Review: “Dead Poets Society”
Review: “Dead Poets Society” by Peter Weir
In 1990, Dead Poets Society won the 62nd Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peter Weir as the director who succeed in narrating a story about youth and death, dream and despair. From my point of view, it is a profound movie that intended to inspire and provoke thoughts; at the same time, to bring a combination of humor and drama to the audience while pushing a non-conformist ideology at the core of the story. Besides, there are many brief quotations from Tennyson, Herrick, Whitman and even Vachel Lindsay, as well as a brave excursion into prose that takes us as far as Thoreau's Walden. The director Peter Weir can make good use of the poetry to transfer a spirit of personal freedom.
In this movie, the Hollywood star Robin Williams as the mercurial John Keating, a teacher of English at the exclusive Welton Academy in Vermont -- the "best prep school in America" -- in the year of 1959. Actually, that was an age of “killing the individuality”，and perhaps we are still living in the same age. At the beginning of the plot, the director indicated two different ways of education. During the ceremony of Welton Academy, all the students were required to dress the uniforms and repeat the school motto togeher:“tradition, discipline，honor and excellence”. At that moment, the school hall immerged itself with silence. On the contrary, when the new teacher Mr.Keating was walking at a brisk pace towards the classroom along with humming a tune softly, the atmosphere changed more affable. Mr.Keating brought his students who were still fumbling in hopelessness a new belief: “poetry, beauty, romance and love”. By contrast, Mr.Kating’s education is more like a revolution, which needs to eliminate, shake, overthrow and regenerate.
What really impressed me is the first course given by Mr.Keating. Amazingly, he allowed all the students to rip off the preface of the poetry textbooks that printed the usual
In 1990, Dead Poets Society won the 62nd Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Peter Weir as the director who succeed in narrating a story about youth and death, dream and despair. From my point of view, it is a profound movie that intended to inspire and provoke thoughts; at the same time, to bring a combination of humor and drama to the audience while pushing a non-conformist ideology at the core of the story. Besides, there are many brief quotations from Tennyson, Herrick, Whitman and even Vachel Lindsay, as well as a brave excursion into prose that takes us as far as Thoreau's Walden. The director Peter Weir can make good use of the poetry to transfer a spirit of personal freedom.
In this movie, the Hollywood star Robin Williams as the mercurial John Keating, a teacher of English at the exclusive Welton Academy in Vermont -- the "best prep school in America" -- in the year of 1959. Actually, that was an age of “killing the individuality”，and perhaps we are still living in the same age. At the beginning of the plot, the director indicated two different ways of education. During the ceremony of Welton Academy, all the students were required to dress the uniforms and repeat the school motto togeher:“tradition, discipline，honor and excellence”. At that moment, the school hall immerged itself with silence. On the contrary, when the new teacher Mr.Keating was walking at a brisk pace towards the classroom along with humming a tune softly, the atmosphere changed more affable. Mr.Keating brought his students who were still fumbling in hopelessness a new belief: “poetry, beauty, romance and love”. By contrast, Mr.Kating’s education is more like a revolution, which needs to eliminate, shake, overthrow and regenerate.
What really impressed me is the first course given by Mr.Keating. Amazingly, he allowed all the students to rip off the preface of the poetry textbooks that printed the usual