Philosophy in Dead Poets Society Essay Example

The movie, Dead Poets Society directed by Peter Weir is set in an American private school during a time of romanticism in the first half of the twentieth century. Dead Poet’s Society negotiates the transition of poetry and life as an unconventional English teacher encourages a group of private school boys to seize the day. The boys intimidate the teachers youth by reforming the dead poet’s society and getting in touch with romanticism and their true inner life. However a fathers controlling nature pushes Neil Perry to his limits as the stress of all work and no play takes its toll. It is this scene where Neil sacrifices himself that has greatest impact and adds overall effectiveness to the movie. This is the scene where an immense change in mood and feel are exposed through the use of signs and symbols. Using analytical devices such as camera angles, lighting, music and props it is possible to deconstruct and make significance of how certain analytical devices help add meaning and overall effectiveness to the movie. These include lighting, camera angles and music. How they add effectiveness and support to the movie will be examined throughout this analytical essay. It is at the start of the scene where Mrs Perry is

Philosophy

Definitions:
Disclaimer: I am choosing to use Britannica and Webster in order define the terminology used on my pages. While to truly understand romanticism, you need to experience it, for the purposes of clarity, these definitions are to aid in expressing the fullness of 19th C. romantic thought, which includes so much more than the modern definition of “romantic,” which many people limit to being in a relationship or thinking solely of love, candy, flowers, sex, etc. I also wanted to define realism, so that people could see that I am using the terms as opposites.

Britanica Online defines Romanticism as:

“Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the