Going Old School: The Beauty of Dead Poets Society

There are people who love coming-of-age movies that are simultaneously full of teenage angst and revelations… The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, School Ties, you know the ones that fit into that category.

Well, there’s another coming-of-age movie that stands out, for me, far above the others. And National Poetry Month is the perfect time to talk about it.

Dead Poets Society, miraculously, was not a book before it became a movie (people were still writing scripts instead of adapting books into screenplays back in the day – ahem, 1989).

Robin Williams plays Professor Keating – the token liberal English teacher at a very conservative New England boarding school for boys. The film is set in 1959, a time when rules weren’t often broken… at least not by anyone who knew what was good for them. But Keating changes life for a group of young men who are trying so desperately to figure out what this world wants of them, what their parents expect of them, and who it is they’re supposed to be satisfying.

Turns out, they need to satisfy themselves with their choices and no one else. And, in the end, each boy is forced to become a man in a very painful and unexpected way.

In my education, I luckily had my own O Captain! My Captain (the name Prof. Keating challenges his students to call him and, incidentally, the title of a Walt Whitman poem – more on that dead poet tomorrow). I can only hope you all have that inspiring man or woman enter your scholarly pursuits at some point in your life.

All it takes is one person to change how you view your world. Whether you’ve found your Keating yet or not, you can latch onto this movie and make it your own. Because, if nothing else, this bittersweet film makes you believe in something, whether that’s poetry, music, your ability to get the girl (or guy), your intelligence, or, most of all… yourself.

This scene is the turning point in the movie for these young gents who certainly aren’t used to nonconformity being encouraged.

If you’ve never seen this film before, you’ll recognize some very young faces: Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard (“Wilson” on House), and Josh Charles (“Will Gardner” on The Good Wife).

So carpe diem, my friends. Watch this film. Then watch it again… and again. (I’m still watching my original version on VHS!)

What movie has inspired you? What movie have you watched over and over again because it struck a nerve with you?