“O Captain! My Captain!” Todd Anderson says with tears in his eyes, as he stands at his table, watching his teacher John Keating leave the classroom and the school. The words comes from an old poem about the death of a great Captain and leader. Originally written in connection to the death of president Abraham Lincoln. And without revealing too much, this poem does in many ways fit perfectly to the story and ending of the movie.
Dead Poets Society is an emotional movie, about a group of boys at a boarding school in the fifties, who became inspired by their teacher and by poetry to seize the day, and live their life according to Carpe Diem.
In the movie we follow a group of boys at a boarding school for boys in Vermont, commonly known as the best school for college preparation in the whole US. The boys, Neil Perry, Todd Anderson(new at the school), Knox Overstreet, Charlie Dalton, Richard Cameron, Steven Meeks and Gerard Pitts, are all great students with good grades. Just like their fathers wants them to be. But they are missing something in their boring life, filled with rules and restrictions, and need something exciting to happen, just like every other boy in their age would.
Their English teacher Mr. Keating, a former student at Welton, is a new teacher at the school. And from the very first moment you get to see Mr. Keating in the movie, you sense the difference between him and the rest of the teachers at the school. Because unlike most of the others who are old regular men, Mr. Keating is young, poetic, and has new ideas of how you teach students, and of what is important to teach them.
The message of the movie, and Mr. Keatings message to his students, is Carpe Diem. And through his teaching, he encourages his students to seize the day, and remember to live their life today and not tomorrow. This message is especially being preached to the students by poetry. This means, that most of the students, especially the group of boys we follow most of the time, starts sharing Mr. Keatings love to poetry.
The boys also starts following the advice about seizing the day. They get knowledge of the Dead Poets Club, a secret club where the members used to meet in a hidden cave and read poems. The club existed when Mr. Keating were a student at Weltons, and he were, of course, a member of it. So the boys goes to the Mr. Keating, to get to know more about the club. And quickly they decides to reopen it. This almost becomes the start of a new life for some of the boys. They invite girls to their club, Knox gathers courage to declare his love to the girl in his life. And Neil decides to follow his dream about becoming an actor, despite knowing, that his father demands him to drop the acting. It all starts really well. But of course, all their choices have consequences…
The movie is an American drama from 1989. It’s directed by Peter Weir, written by Tom Schulman, and based on Toms life at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville Tennessee. Overall it’s an okay movie. The actors performances are all right. And it’s actually not as bad as you could have feared, if you think of the way to classic message of the movie about seizing the day, the many quotations from old great poets, and the boring theme, about how young people should be allowed to pursue their dreams, instead of living their life according to their parents’ wishes. So I am mainly positive about the movie. And all though it’s not a movie you watch more than once, then it’s definitely worth seeing, at a rainy day, where you have nothing else to do.