Dead Poets Society

I first saw Dead Poets Society when it was released 25 years ago and didn't care for it all that much, a decided minority. I watched it again for two reasons: the mourning for Robin Williams, and that I am embarking on a career as an English teacher. During the first class we learned about the four stages of a teaching career, the first one being fantasy. My fantasy is something like Dead Poets Society, minus the suicide and getting fired part.

Watching it again, I can see why it is loved. It is extremely beautiful to look at, with all the faux New England pastels (it was shot in Delaware), and it is an extremely well-constructed screenplay, with the students at different tiers of interest, each with a minor or major subplot, starting with Robert Sean Leonard and working downward. I admit I was grabbed by it, but after it's over it falls apart like a house of cards.

Williams is the new English teacher at a prestigious prep school. The year is 1959. The school is one of those that are so hung up on tradition you want to take a machine gun to the place (to do something continuously for the sole purpose of upholding tradition is one of the stupidest reasons to do something). We meet a few students, notably Leonard, who is very bright and his life planned out for him by his overbearing father (Kurtwood Smith), and Ethan Hawke, as a very shy boy who is brought out of his shell by Williams. Others include the daring Gale Hansen and Josh Charles, who falls in love with a girl who is already the girlfriend of a public school meatball.

Williams introduces unorthodox teaching methods, such as ripping out the introduction of their textbook, which grades poems on a graph. He wants the boys to think for themselves, and find the passion in their lives, most notably by teaching them the phrase "carpe diem," or seize the day.

The boys respond quizzically, and then enthusiastically, after they resurrect a club that Williams had when he was a student at the school--the title organization, which meets in a cave, where they read and discuss poetry. Given the uprightness of the school and the parents, this could only lead to something bad, and it does--the suicide of a student--and Williams becomes the scapegoat.

The problem with the film is not Williams' performance--he's terrific--but his role is so idealized. In fact, he's not a great English teacher. He might make a good life coach, but passion alone is not enough to study English. You do have to learn iambic pentameter and other things to fully understand poetry.

Also, the "follow your bliss" argument is pretty old and basic. Smith, as Leonard's father, is set up as such a villain that it takes me out of the movie. Norman Lloyd, as the crusty old headmaster, is given a bit more depth, but it would have been nice to have an authority figure that showed some areas of gray.

Still, it's great that any movie uses Walt Whitman and other poets as major elements. When Williams died, one of the most common quotes used was "O captain, my captain," and when Jimmy Fallon paid tribute by standing on his desk and quoting that line, it gave me a chill. When all is said and done, as the years go by, this may be the film that is Williams' most lasting legacy.