Right from the beginning of the movie we can see that the school the protagonists attend is an elite yet rigid prep school. Students have very little choice when determining classes and all follow similar career paths whether it be medicine, law, business, etc. There is little room for one to express themselves individually and it is only after taking the poetry class with Mr. Keating do they slowly but surely begin to come out of their shells. By organizing the “Dead Poet’s Society” and meeting in their secret cave at night, the protagonists are able to overcome the rigid shackles placed upon them. Moreover, while they think they are just discussing poetry, Keating’s unconventional lectures show that poetry is actually teaching them about life itself. Rather than learning about topics like meter and evaluating a poem solely based on its perfection and impact, the group learns how poetry can teach someone to fully express themselves.

I find this to be certainly true as after I took a literature course in high school and during my freshman year, I found that I learned a lot of values that could be applied to my life directly. Moreover, I believe that it is important to study poetry and the humanities as a means to provide balance and keep life in perspective. I certainly have grown as an individual as a result of my extra emphasis on the humanities.

In Dead Poet’s Society, one theme that really struck me was the the purpose of poetry. In the movie, Mr. Keeting stated that humans write poetry because they need to do so, just as they need to eat breathe. The boys’ various individual journeys through the movie exemplify this. For example, when Neil began reading and composing poetry, he found his love for acting and decided to pursue it- he tried out for the play and got the leading role. Also, after Neil and his father fight over his decision to act in a play, when Neil sees his father enter the auditorium, he directs his final lines in the play to his father: “Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.” In saying these lines to his father, Neil conveys how he wants to settle his differences with his father. Similarly, Knox wrote a love poem to Chris to explain to her how much he loved her. In both of these situations, poetry provided these boys with a way of navigating and properly expressing their emotions- in other words, they needed poetry to live their lives to the fullest.

On a personal note, I’m a very hard score science kind of guy. I never paid too much attention in English class and I never really appreciated the importance of literature and poetry. To me, literature was mainly just an easy A for my GPA or a freshman writing seminar that I needed to take. But this movie was a powerful reminder of why literature is so significant- we as humans need poetry to understand ourselves and the world around us. I began to recognize all the different ways in which poetry had impacted me. The nursery rhymes or the Dr. Seuss books I grew up with are all forms of poetry. The Ramayana, an ancient Hindu text that has profoundly impacted me, is poetry. The College Dropout by Kanye West is also a form of poetry.

On October 20, I saw the film Dead Poet Society, from Director Peter Weir, featuring Robin Williams as John Keating, an English teacher with unorthodox methods that inspired his students to think for themselves and realize that words and ideas can change the world. Keating’s love for teaching brought him back to his own preparatory school, Welton Academy, an all-boys elite boarding school in Vermont, the “best preparatory school in the US”. Welton’s moto was: Tradition, Honor, Discipline and Excellence. The film starts when the new student Todd Anderson, meets his roommate senior Neil Perry, who introduced him to his friends Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, Steven Meeks, and Gerard Pitts.

The group of students soon bonds with Mr. Keating’s unorthodox teaching that pushes them to trust their own believes as unique and to dare to take the less traveled road. The students found out that Mr. Keating had founded the Dead Poet Society when he was himself a student at Welton to promote the dangers of conformity and push to live deliberately.   Mr. Keating taught his students to read and write poetry because the human race is built on passion. Life identity is powerful if you contribute with a verse and learn to seize the day.

Neil and his fellow friends restart their own Dead Poet Society and Neil Perry defies his father that wants him to focus on school and go to Harvard’s medical school, by following his own interest on acting accepting the role of Puck in Midsummers Night Dream. Neil’s father urges him to drop the role, but advised by Mr. Keating Neil performs the play and is acclaimed by the audience. Enraged, his father decides to transfer him to a Military School to make sure he follows the path he set for him to go to Harvard, but Neil in desperation shots himself.

Welton’s Director, Mr. Nolan, presses Neil’s close friends to accuse Mr. Keating and fires him. The boys cannot help it but line with Mr. Keating as he leaves the classroom by standing on their desks and calling him as he taught them: ‘O Captain, My Captain’! They respected him for teaching them self-expression and to stand for their own believes to make their lives extraordinary. I was moved by the fact that the movie was inspired by the true story of Samuel Pickering, an English Professor at University of Connecticut.   Prior to obtaining his Master’s degree, Pickering taught at the Montgomery Bell Academy where one of his students, Tom Schulman, wrote the script for the film based on his eccentric teaching style. Professor Pickering is now Emeritus and his writing focus on the absurdities and pretensions of civilization. I found the movie’s theme enlightening for Keating’s teaching passion and unconventional ways to push the young students to find their own voice.

I was very upset by the film Dead Poet’s Society, mainly because I felt as though I could relate very much to the main character, Neil. I understood the pressure he felt to not disappoint his parents, though maybe not as extremely, and the hope he obtained from extracurricular activities. Yet, I found I disagreed with the way most characters handled one situation or another throughout the film. I was particularly bothered by the perpetuating of such pressure-inducing behaviors through the search of a scapegoat, rather than a search for a remedy to rectify all actions taken that may have contributed to such a tragic event as Neil’s suicide.

Two wrongs do not make a right, and despite the Neil’s father’s pain at losing his only son, I think he continues to influence the pressures other students, particularly other members of the newly restored Dead Poet’s Society, face in coping at such a strict institution with a very oppressive culture. By not owning up to his part in his son’s suicide, he is making the rest of Neil’s friends face the consequences of his death on their own. That pressure is particularly evident in Todd, who wants to speak out but feels he cannot for sake of ruining others’ lives, as well as facing the repercussions of speaking out on his own.

This movie was very eye-opening in terms of realizing that what we do or do not do can have a great impact even on the individuals closest to us. Many people had the opportunity to speak out and to help, many people could have chosen to listen or act on Neil’s behalf for the pressure he was feeling, that he had not failed to communicate to those around him. Yet that inaction, and the closed-minded attitude his parents imparted all had a consequence they never foresaw and refused to own up to. They did not even attempt to speak up for Mr. Keating after they learned what would happen, which I think is very similar to their mistakes leading to Neil’s suicide to begin with.

If people don’t own up to their mistakes, then a vicious cycle of wrong is bound to continue.

I had the chance to see the Dead Poets Society last week as part of the Friday Rose movies series. For me, this film dealt with the conflict of established tradition and the revolution of free thinking. We are presented with an elite all white male boarding school that prides itself in its ability to prime young men for elite higher education. Tradition and pride in the establishment are rampant and especially marked in all the professors save John Keating played by Robin Williams. Keating advocates for a novel way of looking at poetry that does not adhere to rules set by some academic but rather those that resonate more personally with the reader through individual interpretation. Excessive tradition and dogma hinder the growth of the mind by limiting the way it can branch, grow and develop. Keating advocates for Carpe Diem and for his students to move beyond the limits of the institution to explore the world by their own will and through this to develop an appreciation of literature as a medium for personal expression. While the movie does end in tragedy, the final scene shows the impact Keating has had on his students as they rise in defiance of the institution to give one final salute to their mentor that taught them more than any book ever could.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from Dead Poets Society before watching it this past Friday. It was pretty evident what the movies focus would be based on the few opening scenes. The movie opens previewing a preparatory school showing bright students destined for an ivy league education and their parents looming over their heads. The students new English teacher challenges them to think differently, explore the world through poetry and escape from the traditionalism enforced by the school if only for the duration of that one class. The students escalate it to another level though, congregating outside of class, sneaking out of their dormitories and reading verse. After the parents caught wind of their actions things started to go south, and this is what I found most frustrating about the student’s actions.

This conflict between the children and their parents can be seen in every person in the Dead Poets Society in one form or another. Each one of them has not had an opportunity to even develop a personality as their parents loom over them with every waking breath. Only after these meeting were they finally able to mature and grow and be something other than carbon copies of each other. They were all force to go to the school, and knew nothing else other than academics. I kept thinking to myself constantly during the movie, why are they not telling their parents how they really feel? I was lucky enough to have parents who would have been supportive no matter what I decided to pursue. It was just so hard to process for me, being in a situation in which you cannot freely do what you want, with your parents exerting control over every aspect of your life. The parent’s perspective can also be rationalized, and it is depicted by Neil’s father, how he values the financial security of a more orthodox career path for Neil. His father made the decision for Neil that the happiness from money is more important than the happiness of fulfilling his career aspirations. The decision he made for Neil ultimately cost him Neil’s life as he committed suicide because he could not bear the fact of spending the next 10+ years of his life becoming a doctor, and not pursuing his acting aspirations. The blame was placed on Keating, but by then Keating’s job had already been done letting the students find themselves through reading poetry and unlocking its meaning.

Dead Poets Society was one of the better films I’ve seen in quite awhile. There’s a lot to unpack from the movie so I’ll just focus on one specific aspect of the film. Neil Perry wants to follow his dreams of being an actor, but his father doesn’t approve and eventually ships him off to boarding school. Neil is so grief-stricken he commits suicide.

The scene when his father finds him dead is extremely powerful because I don’t believe most viewers expected something like that to happen. It was a deadly shock, just like in real life. Watching a scene like that really made me consider my own mortality. As we go about living our life, we rarely think of the fact that we will die, crumble to dirt, and be completely and utterly forgotten. We can usually stave off this realization with the trivialities of the day and other distractions. This begets people who live their whole life without having really lived at all.

I think the biggest lesson to take away from Dead Poets Society is that you are alive today, but not for long. Your life could end in a snap: there is but a fragile strand holding you here. Live like Robin Williams’ character in the movie: with vivacity and without fear. Obviously this is a tall order, and I don’t expect to be able to achieve such a goal in any real capacity. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try.

Last week I had the opportunity to view Dead Poets Society in the Rose Dining Hall Room.  The captivating movie illustrates the internal conflict of the protagonist Neil Perry, torn between his true passion of acting and the desires of his father.  While his parents wanted him to pursue a stable and widely-respected career, Mr. Keating encouraged Neil to explore his burgeoning interest in theater.  It was disappointing to see how this internal conflict led to Neil taking his own life at the conclusion of the movie.

Even though this movie was released in 1989, the theme of external pressures influencing student decisions is still prevalent today.  At Cornell, students are expected to compete with their peers for selective internships in hopes of attaining a lucrative career.  However, it is sometimes difficult to discern between genuine passion and pressure placed by those close to you.  Similar to Neil, many students at Cornell fear the consequence of failing to meet high expectations.  While those close to you want what is best for you, they sometimes distract you from pursuing your true passions.

Another similarity I saw between the Welton boarding school and Cornell is the emphasis on tradition and customs.  When the students walked through the hallways, there were always pictures of alumni hanging on the walls.  Additionally, tradition was one of Welton’s “four pillars”, and I believe that Cornell has certain unique cultural elements as well.  From coined terms like “prelim” to symbols like the McGraw clock tower, most students have embraced the Cornell culture and its rich history.

Although Dead Poets Society had some flaws, I thought it was a very good movie.  The best part of it to me was the acting of Robin Williams.  Even though he was probably best known for his comedy, Robin Williams was cast in a few serious roles: he played an inspiring English teacher in this movie and a psychologist to Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting.  His acting was so believable that he moves the viewers to feel the emotion of the characters that he corresponds with in the movie.  As a result, we ourselves are inspired to defy convention and to follow our dreams just as Keating tells his students.

I was not expecting the events that happened at the end, which made it more emotionally moving.  Since the one student could not follow his dreams of becoming an actor (because his parents were forcing him to go down the path to become a doctor), he committed suicide.  As a result, Keating was blamed for the suicide and was fired from the school.  The movie ends with the students standing on their desks, yelling “O Captain!  My Captain!” to Keating: the students already knew that Keating was wrongly blamed for the suicide, but now they have fully realized the meaning of why he taught the way he did.

Some films get into your skin — they’re stories that remain with you over the years for one reason or another. Dead Poet’s Society isn’t simply a melodrama. Despite some overly dramatic scenes, which critiques have often pointed out, the film is largely regarded as a cinematic masterpiece. For me, like with many, it’s the phenomenal acting of the late Robin Williams that leaves the everlasting impact on the viewer. William’s character of Mr. John Keating, a teacher at the preparatory Welton Academy, is depicted as both charismatic and unorthodox. A Rhodes scholar and former pupil of Welton, Keating makes a significant impression on his students by bringing poetry alive. The sheer passion Williams is able to portray upon Keating makes watching nearly every scene to be a joy. As someone who wasn’t particularly interested in poetry as a high school student, watching this movie definitely changed my perspective on not just poetry, but English literature as a whole. It may not have convinced me to peruse poetry daily, or to work on authentic poetry myself, but it instilled in me a respect and understanding of others’ appreciation for such literature. I’d highly advise for someone who hasn’t watched Dead Poet’s Society to give it a chance.

Last Friday, I rewatched the Dead Poets Society with other Rose scholars. The movie follows a group of high school seniors who attend an elite boarding school. The boys are inspired by a new English teacher who helps them pursue their dreams and break out from their parents’ expectations of themselves. As the movie takes place in a prestigious boarding school, some of the themes it explores resonate with some of the problems we face here at Cornell. The boys deal with high expectations from parents and their general social circles. This pressure and suppression of their true dreams reaches an ultimate high when the protagonist Neil commits suicide. This aspect of the movie shows the real ramifications of the high-stakes pressure of chasing perfection. I think this can help ground us as we struggle with the pressure of doing well on prelims and hoping to achieve our goals.

While I appreciate the gravity by which the movie reflects the pursuit of perfection, I do think that it is important to look at the movie in perspective. In a way, it romanticizes the idea of dying for your dreams and art. Neil’s death is not in vain as his friends’ learn to see beyond the mold that society has pressed upon them. However, the struggles that the boys face showcase their privilege. They face problems that straight, white males face and as such the movie neglects to show any characters of other races, sexual orientations and even really gender. The largest female role goes to a Kris, a girl, that one of boys Knox has a large crush on. Knox kisses her while she is intoxicated and Kris is portrayed to be fine with this lack of consent and even falls for him. As a whole, Dead Poets Society has many salient points about societal pressures but does overlook the narratives of more marginalized communities.

I attended Rose’s screening of the ’80s classic, Dead Poets Society, last Friday night. I had been shown a scene from the film years ago, in a high school English class. However, without any context, the scene had very little impact on me. But now having viewed it full-length, I can say that Dead Poets Society is an absolute masterpiece, and, although flawed in some ways, it affected me very deeply. The last time I felt so moved by a film was when I watched Avatar, maybe 7 years ago.

The movie tells the story of an all-boys boarding school that demands intense discipline and exacts corporal punishment against those who don’t comply. The students face pressure from their parents to get into Ivy League schools and pursue typically high-earning careers in business, engineering, and the sciences. In comes Robin Williams’ lovable character, Mr. Keating, the new English teacher who shares his romantic view of life with the students and encourages non-conformity, individualism, and dream-following. Obviously, drama thus ensues.

The film affected me because as a science major aiming for pre-professional school after my undergraduate education, essentially the only courses I take now are science prerequisites and major requirements. I truly do love and am passionate about science, and am happy to be taking these courses. However, the film made me recognize that the arts are also important to study and appreciate — just because you aren’t going to be a writer or an artist does not mean you should not experiment with courses in literature and art history. Therefore, the film has motivated me to add an arts course into my science-heavy schedule. I want to keep the arts in my life, even if they are not my future career.

The movie also encouraged me to get outside more and enjoy the Earth. Often, I think we college students get so conjoined to our schoolwork that we spend all our time sitting at a desk, hunched over whilst reading textbooks and typing on our laptops. Work is important, but the benefits of the outdoors should not be ignored.

Overall, the film teaches us to seize the day, which is continuously repeated in its Latin translation, “carpe diem,” throughout the film. Yes, we should work hard and aim high; but that doesn’t mean we need to eliminate from our lives everything that is not directly synonymous with reaching our career goals.

I abhorred Dead Poet’s Society. There are many things to hate about the film: the disgusting mishandling of one of the film’s only female characters, the maudlin tone and the romanticizing of violence, and the complete lack of diversity in a film which intends to celebrate resistance to conformity, and presumably the diversity of viewpoints which would accompany it.

However, I’d like to speak about what I found most infuriating about the film: it’s celebration of Mr. Keating’s “unconventional” teaching methods. The film presents Mr. Keating as a uniquely inspirational teacher, beloved by his students. I imagine I am not alone, however, in feeling that I would have hated having Mr. Keating as a teacher. Watching the film gave me flashbacks to every high school humanities class I hated with every fiber of my being, every class which made me want to become an engineer. When Keating has the students rip out the introduction of their poetry books, he seems to be suggesting that real literary criticism isn’t important. The class is not going to analyze poetry for its meter, rhyme scheme, and symbolism– they’re going to figure out what poems make them feel. What comes out here is a weirdly anti-intellectual theme for a film which seems to think it is celebrating literature.

One of my high school English teachers, in introducing our unit of poetry, told us that there are wrong answers. There is a correct way to interpret poetry, and there is an incorrect way. That seems like exactly the kind of sentiment Mr. Keating would hate. His general message seems to be that you should find what poetry means to you personally. While that thought seems seductive at first, upon closer inspection, it seems preclude any possibility of real dialogue about what poetry means, or real criticism of an author’s technique or intent. Mr. Keating has essentially taught his students how to feel, at the expense of teaching them how to think. He is exactly the sort of teacher I would have loathed. I attend school to learn how to think, not to be taught how to feel. I can manage the latter on my own.

I should also mention that, given our current political climate, it’s not super fun to watch a high school teacher essentially tell his students that the truth is whatever you feel is true. Also that you should  “carpe diem”, which the boys in Dead Poets Society seem to interpret as “Do whatever you want, irrespective of the rights of others.”

Dead Poets Society serves as a parcel of a larger movement of the arts romanticizing violence–in this case, suicide. Realistically, a normal boy like Neil would not have undertaken such a permanent solution to a sudden breeze of anger if it were not bolstered by other aspects such as a mental illness. However, I think Neil’s blossoming involvement with the arts, either in poetry or stage acting, was meant to show the audience the correlation between romanticized suffering that many artists pride themselves in. This glorification is deep rooted in artistic culture with many examples, whether it be Van Gogh, Dead Poets Society, or more recently, 13 Reasons Why. I think artistic endeavors such as this movie should be more cautious in portraying violence as something virtuous in order to prevent copycats, as have already been reported in 13 Reasons Why.

Captain! My Captain.

On the evening of homecoming and firework laser night show, we watched Dead Poets Society together in the warm, cozy Rose House dining room. I left with tears in my eyes and on my face. I felt sorry for the boys in the class, who had to challenge their own integrity by not telling the truth to protect themselves. They were forced to make the ethical decision to save their future and Mr Keating’s future. I don’t think anyone of their age should be forced to make that choice. When they were deeply devastated by their best friend’s suicide, and had to post untruthful blame on their favorite teacher, I couldn’t image what that would do to a teenager after they grow up. For those with moral values, they will be regretting this for the rest of their lives. And for those unethical students like Richard, they will get away with no influence on their lives. That is the truly sad part of this story: Students with high moral standards get punished harder. Mr. Keating knows. He understands. He had tears in his eyes, less for being betrayed and blamed for Neil’s death, but for what his best students were forced to do.

His soul is free. And he tries to give freedom to more students. He encouraged Neil to pursue what he loved. He encouraged all the students to stand on the desk to observe from a different perspective. He is truly a mentor, for discovering each of them’s talents. It reminds me of Professor Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of Phoenix are in such resemblance with dead poets society. They all represent a positive, free spirit that fought against the dark, suppressing forces. Unfortunately, many parents, teachers, authorities were not able to see the bigger picture as Mr. Keating does. They do not see that they cannot force every student’s dream to be getting into a Ivy League school, or becoming a lawyer or doctor. Some people already died, but they didn’t get buried until 85. It is speaking about people without a freed soul.

Carpe Diem. Living in your own way.