"Carpie Diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."
This quote is probably the most famous line from Touch Stone's 1989 classic, Dead Poets Society. Starring the semi-newcomer Ethan Hawke, and the talented Robin Williams as the English professor everyone wants to have at least once during their education career, Dead Poets Society takes place at an all boys Catholic boarding school in the 1950s. The story focuses on a group of boys and their experience with their new English teacher, Professor Keating.
This film is excellent; a bit overrated but excellent all the same. The story is wonderful, the direction is exemplary, the characters are magnificent, and the score and visuals are absolutely gorgeous. I have a love for boarding school stories which makes me a bit bias toward this story but hey, we are all biased in one way or another. I can't quite comprehend my attachment to this particular trope. Perhaps it is the idea of being overnight like being away at camp that excites me...after all, my years going away to overnight camp are some of the best memories of my teenage years. There always seems to be a foreign yet wonderful aspect to boarding school stories that makes them so fantastical to me and bring back my own memories from staying at camp overnight. The film also carries a very novel quality to it which is illustrated through all aspects of the film from the reflective score to the colorful personalities dubbed to each character.
A topic widely debated about this film is the issue of the main character. Many believe it is Neal or Professor Keating, but many also believe it is Todd. I would have to agree with the latter. While all of the characters are set up with conflict, it is Todd who sheds his cocoon and turns into a butterfly. Okay, all cheesy metaphors aside, Todd starts out as a shy young man who is weighted down by the expectations set forth by his older brother. While I can't relate to the older sibling aspect of Todd, I can relate to his shyness and his desire to take his teacher seriously. I too would have been like Todd and I forged a connection with him right away. But while Todd shows the most growth, the other characters grow too within the confines of their story. Too often movies will create side characters that only exist to push the plot forward and they become generic caricatures. This is why Dead Poets is so novel. It shows Knox trying to get the girl and it shows Neal struggling to defy his father in a healthy way and it shows Professor Keating struggling against conformity; but in the end it all comes back to Todd who is shown in the film's film shot. The characters are not simple and the film
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| Todd in the final shot of the film |
doesn't set it up that way which in itself is revolutionary. In most films, if the character isn't a main one then we only see the side character with our main character. It is a trope that isn't bad but none the less a trope, but this movie defied that and said, "Hey, you are gonna see clips of these kids whether they are the main characters or not!" It is almost as if the film is asking the viewer to decide themselves who the main character is.
The character Professor Keating is the sort of Professor everyone dreams of having, someone who shakes things up and shows why learning is fun. While other Professor's are telling the boys to hang their heads, listen and sit down, Keating invites them to stand. He promotes freedom of thought which is the true purpose of this film, not Carpe Diem as so many believe. My favorite scene in the film is called Find Your Own Walk where Keating has the boys do a walking exercise to metaphorically demonstrate what it means to conform while also telling the boys to think for themselves. He goes beyond simply reading words from a page (which isn't bad, don't get me wrong. I love to read words off pages) but makes poetry physical through sports, classical through music, and communal like friendship. This belief of standing up is also well represented by the many shots of birds taking flight throughout the film. Robin Williams's subtle humor and authentic portrayal of Keating shines! This is easily one of his best roles.
What makes the film enjoyable to the eyes and the ears are the warm colors consistently used and the quietly reflective score. The film is full of reds and oranges and browns and seems to have an essence of autumn. Autumn is often a symbol of wisdom. Warm colors are often used to convey simple optimistic scenes or strong violent scenes, both of which exist in
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| Keating wears red |
this movie. Red is a color of love, passion, joy and power emphasized by Keating who is seen many a time with red in his tie, his scarf and in one scene he even wears a red sweater. Gold is a very traditional color that represents riches and tradition while orange promotes change (like the leaves in autumn), health and energy. All of these are represented in the movie. Brown and black are also warm colors and used a lot in the movie.
The score is of quiet reflection and it's simple beauty is something to behold. It provides a certain haunting quality to the film that clashes well with the religious undertones and historical setting. There are a few primary instruments being used, being the bagpipes, the flute, the harp, and the harpsichord. The bagpipes are the most prominent in the film and are known for their Scottish routes and also being used at funerals. I will return to this idea in a moment. The harp and the flute sound very naturalistic. When I was younger I used to watch an English dubbed version of an Austrian Pippi Longstocking film and in the movie the children were running away and this soft melody of a flute played as they traveled through the woods. While that movie is awful, it does hold a piece of me and does speak to this idea of using simple music to express simple emotions. The flute especially makes you feel as if you are at the school watching the trees blow in the breeze and as if you are surrounded by nature. It is a refreshing sound like drinking water on a hot day and makes you feel as if you have disconnected from all of the technology that holds you back and doesn't let you "seize the day!". The harpsichord provides a very old sound that seems to represent the school itself as it is very old and very tradition and very strict. This score very much reminds me of Dario Marianelli's score for the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice. It is so simple and beautiful and moving that it seems to transport you into this realm where you are alone in nature and in peace. I guess that is a good word for the score, peaceful.
The religious imagery in the film is very fascinating to me. Going back to the bagpipes for a moment, the film starts out with bagpipes which as I said above are often used at funerals. This leads me to believe that the film is starting out with death and ending with death, but death is different in each instance. In the beginning, the boys are all dead to themselves. By the end, they have killed their insecurities (or at least are on the way to doing so) and are becoming alive. The bagpipes are heard very loudly at the very beginning and at the very end when the credits begin. Keating himself is a Christ figure. His dangerous teachings very much embody the character of Christ who also taught very dangerous things for his time. The religious imagery becomes very heavy handed with Neal's death as he places the crown of thorns on his head. This is the only part of the film I found to move into movie-ism cliche, when Neal died. His parents reaction was shot in such a way that reminded me of comedies. Perhaps these comedies I am thinking of subconsciously were made after this film and so it wasn't cliche when it was made but the slow motion shouting felt a bit out of place. I also found Todd's snow walking to be a bit Hollywood but at the same time, that scene was also beautiful. I should also note that the film ends in winter, a season that often personifies death which ties back to the bagpipes being used.
One last thing to mention is the narrative transformation used in the movie. Narrative transformation is something used when the artist is setting up something one way and then later flipping it on the audience. In the beginning of the film we see Mr. Nolan as a respectable figure we can look up to and the boys see Keating as a joke. By the end of the film, most of the boys show an incredible respect for Keating while we as the audience see Nolan in an entirely new and almost evil light.
To put it simply, this film about poetry is executed as poetry. As a lover of novels, I often look for novel aspects in the things I immerse myself in. But the novel can also be poetic as can music and video games and even film. This movie is brilliant. It is definitely a favorite of mine. Not only is the film itself a work of art, but Robin Williams is amazing and it is about literature/poetry which is my forte. It can't get any better than this! This film definitely gets an A+ from me!
