[Movie Monday] Dead Poets Society

Movie: Dead Poets Society

Genre: Drama

The third posting of Movie Monday of the day, and the Robin Williams movie to take the spotlight this time around is Dead Poets Society!

The time period of this story takes place in 1959 in northeastern part of United States. Specifically at a private, conservative and aristocratic school by the name of Welton Academy.

Robin William plays a character named John Keating, who is a new English teacher to the boys of the Welton Academy. More son than just an English teacher, Mr. Keating is an English teacher that inspires his students through teachings of poetry, and the story that it holds is one of the unforgettable stories to watch. The relationship that Mr. Keating forms with his students is something that is unimaginable and far more intimate than what a teacher and a student would normally have – And I am not speaking in terms of sexual relationship, but rather relationship as friends, which is something rare to see in any day and generation.

When Mr. Keating starts working as the English teacher to the kids, he starts off the year with the poem “O Captain, My Captain”, and he even gets up on his own table. He even goes as far as ripping the pages out of a book as he tells his students that even though there are books that can teach students a lot of things, it’s one of the things he does not want to use to teach them since they have enough books as it is to read out of for their other courses. The kids immediately follow their teacher’s example and begin to rip pages out of their English textbook and learn from Mr. Keating in ways that no other teachers have tried to use before. And it’s Mr. Keating’s teaching methods that really gets his students to really fall in love with the English language itself. And as the kids learn to love even poetry through Mr. Keating’s teachings, they form an organization of their own to meet in secret at night out in the woods, which leads the students to call themselves Dead Poets Society – A name of a group of poets that have existed in the past.

As the story goes on, one of his students, Neil Perry, comes to find love for theater and auditions for a play that will be performed for the public. And when Neil lands a part, he proudly tells his father in hopes that his father will support him. Even hopes that his father will allow him to follow his dreams to become an actor in the future, but Neil’s father tells him to just drop the extracurricular activity out of disapproval. The moment Mr. Keating hears of this, he tells Neil to stand his ground and tell his father what he truly wants for himself.

One thing leads to another, which ultimately only leads to losses and grievances for the school. Follow Mr. Keating and his students in a life journey of friendship and trust and love for not just one another but for English language itself – All starting out with beginning to learn to love poems all because of an inspiration from one man.

Dead Poets Society just may be one of Robert Williams’ best movies yet.