DEAD POETS SOCIETY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Robin Williams plays an unorthodox and charismatic teacher branded as dangerous in what is basically a retelling of THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE told sympathetically to the teacher. Fundamentally good, but it has some problems with its narrative style. Rating: high +1.
There are lots and lots of films about schools but very few films really about the teaching process and the influence of a teacher on students. Perhaps the best is Ronald Neame's 1969 film THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, which managed to tighten up the narrative of the Muriel Spark novel (one of the rare occasions a film adaptation improves greatly on the novel, incidentally). Neame's film tells the story of a teacher who broadens her students' world but at the same time molds them into her own likeness. Having myself been greatly influenced by a very charismatic high school teacher who I think greatly affected my world view, I find THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE hits very close to home for me, though because I liked this teacher a lot I sometimes try also to see the film from a point of view sympathetic to Miss Brodie. What does the story become then? It becomes something very much like Peter Weir's new film, DEAD POETS SOCIETY.
The year is 1959. The setting is Welton Academy, a very posh and expensive prep school dedicated to bleaching any sort of non-conformity out of its students and programming them to be successful, if unimaginative, social leaders. The new English teacher is one John Keating, played with as much control and and reserve as Robin Williams could possibly put into a performance. But even Williams's most reserved character could never fit in as a teacher at a place like Welton. His Keating uses unorthodox efforts to get his students to feel the emotion of the they read, and he gets them to live lives that will allow them to feel their own emotions and the emotions of the great poets. Keating's class is a good show, but we know from the beginning it is a show that will not outlast the season. As in GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM, which had a very similar story line: we admire the non- conformist, but we know he will not be around for long. DEAD POETS SOCIETY is his story and the story of his students while he is there. In particular, it is the story of a group of friends who form the Dead Poets Society and sneak out to the woods after hours in order to read poetry and discuss life.
And it is in the film's depiction of these meetings that Weir's film lets us down the most. We hear a little poetry and we see the lives changing, but the connection between the two is never clearly drawn. What poems are influential and why--a very major question of the film--is never really explained. We never really see why the meetings transcend being bull sessions that have occasional poetry readings. The real value of these meetings, so central to the film, is never clear. Similarly, we are told one of the members has written a very controversial article for the school newspaper but we are given only the vaguest idea of what the article said. And because the exact influence the teacher and the poetry has had on the students is left as vague as it is, when the film starts following the lives of the students outside of school hours it rapidly loses interest for me. I found myself not really caring whether one of the students would or would not work up the courage to kiss his current heartthrob. I found myself just looking at the nice, misty, snowy photography, and waiting for something of interest to happen.
Another problem with the script is that, while Keating is clearly played for sympathy, he is not entirely such an ideal teacher. Early on he has his students cut an article on poetry analysis out of their textbooks and destroy it before they had read more than the first paragraph. And the enthusiasm that he can get from his students for this sort of an action reinforces his similarities to the dangerous Miss Brodie and other dictators in history who have been more dangerous. One final complaint: in 1959 the sort of regimentation that the film complains about may have been a problem. If anything this country's schools have the opposite problem of insufficient discipline today. Weir is preaching to the choir.
This review has concentrated mostly on the negative aspects of a basically good film. Enough reviewers will be telling about the film's good points. I was concerned that these flaws might be less likely to be mentioned. In a field of films about drugs, car chases, and plastic monsters, DEAD POETS SOCIETY is a good choice, albeit flawed. I rate it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzx!leeper
leeper@mtgzx.att.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews