph. Keating vehemently opposes this notion and, in the spirit of rejection, he has his students tear it out of the book. They are dumbfounded but comply.

Poetry isn’t something you can measure like a height and weight, Keating says, poetry is life. So to teach them about poetry, Keating is teaching them how to live and how to seize the day. His students, in each their own way, are touched by his teaching. Neil Perry, for example, comes to realize that he has always wanted to act and he works to make his dream a reality despite his father’s opposition.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dead Poet Society. This is a motivational movie that hit the spot and departed from what I’ve always associated with motivational subject matter. That is, it wasn’t about an athlete persevering despite physical, emotional, or political obstacles. Not that there’s anything wrong with athletics but Dead Poet Society is refreshing. The use of poetry to develop the idea of living is lovely. It isn’t about them writing poetry, mind you, it is about the students breaking from their repressive molds by learning to appreciate poetry.

Generally, I have mixed feelings about Robin Williams. Sometimes he can be a little much, but his performance as John Keating is fantastic. His antics are silly but not distracting. The acting overall is solid. It is really uplifting to see the students’ eyes light up as they develop a new outlook on life. I also really liked how the movie didn’t feel the need to give much if any epilogue. The students have a new perspective on life and that’s that. The movie doesn’t say “Student X went on to <insert ‘great’ thing>.”

I really liked the music and the cinematography. There is a shot of a fall morning with flocks of birds taking off. The camera cuts over to flocks of students filling the stairwells of the academy on their way to class. Later, after a couple weeks of Keating’s teaching, one of the boys rides his bike down a hill through a flock of birds, disrupting them and causing them to fly. It is a simple yet effective visual metaphor.

The only thing I didn’t really like is how, until obligatory sad portion, everything works out so perfectly. This isn’t anything major but I’ll describe why this is a pet peeve in my discussion post. Other than that, I had no issues with this movie. It got me pumped up and, I suppose, that’s the point of a motivational movie. I’d recommend this for any time, especially if you are feeling a little down.