Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 21-August-05
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Dead Poets Society (1989)

One could argue that "Dead Poets Society" deals less with the teacher and more with his students than the other films in this month's Back-to-School series, but when you look at it through a wide lens you realize it romanticizes the teacher more, holding him up as a philosophical or fantastical ideal. The story (for those outside my generation who don't have it etched onto their brains) revolves around a group of boys at a ritzy prep school in late 1950s New England. It's your typical class roster: the nice kid (Robert Sean Leonard), the shy newbie (Ethan Hawke), the party guy (Gale Hansen), the sweetie (Josh Charles), the brown-noser (Dylan Kussman), and a pair of science nerds (Allelon Ruggiero, James Waterston). When they arrive for another year on the scheduled passage to Harvard, med school, and an oceanfront Long Island mansion, they find a new English teacher who's unlike anyone they have ever known (Robin Williams). Defying the expectations of the headmaster (Norman Lloyd), the iconoclastic Mr. Keating urges his students to seek Experience more than scholarship, and they respond by pursuing new avenues of love, rebellion, and artistic expression. But although he offers them valuable lessons that put some on the road to a better life, his freethinking doesn't come without a price.

It occurred to me during my latest look at "Dead Poets Society" that the humanities, generally viewed as a hobby or joke in our technological age, have become a standard backdrop for fictional druids who guard what metaphysical truths we want to keep. All of the men in this inspirational-teacher series are rooted in the humanities, which, I guess, makes them seem qualified to convey life-wisdom as well as knowledge. But Mr. Keating takes this calling to unmatched heights. His classes are extracurricular to the point of being ridiculous; for example, he has his boys gaze at old photographs to contemplate their inevitable deaths, and, later, makes them practice their own way of walking. Without giving him a personal journey, the film uses him as the catalyst for others' awakenings. At the same time, however, it sets him up as what might be a lost, missed presence in our society: the shaman, the guru, the apostle who can speak directly to our better selves and motivate us to make the most of our time on earth. This aspect of his character places "Dead Poets Society" in the realm of the fairy tale. It's a modern fantasy about spiritual enlightenment in the face of a hostilely prosaic world.

Like Mr. Keating, some of the smaller elements of the movie are also too wistful to be true, but Peter Weir's loving direction and the universally fantastic acting make "Dead Poets Society" feel enchantedly real. (Leonard and Hawke are both stellar; one simply can't imagine anyone else in their roles.) There is something in this story that must touch almost anyone who watches it: either the fragile potential of youth, the joy of life-altering discovery, or the dreamy lament for meaningful guidance at an impressionable age, and beyond.

Copyright © 2005 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.