Dead Poets Society **** (1989, Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, Josh Charles) – Classic Movie Review 1543

‘No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.’ – John Keating. Director Peter Weir’s inspiring, heart-felt 1989 triumph stars Robin Williams in one of his career best performances as a new English teacher who blows a bracing breath of liberal-minded fresh air through the stuffy, repressive, ultra-conservative and aristocratic Welton Academy boys’ prep school in Vermont in 1959.

Satisfyingly, the film was a critically acclaimed box office hit and an award-winner. Tom Schulman won an Oscar for his Best Original Screenplay and the movie won two Bafta awards, for Best Film and Best Original Score (Maurice Jarre).

Williams plays Professor John Keating, who wins over his excited young students’ loyalty and affections with his inspirational message that they should think for themselves, go against the status quo, love poetry and seize the day. ‘Carpe diem,’ he says. ‘Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.’

He tells the boys of the Dead Poets Society, and they soon discover its meaning, while the stern, repressive headmaster Mr Nolan (Norman Lloyd) tries to put a stop to what he sees as a revolution. But, each boy, in his own way, follows the teacher’s message, and is changed for life.

Confident, persuasive, entertaining and thought-provoking, the film is such a civilised pleasure that it became one of the year’s biggest hits. It all starts with a polished screenplay by Tom Schulman, who based on his life at the Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee, and unusually sent the studios his very first draft. Schulman’s dialogue is credible and winning, and it’s topped off with 15 per cent of Williams’s own off-the-cuff dialogue.

The script’s characters are memorable and they are extremely adroitly brought to life by the young stars playing the schoolboys – Ethan Hawke as the frightened introvert, painfully shy Todd Anderson; Robert Sean Leonard as his room-mate, the bright and popular would-be actor Neil Perry; Josh Charles as Knox Overstreet; Dylan Kussman as Richard Cameron; Allelon Ruggiero as Steven Meeks; Gale Hansen as Charlie Dalton; and James Waterston as Gerard Pitts.

Among the adults, Lloyd makes a strong impression as Headmaster Gale Nolan and Kurtwood Smith is outstanding as Neil’s harsh and overbearing father, who has his son under his thumb, and wants him to be a doctor not an actor.

Even so, the film still belongs to an on-fire Williams, who’s arguably even more charismatic here in a more or less serious dramatic role than he was in his 1987 breakthrough hit Good Morning Vietnam.

For realism, the film was shot in chronological order to capture the development of the relationships between the boys and their growing respect for Keating and the young actors roomed together during filming in order to bond. The phrase ‘carpe diem’ comes from Horace’s Odes.

It was filmed at St Andrew’s School, a private boarding school in Middletown, Delaware, with the original plan to shoot at Berry College in Rome, Georgia, abandoned through lack of snow there. That is integral to the scene where Todd cries outside in the falling snow, which Hawke managed in one take.

Though it never became number one movie, it still grossed $96 million in the US and more than $235 million worldwide, surpassing Disney’s other 1989 blockbuster releases Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and The Little Mermaid.

There is also a Director’s Cut of the movie with additional scenes not in the theatrical version.

The year 1992 brought a similar movie, School Ties, with Brendan Fraser and Matt Damon.

http://derekwinnert.com/school-ties-classic-film-review-384/

Robin Williams committed suicide on Monday August 11 2014, aged 63, after battling depression and hearing he had Alzheimer’s. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1997 for Good Will Hunting, as well as two Emmys, four Golden Globes, five Grammys and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

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