Before watching Dead Poets Society in full I have catched many bits and pieces of it on TV throughout the years. By piecemeal it always seemed melodramatic and without substance to me. However upon seeing it as a whole I am confident to say that it is a terrific movie.
The story is set in a New England all-boys boarding school during the fifties and begins with the arrival of two newcomers: Todd Anderson, living in the shadow of his valedictorian brother, and John Keating, a former model student of the same school who has returned to teach English Literature. Todds new roommate is the popular and friendly Neil. Together they spend most of their time with the boys from their study group: Knox,Charlie,Richard,Pitts and Meeks. After being taken in by Mr. Keatings unorthodox style of teaching poetry they dig up mentions of something called the Dead Poets Society, Keating reveals that it was a secret club founded by him and his contemporaries that focused on "sucking the marrow out of life." Impressed, the boys start their own incarnation of the club, meeting in the same cave that Keating and his friends used decades before. And so the boys all start out on their own journeys of self expression.
As the previous reviewer proves- many modern parents of ADHD riddled children, exasperated teachers and good students who had to endure the antics of wannabe rebel delinquents in high-school- will see Keatons mentorship as a cliched attempt to rock the boat for no good reason and as propagating the trite message of "be yourself and everything will be just fine." This is not the case, as is well illustrated by the time Charlie goes rather blatantly and pointlessly against the school regime- and is promptly reprimanded by both the other Dead Poets and by Keating himself. And the boys are no slouches either in the academic department, all of them have pretty high grades and are well raised. What they rebel against are not the responsibilities of the adult world but the dictatorship of a generation of parents who have not yet learned that "their children are not their children." What Keaton teaches them is to be captains of their own souls and to be damned if they let anyone else hog the wheel.
An exellent movie, that losses a bit due to Values Dissonance
Before watching Dead Poets Society in full I have catched many bits and pieces of it on TV throughout the years. By piecemeal it always seemed melodramatic and without substance to me. However upon seeing it as a whole I am confident to say that it is a terrific movie.
The story is set in a New England all-boys boarding school during the fifties and begins with the arrival of two newcomers: Todd Anderson, living in the shadow of his valedictorian brother, and John Keating, a former model student of the same school who has returned to teach English Literature. Todds new roommate is the popular and friendly Neil. Together they spend most of their time with the boys from their study group: Knox, Charlie, Richard, Pitts and Meeks. After being taken in by Mr. Keatings unorthodox style of teaching poetry they dig up mentions of something called the Dead Poets Society, Keating reveals that it was a secret club founded by him and his contemporaries that focused on "sucking the marrow out of life." Impressed, the boys start their own incarnation of the club, meeting in the same cave that Keating and his friends used decades before. And so the boys all start out on their own journeys of self expression.
As the previous reviewer proves- many modern parents of ADHD riddled children, exasperated teachers and good students who had to endure the antics of wannabe rebel delinquents in high-school- will see Keatons mentorship as a cliched attempt to rock the boat for no good reason and as propagating the trite message of "be yourself and everything will be just fine." This is not the case, as is well illustrated by the time Charlie goes rather blatantly and pointlessly against the school regime- and is promptly reprimanded by both the other Dead Poets and by Keating himself. And the boys are no slouches either in the academic department, all of them have pretty high grades and are well raised. What they rebel against are not the responsibilities of the adult world but the dictatorship of a generation of parents who have not yet learned that "their children are not their children." What Keaton teaches them is to be captains of their own souls and to be damned if they let anyone else hog the wheel.