There are certain films that get under your skin, never to come out. They change your life, subtly altering your perceptions of reality, almost always for the better.
Dead Poets Society is one of those few films.
One of the greatest movies ever made. It starts off very nonchalant. But before you know it you're getting pulled in emotionally, empathy with the students and teacher is on overdrive. You feel what they feel. You cry what they cry. The way this movie grabs you without you even realising. It's a masterpiece. Some of the greatest directing and production you'll ever watch.
I've watched this movie more than 5 times and I cried in every single one of them. It is beautiful, amazing, inspirational and with a great message! Definitely a solid 10!
I know this film teaches you to dream, but it also shows just how dangerous dreaming can be when the real world so often, effectively and nonchalantly kills every last bit of belief and hope we let ourselves have as kids, as we grow up. Neil’s death is unbelievably painful to watch now after the world lost one of its greats, sir Robin Williams, in such a similar fashion. I guess we’re all lucky to have an entire film dedicated to how incredible and inspiring that man was. O captain, my captain!
This makes me sad. I miss Robin Williams.
[8.3/5] Youth is a magnifying glass. It heightens everything, at a time when you have less control over yourself or experience to know how to deal with that. Adolescence in particular is a fraught time in almost anyone’s life, where the emotions a person experiences as a child become so much stronger and heavier that it becomes a challenge to tame them, and the new feelings and impulses that come with looming adulthood can be too much to bear. The world gives teenagers mechanisms to cope with this – some degree of structure and guy-wires to avoid the worst excesses of those wild, harrowing emotions from creating lasting damage, and opportunities to blow off the steam generated from all that heat.
Dead Poets Society sets these two things against each other. It frames order and structure – exemplified by the stuffy boarding school that provides the film’s setting – as the boogeyman. It frames Welton Academy as a factory producing of group-thinking automotons, made to rule the world while keeping at removes from its deepest, most invigorating joys in the name of grim, sullen preparation for the challenges of the years to come.
And in the other corner is the right to think freely. English teacher Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) is certainly interested in teaching his students poetry, and the way verse and language can create the very sort of release valve and gateway to life examined that young men and women need. But he is just as interested in teaching them to pursue their passions, to free them from the surly bonds that decades of repressive, “right-thinking” tradition have trapped them within, and threaten to cement in their final years of preparatory school.
There is a part of me that wants to resist this dichotomy. There is something about the protean fire of youth that makes it easy to embrace the notion that any and all instruction or guidance exists only to limit you from being what you truly are, instead trying to cram you into some given set of molds, regardless of whether you fit. But that is reductive, and while that approach can make it thrilling when the set of boys at the center of the film throw off the shackles of their institution and misbehave in the name of sucking the marrow from the bones of existence, it turns the school and its officials and anyone on the other side into one-dimensional agents of conformity.
And yet, a few things save it from such binary, black and white evil sinking the film. First among them is Robin Williams. In almost any other hands, Mr. Keating would be an instant cliché – the unorthodox instructor who gives his students new perspective on the world. But my word, Williams is electric here.
No one would call him restrained in his performance. His different readings of Shakespeare even allow him a moment to burst out the rapid-fire impersonation energy that made him famous. But there is a knowing quality in Williams throughout, cutting the image of a man who is at once trying to teach these young men to think for themselves and to seize the day, but also truly empathetic and understanding of the forces working against them, of the challenges they face and the difficulties they may endure in the process.
It is in this that the film seems to reveal that its creators know there’s more than the adversarial conformists vs. freethinkers tropes it dresses itself in. It’s no coincidence that the film is set at the dawn of the 1960s, a time where Mr. Keating’s ideas, rooted in the classics though they may be, would shake the foundations of the United States and the culture within it in ways that improved the lives of countless, but which visited many hardships and growing pains along the way.
The film’s cinematography helps convey the way in which these ideas were radical. Much of the camera movement throughout the film is steady, arguable even traditional, particularly within the halls of Welton.
The main auditorium in particular is framed with a man on high, looking back at a horde of young men sitting in unison. But in moments where Keating’s teachings are taking hold, whether it be in his prompting Todd Anderson (Ethan Hakwe) to dig deep and find that freethinking fire within him to create a lovely (if implausible) verse from within, or in Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) stealing Todd’s book and starting a parade with it around the dorm room, the camera swirls endlessly, communicating the dizzying ways in which Keating’s philosophy has unmoored these young men.
And yet it is in the limits and complications of Keating’s views that the film finds its complexity. That comes with Neil’s suicide. It is an expectedly tragic moment, where the vision of possibility Keating opened his mind to clashes with the rigid life his father promises him, to a bloody climax. The pain of that loss is felt among the young men who embraced the titular society and its viewpoint, and it is an opportunity for the film to turn the school administrators into scapegoating evildoers there to root out the source of any dissent or novel thought.
But it gives dimension to the man who arguably causes Neil’s suicide. Rather than being another boogeyman, Neil’s father (Kurtwood Smith) is given understandable motivations. Neil admits that he’s limited in the ways he can break out given that his family is not as wealthy as most others there; Mr. Perry tells Neil that Neil has opportunities he never had, and part of the father’s rigidity stems from a fear that the chance for a better life, for greater comfort and acceptance than Mr. Perry ever had, could be flushed away. There is a subtle class critique, one that suggests the halls of power do not just blunt those who walk through them, but the people who struggle to get into them as well.
And it gives dimension to Mr. Keating as well. It is telling that after the school’s headmaster seeks to blame Mr. Keating, rather than the sclerotic confines of the school, for Neil’s suicide and run him out on that account, we never see Mr. Keating fight it. That would taint him in some way. Instead, we see the boys inspired by him rally and defend and even get expelled for him, a sign that he is still with them, even if he’ll no longer be with him. But Keating himself never puts up any resistance that we’re a party to.
Instead, all we see is that he mourns the loss of Neil and thanks the young men in his care for their show of affection and solidarity. There is no hint of resentment or disdain, only guilt and gratitude. As rife for parody as the moment has been, it is still inspiring when those boys stand up on their desks and say “O Captain, My Captain,” a testament to the impact this man made on their lives in just a brief time.
The fires of youth are a double-edged sword. They can lead to limitless creativity, to embrace of possibility, and also to ruin. The balance of these things, the measure of them, is as impossible to prescribe or proscribe as it is to try to plot poetry on an XY-axis. Dead Poets Society embraces that fire, in the way that a small spark can start a conflagration that lets young men pursue their passions, seek out love, and find poetry within themselves, but also in the way it can burn, and take promising young lives with it.
What can I say? Gay excellence.
Never forgotten Robin Williams! This movie was very special with great messages and good directing.Must watch i would say 8.5/10
it’s such a beautiful movie i don’t have words to describe it. everyone sould watch it.
This is the best movie of all the time.
Absolutely brilliant.
It's good, but it's not History Boys good.
Wow a hell of a film
fucking beautiful and five more words
Blasphemous movie, with silly story, that can be related in 15 sec.
It's a waste of data and time
❞Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys.
Make your lives extraordinary.❞
This is the movie i was born to watch.
What a movie
O Captain! My Captain!
It would have be great to see a scene with Todd and Mr. Keating explaining Keating's affinity for him. Just in general, I would have liked to see Todd have more screen time given that they introduced him as being the main character yet I felt Neil was much more prominent. It is odd because Todd felt kind of unimportant to the entire film except for the obvious effect that Mr. Keating had on him given that he seemed to not have a great relationship with his parents. I will say, though, it was nice how straightforward the story was, making every minute enjoyable to watch.
One of the first good movies I remember watching, will always be in my memory
Beautiful movie that makes it obvious that there will never be another Robin Williams. I don’t have to say anything more than that. Everyone deserves a teacher like this in their life and it sure made me appreciate the one I had years ago. A true mentor.
I saw this movie when I was maybe 14 in school and I didn't care for it at the time but I loved almost every minute of it this time. Robin Williams' character is just so much fun and interesting to watch and listen to. All the teenage actors are amazing and it was cool to see a young Ethan Hawke. The ending is iconic and gave me chills. I can see myself rewatching thise more often now as I try to carpe every diem.
When I first saw 'Dead Poets' Society' in school many years ago, I didn't particularly like the movie. Admittedly, it was a bit too boring for me. As an adult, I can appreciate the strong performances and the engaging story a bit more. But I still don't think it's all that great. In my opinion, the plot lacks depth, and Robin Williams' quirks don't always fit in well with the overall narrative. I was also bored again several times, so I was never really able to form a strong connection with the characters. I can think of numerous coming-of-age films that I like much better.
Neil shot himself because despite his natural abilities he would've never been able to pursue his dream. What's the point of life without the chance to fulfill one's dreams?
There's lots of similar messages below the surface in this movie. Really enjoyed it.
The movie that started my love for cinemas in my youth. Slow start, but it pulls you in... and the ending leaves you hurting and standing on a desk.
This movie proves that the biggest enemy in life is old white men. Also, that ending was not what I expected considering the movie's first half was so happy-go-lucky.
He walked with vigour
Like the sun was thee,
Carving the stellar boys
Freeing them from agony!!>
These are the words that flowed like the stream of my thoughts. What a brilliant way to break free from the world of the realistic bullshits. Loved evety second.Can feel the rushes and emotions of the young minds being one.It’s like a wake up call for the Young Souls.And I feel like the distressed sailor of the endangered ship.And calling out to Mr. Keating “O Captain,My Captain!Save us..”
And he’s like showing the way and shouting
❝Carpe Diem,Boys❞.......
Movie tries hard to be inspirational and tradition breaking, but to me it just felt corny and off. A movie directed at the mass, and well it did achieve basically achieve its goal. Got popular and has a high rating. On any closer inspection though it simply falls apart as a dumb high school drama. 5/10
Dis flick is a real beaut, eh? It's aboot an off-the-wall teach who inspires his prep school hosers to seize the day. Robin Williams is a total hoser as Mr. Keating, who gets his students to form a secret club called the Dead Poets Society. They have some rip-roarin' times sneakin' out at night, cuttin' loose, and readin' poetry in a cave. Makes ya wanna go out and recite some poems yourself!
But it gets real heavy when one of the guys offs himself cause his old man is a real square. Bummer, eh? There's some deep stuff in here aboot thinkin' for yourself and livin' life to the full. She's a reel tearjerker in parts. But overall it's a corker of a flick. I'd give'r two thumbs up! So watch it, ya hosers!
the face neil makes after mr keating makes todd improvise that poem in class.... those were the most beautiful heart eyes i’ve ever seen, that boy was in love
Way too kitschy, most of this simply reads as corny to me. Feel good fluff is probably one of the hardest genres to get right, because as a filmmaker you have to find that right level of schmaltz, with there being a thin line between soulful/honest and corny/disingenuous. This movie’s direction and writing don’t really find that balance, a lot of it is very over the top and tasteless with the moments of (melo)drama later in the film coming across as forced and emotionally manipulative. It's very much aimed at a mass audience, this is not a refined, smart film. Regardless, Robin Williams is a big bright spot, I think we can all agree he’s pretty great in it. The younger cast, while clearly talented, often fall victim to Weir’s directing choices. The camerawork is nothing special, a lot of it looks like basic coverage and the skintones are oddly pink looking (could just be my copy, but I doubt that). When it comes to the story, I definitely see the value in what it’s communicating about the value of poetry, but the overall sequence of events I found fairly predictable. I also think its themes have been executed more interestingly in some of the later Harry Potter films.
4/10
I feel heartbroken and empty, yet content and nostalgic.
I want to talk about this movie to all my friends and have all of them watch it and cry and reflect on their lives. My god. Robert Sean Leonard and Robin Williams did phenomenally, but Ethan Hawke stole the show for me. God, his character feels so real. I had so many goosebumps.
Immediately my all time favourite movie, bumping Perks of Being a Wallflower to spot two (and that's not an easy feat)
I found it slow and boring, sorry! Didn't really care for the any of the characters or anything...
very good, everyone should watch it
I love this movie. I love every scene, every shot. The cinematography was INSANE like the colors and everything complement so well.
Also, I need a whole paragraph just to talk about RSL as Neil Perry. LIKE HOW I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT HIM UNTIL DR HOUSE?
I need a Neil Perry in my life asap. JUSTICE FOR NEIL, LIKE... WHY? This film broke my heart in million pieces, but at the same time made me fell in love with RSL and poetry.
pd: Anderperry :100:
and they were roomates...
A wonderful epology about universal values, including the appreciation of the fullness of life, and not falling into conformism and indifference.
A very particular teacher and some students who discover life.
It’s okay, it is a good movie. But not as life-changing as everyone saying! Sorry If I offended anyone, but I think it’s pretty overrated.
Awesome movie, every student must watch. "Carpe diem" !.
if this doesn't change your life, i don't know what will.
I watched this movie for the first time not too long ago, and finally got around to my second viewing. I will confirm it was as good on the second watch as the first. First and foremost, I am a sucker for Robin Williams movies and I am shocked it too me so long to watch this. However, it is still far from my favorite of his movies despite enjoying it so much. It’s well acted and a great script, as expected. Reminded me a lot of Mr Holland’s Opus. It was also nice to see young Ethan Hawke killing his role. I will definitely watch again and I would recommend it!
Rating: 3.5/5 - 8/10 - Would Recommend
I wish they further explored the stories of each of the students especially Todd, Chris and Knoxx.
I love everything in it from plot to execution.
Also I enjoyed how they executed the Neil's death, I've watched so many movies & shows but never saw anything like that.
love it but why did he have to die though
A fine story well told
A fairly by-the-books tale of adolescence, uncertainty, self-discovery and clashes with authority that rises to greater things on the backs of a few dynamic performances. Central to it all is Robin Williams, of course, in a role that showed the world he could play for more than laughs, but don't overlook the dramatic chops of the kids, either. An extremely young Ethan Hawke is the focus, and he shines, but I found more versatility in Robert Sean Leonard's tragic turn as his brash, social, get-things-done roommate.
A setting in the conservative 1950s excuses many of the film's indulgences, grounding it as a period piece with flashes of the cultural revolution that was already on the way, but also adds a certain sense of natural charm and classic Americana to the mix. It can be quite dark, but also very optimistic, and expertly handles that difficult range of emotion through a vast array of concurrent storylines. Very good stuff, though it often feels like it's preaching to the choir.
that's no way to teach an accounting class
While the movie has a good and interesting story, i feel like the drama points were too rushed, small stuff like the play being played right after the boy aplied to it, it needed a time space. He killing himself was also too much even though i really really understand why he would do it. When the father saw him dead i was waiting for him to wake up and say "see, im a really good actor!" seriously!!
wow, just wow. prepare for emotional scenes you guys.
Brilliant movie. Watched it first a school with German translation. It actually loses a bit there. Watched it recently in original form and it's much better. Oh Captain my Captain!
One of the first good movies I remember watching, will always be in my memory
One of the first good movies I remember watching, will always be in my memory
One of the first good movies I remember watching, will always be in my memory
There's so much symbolism in this movie and you don't even realise it until you think back on it.
Brilliant and intelligent without being too pretentious.
This movie is brilliant as what it is sad...
Shout by R a w a nBlockedParent2014-10-09T20:29:07Z
Oh Captain, My Captain!
terrific film ..