DEAD POETS SOCIETY
Reviewed by David N. Butterworth
(c) 1989 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Few comedians command such respect as comics that, when they pause a while for serious introspection, the audience sits up and listens. Robin Williams is such a performer. In his latest film, Peter Weir's DEAD POETS SOCIETY, Williams manages to blend humor and pathos without compromising either, fashioning a part that is both touching and appealing.
The action takes place at Welton Academy, a stuffy, upper-class edifice of preparatory education rooted in pride and tradition. Williams plays John Keating, a charismatic English teacher whose unorthodox teaching methods endear seven of his pimply-faced students to him, ultimately changing their lives forever. But these unconventional practices raise many an eyebrow amongst his fellow professors, none the least of whom is the school's unswerving principal, effectively played by Norman Lloyd of TV's "St. Elsewhere".
Williams' character provides the essential catalyst in the story, encouraging his pupils to reconvene the Dead Poets Society, a scholarly opportunity he had as a youth to actively explore the language of Walt Whitman, Dylan Thomas and William Blake. Enlivening them, Keating urges that they "suck all the marrow out of life", stimulating romance and passion and allowing it to "drip from their tongues like honey."
Scurrying busily to a nearby, off-limits cave to indoctrinate themselves into their chapter of the club, the boys resemble monks, their hoods pulled up over their heads like habits, flashlights cutting through the dense blue fog. It's a superbly photographed sequence in a film which is both striking and technically excellent. The scene is altogether magical, taking on a special wonder.
But there is a darker side to the story, however. The boys huddle around Keating to look at the blurred, photographed faces of their predecessors now housed under glass, faces not unlike their own. "We're food for worms, lads," he tells them. "These boys are fertilizing daffodils now." Life does not go on uninterrupted. Their time too will come.
Keating inspires his boys to seize the day - "Carpe Diem!" - to act on their impulses and be spontaneous, free thinkers. He teaches them non-conformity by camaraderie. One, Neil Perry, maturely played by Robert Sean Leonard, pursues an acting career, albeit against his malevolent father's wishes. Another, Todd Anderson (played with quiet reserve by Ethan Hawke), builds confidence. A third, Knox Overstreet (played by Josh Charles) finds true love at last.
Williams himself is a fine actor and his John Keating is a characterization of rare sensitivity. It's certainly his best work since THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM might have been a more popular film at the box office, but wasn't Robin Williams simply playing Robin Williams - loud, irreverent, hysterical? His role here is a far cry from that of the ostentatious, freewheeling Adrian Cronauer, but it is every bit as effective.
Contrary to the impression the previews would give us, Williams' role has been reduced to somewhat of a supporting one. He does get to utilize his standard nightclub schtick, but it's both in character and in context. People coming to see the film simply for Robin Williams might be disappointed, but they will also be missing the point.
DEAD POETS SOCIETY takes the often frivolous ingredients of classical literature - love, romanticism, passion - and turns them into a universal theme, man's ability, man's right (if you will) to think for himself, to act with spontaneity. Ask yourself when it was that you last thought about these subjects with anything more than a smile, or with a passing, cynical glance?
The film makes us, the audience, take a long hard look at what inspires us, what governs our motivations and determines our actions. It emotes feelings rarely felt in the movies these days. Peter Weir skillfully handles a subject matter which, in the hands of a lesser director, might have come across as trite, even laughable. But he has gathered together a young ensemble cast of relative unknowns and allowed them, much as Perry as Puck in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, to shine.
In so doing, DEAD POETS SOCIETY finally triumphs, laying to rest the age old fallacy that the only good poet is a dead one.
| Directed by: Peter Weir David N. Butterworth - UNIVERSITY OF PA | | Rating (L. Maltin): *** Internet: butterworth@a1.mscf.upenn.edu |
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