Dead Poets Society | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Weir |
Written by | Tom Schulman |
Produced by | |
Starring | Robin Williams |
Cinematography | John Seale |
Edited by | William Anderson |
Music by | Maurice Jarre |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 128 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $16.4 million [2] |
Box office | $235.9 million [3] |
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Tom Schulman. The film, starring Robin Williams, is set in 1959 at the fictional elite boarding school, Welton Academy, [4] and tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.
Dead Poets Society was released in the United States on June 2, 1989. The film was a critical and commercial success. It grossed $235 million worldwide, became the fifth-highest-grossing film of 1989, and received generally positive reviews from critics. The film received numerous accolades, including Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, as well as a Best Actor nomination for Williams. The film won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, [5] the César Award for Best Foreign Film and the David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Film. Schulman received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his work.
In 1959, Todd Anderson begins his junior year of high school at Welton Academy, an Episcopalian all-male preparatory boarding school in Vermont. Assigned one of Welton's most promising students, senior Neil Perry, as his roommate, he meets Neil's friends: Knox Overstreet, Richard Cameron, Steven Meeks, Gerard Pitts and Charlie Dalton.
On the first day of classes, the boys are surprised by the unorthodox teaching methods of the new English teacher, John Keating. A Welton alumnus who read English Literature at Cambridge, England, and became a teacher, Mr. Keating encourages his students to "seize the day", or "carpe diem".
Keating has the students take turns standing on his desk to demonstrate ways to look at life differently, tells them to rip out the introduction of their poetry books that explains a mathematical formula used for rating poetry, and invites them to make up their own style of walking in a courtyard to encourage their individualism. Keating's methods attract the attention of strict headmaster, Gale Nolan.
On learning that Keating was a member of the unsanctioned Dead Poets Society while at Welton, Neil restarts the club, and he and his friends sneak off campus to a cave, where they read poetry. Keating's lessons and their involvement with the club encourage them to live their lives on their own terms. Knox pursues Chris Noel, a cheerleader who is dating Chet Danburry, a football player from a local public school, and whose family is friends with his.
Neil discovers his love of acting, and gets the role of Puck in a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream , despite the fact that his domineering father wants him to attend Harvard to study medicine. Keating helps Todd come out of his shell and realize his potential when he takes him through an exercise in self-expression, resulting in his spontaneously composing a poem in front of the class.
Charlie publishes an article in the school newspaper in the club's name suggesting that girls be admitted to Welton. Nolan paddles Charlie to coerce him to reveal who else is in the Dead Poets Society, but he resists. Nolan also speaks with Keating, warning him that he should discourage his students from questioning authority. Keating admonishes the boys, warning them that one must assess all potential consequences of one's actions.
Neil's father discovers his involvement in the play and demands that he quit on the eve of the opening performance. Keating advises Neil to stand his ground to prove to his father that he takes acting seriously. After Neil participates in the play, his father has him withdrawn from Welton and enrolled in a military academy in retaliation. Lacking any support from his mother and unable to explain how he feels to his father, Neil commits suicide.
Nolan investigates Neil's death at the request of Neil's parents. To escape punishment for his own participation in the Dead Poets Society, Cameron blames Neil's death on Keating, and names the Society's other members. Confronted by Charlie, Cameron urges the other students to let Keating take the fall. Charlie punches Cameron and is expelled. Each of the boys is called to Nolan's office to sign a letter confirming Cameron's false allegations. When Todd's turn comes, he is reluctant to sign, but does so under the pressure of his parents, resulting in Keating's firing.
Nolan, who taught English at Welton prior to becoming headmaster, takes over Keating's English class with the intent of adhering to traditional Welton rules. Keating interrupts the class to gather his belongings. As he leaves, Todd reveals to Keating that the boys were intimidated into signing the letter that sealed his fate. Keating assures Todd that he believes him. Nolan threatens to expel Todd and anyone else who speaks out of line. Despite this, Todd stands up on his desk and says the words, "O Captain! My Captain!". The other members of the Dead Poets Society (except Cameron), as well as several other students in the class, do the same. Touched by their support, Keating proudly thanks the boys before departing.
The original script was written by Tom Schulman, based on his experiences at the Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, Tennessee, particularly with his inspirational teacher, Samuel Pickering. [7] [8] [9]
Jeff Kanew was originally hired as the director, and Kanew had envisioned Liam Neeson in the role of Keating. [10] Other actors considered for the role were Dustin Hoffman, [11] Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and Mickey Rourke. [12] [13] Robin Williams, who was Touchstone Pictures's preferred choice, was ultimately cast, but on the first day of shooting outside Atlanta, Williams did not show, for he did not want to work with Kanew. [14] The studio burned down the already-built sets, and replaced Kanew with another director. [14]
In late 1988, Peter Weir met with Jeffrey Katzenberg at Disney. Katzenberg, who oversaw Touchstone, suggested that Weir read Schulman's script. On the flight back to Sydney, Weir was captivated, and six weeks later returned to Los Angeles to cast the principal characters. [15] It was when Weir was given directing duties that filming began in earnest. [14]
In Schulman's manuscript, Keating had been ill and slowly dying of Hodgkin lymphoma, with a scene showing him on his hospital deathbed. This was removed by Weir, who deemed it unnecessary, claiming that it would focus audiences' attention on Keating's illness, rather than on what he stood for. [16]
Early notes on the script from Disney also suggested making the boys' passion dancing rather than poetry, as well as a new title, Sultans of Swing, focusing on the character of Mr. Keating, rather than on the boys, but both were dismissed outright. [15]
Filming began in November 1988, wrapped in January 1989, and took place at St. Andrew's School and the Everett Theatre in Middletown, Delaware, as well as at locations in New Castle, Delaware, and in nearby Wilmington, Delaware. [9] [17] Classroom scenes with Keating were filmed in a replica classroom built on a soundstage in Wilmington. [9] During the shooting, Weir requested that the young cast not use modern slang, even off camera. [18] Weir also said that he hid a half-day's filming from Disney executives to allow Williams free range to use his comedy improvisational skills. [19]
During filming, Williams cracked many jokes on set, which Ethan Hawke found irritating. However, Hawke's first agent signed with Hawke when Williams told him that Hawke would "do really well". [20] [19]
The worldwide box office was reported as $235,860,579, which includes domestic grosses of $95,860,116. [3] The film's global receipts were the fifth-highest for 1989, and the highest for dramas. [21]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84%, based on 61 reviews, with an average score of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Affecting performances from the young cast and a genuinely inspirational turn from Robin Williams grant Peter Weir's prep school drama top honors." [22] On Metacritic, the film received a score of 79, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [23] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade on a scale of A+ to F. [24]
The Washington Post 's reviewer called it "solid, smart entertainment", and praised Robin Williams for giving a "nicely restrained acting performance". [25]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times also praised Williams's "exceptionally fine performance", while writing that "Dead Poets Society... is far less about Keating than about a handful of impressionable boys". [4]
Pauline Kael was unconvinced about the film and its "middlebrow highmindedness", but praised Williams. "Robin Williams'[s] performance is more graceful than anything he's done before [–] he's totally, concentratedly there – [he] reads his lines stunningly, and when he mimics various actors reciting Shakespeare there's no undue clowning in it; he's a gifted teacher demonstrating his skills." [26]
Roger Ebert's review for the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four. He criticized Williams for spoiling an otherwise creditable dramatic performance by occasionally veering into his onstage comedian's persona, and lamented that for a film set in the 1950s, there was no mention of the Beat Generation writers. Additionally, Ebert described the film as an often poorly constructed "collection of pious platitudes.... The movie pays lip service to qualities and values that, on the evidence of the screenplay itself, it is cheerfully willing to abandon." [27]
On their Oscar-nomination edition of Siskel & Ebert , both Gene Siskel (who also gave the film a mixed review) and Ebert disagreed with Williams's Oscar nomination. Ebert said that he would have swapped Williams with either Matt Dillon for Drugstore Cowboy or John Cusack for Say Anything . [28] On their If We Picked the Winners special in March 1990, Ebert chose the film's Best Picture nomination as the worst nomination of the year, believing that it took a slot that could have gone to Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing . [29]
Film historian Leonard Maltin wrote, "Well made, extremely well acted, but also dramatically obvious and melodramatically one-sided. Nevertheless, Tom Schulman's screenplay won an Oscar." [30]
John Simon, writing for National Review , said that Dead Poets Society was the most dishonest film that he had seen in some time. [31]
American Film Institute Lists
The film's line, " Carpe diem . Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.", was voted as the 95th greatest movie quote by the American Film Institute. [46]
After Robin Williams's death in August 2014, fans of his work used social media to pay tribute to him with photo and video reenactments of the film's final "O Captain! My Captain!" scene. [47]
Nancy H. Kleinbaum's novel, Dead Poets Society (1989), is based on the movie. [48]
A theatrical adaptation written by Tom Schulman and directed by John Doyle opened off-Broadway October 27, 2016, and ran through December 11, 2016. [49] Jason Sudeikis starred as John Keating, [50] with Thomas Mann as Neil Perry, David Garrison as Gale Nolan, Zane Pais as Todd Anderson, Francesca Carpanini as Chris, Stephen Barker Turner as Mr. Perry, Will Hochman as Knox Overstreet, Cody Kostro as Charlie Dalton, Yaron Lotan as Richard Cameron, and Bubba Weiler as Steven Meeks. [51] [52]
The production received a mixed review from The New York Times, with critic Ben Brantley calling the play "blunt and bland", and criticizing Sudeikis's performance, citing his lack of enthusiasm when delivering powerful lines. [53]
In 2018, the theatrical adaptation of the film, written by Tom Schulman and directed by Francisco Franco, premiered in Mexico. The Mexican actor, Alfonso Herrera, played the main character. [54]
An adaptation was made for the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele in Germany, also with the assistance of Tom Schulman. It premiered in July 2021, and was still staged two years later. The lead actor was Francis Fulton-Smith. [55]
The ending of the film was parodied in the 2009 Community episode, "Introduction to Film". [56]
The ending of the film was parodied in the 2016 Saturday Night Live sketch, "Farewell, Mr. Bunting", with Fred Armisen playing Williams's role. The sketch is a largely faithful recreation of the scene, until a student (Pete Davidson) is decapitated by a ceiling fan when he jumps on top of his desk. [57]
Robert James Lee Hawke was an Australian politician and trade unionist who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991. He held office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), having previously served as the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions from 1969 to 1980 and president of the Labor Party national executive from 1973 to 1978.
Paul John Keating is an Australian former politician who served as the 24th prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He previously served as the treasurer of Australia under Prime Minister Bob Hawke from 1983 to 1991 and as the seventh deputy prime minister of Australia from 1990 to 1991.
Peter Lindsay Weir is an Australian retired film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gallipoli (1981), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and The Way Back (2010). He has received six Academy Award nominations, ultimately being awarded the Academy Honorary Award in 2022 for his lifetime achievement career.
Joseph Neil Schulman was an American novelist who wrote Alongside Night and The Rainbow Cadenza which both received the Prometheus Award, a libertarian science fiction award. His third novel, Escape from Heaven, was also a finalist for the 2002 Prometheus Award. His fourth and last novel, The Fractal Man, was a finalist for the 2019 Prometheus Award.
Moonstruck is a 1987 American romantic comedy film directed by Norman Jewison and written by John Patrick Shanley. It stars Cher as a widowed Italian American woman who falls in love with her fiancé's hot-tempered, estranged younger brother, played by Nicolas Cage. The supporting cast includes Danny Aiello, Olympia Dukakis and Vincent Gardenia.
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, author and film director. He made his film debut in Explorers (1985), before making a breakthrough performance in Dead Poets Society (1989). Hawke starred alongside Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy from 1995 to 2013. Hawke received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Training Day (2001) and Boyhood (2014) and two for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). Other notable roles include in Reality Bites (1994), Gattaca (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Maggie's Plan (2015), First Reformed (2017), The Black Phone (2021) and The Northman (2022).
Good Morning, Vietnam is a 1987 American war comedy film written by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson. Set in Saigon in 1965, during the Vietnam War, the film stars Robin Williams as an Armed Forces Radio Service DJ who proves hugely popular with the troops, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his "irreverent tendency". The story is loosely based on the experiences of AFRS DJ, Adrian Cronauer.
Sir Christopher Edward Nolan is a British and American filmmaker. Known for his Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. Nolan's films have earned over $6 billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing film director of all time. His accolades include two Academy Awards and two British Academy Film Awards. Nolan was appointed as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2019, and received a knighthood in 2024 for his contributions to film.
St. Andrew's is a private, Episcopal, co-educational 100% boarding school in New Castle County, Delaware, with a Middletown postal address. It is one of only three co-ed college preparatory schools in the United States where all students board. St. Andrew's has 318 students, and is highly selective, accepting 18% for the 2021–2022 school year. Despite its relatively small student body, it has one of the largest secondary school campuses in the United States, spanning 2,200 acres. St. Andrew's offers 130 courses each year in 10 disciplines.
Aaron Edward Eckhart is an American actor. Born in Cupertino, California, Eckhart moved to the United Kingdom at an early age. He began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Australia for his high school senior year. He left high school without graduating, but earned a diploma through a professional education course, and then graduated from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah, U.S., in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film.
Joshua Aaron Charles is an American film, television, and theater actor. He is best known for the roles of Dan Rydell on Sports Night, Will Gardner on The Good Wife, which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, and his early work as Knox Overstreet in Dead Poets Society and Bryan from Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
Robert Lawrence Leonard, known by his stage name Robert Sean Leonard, is an American actor. He is known for playing Dr. James Wilson in the television series House (2004–2012) and Neil Perry in the 1989 film Dead Poets Society.
Thomas H. Schulman is an American screenwriter best known for his semi-autobiographical screenplay Dead Poets Society, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1989.
Lee Smith, ACE, is an Australian film editor who has worked in the film industry since the 1980s. He began his film career as a sound editor before establishing himself as an editor. His breakthrough came when he began collaborating with director Peter Weir. Smith is best known for his work on several of Christopher Nolan's films, including Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing.
Norman Nathan Lloyd was an American actor, producer, director, and centenarian with a career in entertainment spanning nearly a century. He worked in every major facet of the industry, including theatre, radio, television, and film, with a career that started in 1923. Lloyd's final film, Trainwreck, was released in 2015, after he turned 100. Lloyd remains the longest-lived male actor from Classic Hollywood.
Susan H. Schulman is an American theatre director.
Robert De Niro is an American actor, director and producer. His early films included Greetings (1968), The Wedding Party (1969), Bloody Mama (1970), Hi, Mom! (1970), Jennifer on My Mind (1971), The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971), and Mean Streets (1973). In 1974, De Niro was cast as the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II. His performance in the film led him to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. After The Godfather Part II, he starred in Martin Scorsese's psychological drama Taxi Driver (1976). In the film, De Niro portrayed Travis Bickle, who is a lonely, depressed 26-year-old living in isolation in New York City. He won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actor, National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actor, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. De Niro's "You talkin' to me?" dialogue was ranked number 10 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes. In 1978, De Niro appeared in Michael Cimino's war drama The Deer Hunter, a film based on a trio of steelworkers whose lives were changed forever after fighting in the Vietnam War. De Niro was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Samuel F. "Sam" Pickering Jr. is a writer and professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. His unconventional teaching style was an inspiration for the character of Mr. Keating, played by Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society. Pickering specializes in the familiar essay, children's literature, nature writers, and 18th and 19th century English literature. Pickering has published many collections of non-fiction personal essays as well as over 200 articles.
Will Smith is an American actor, rapper and film producer. His breakthrough came when he played a fictionalised version of himself in the 1990s television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The role brought him international recognition and two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy. He also served as an executive producer on 24 episodes of the series. Two years later, Smith made his film debut in the drama Where the Day Takes You, where he appeared as a disabled homeless man. In 1995, he starred as a police officer with Martin Lawrence in Michael Bay's Bad Boys. The following year, Smith appeared as a Marine Corps pilot with Jeff Goldblum in Roland Emmerich's science fiction film Independence Day. The film grossed over $817 million at the worldwide box office and was the highest grossing of 1996. In 1997, he starred as Agent J in the science fiction film Men in Black, a role he reprised in its sequels Men in Black II (2002) and Men in Black 3 (2012).
Christopher Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and film producer. His feature directorial debut was the neo-noir crime thriller Following (1998) which was made on a shoestring budget of $6,000. Two years later, he directed the psychological thriller Memento (2000) which starred Guy Pearce as a man suffering from anterograde amnesia searching for his wife's killers. Similar to his debut feature it had a non-linear narrative structure, and was his breakthrough film. It was acclaimed by critics and was a surprise commercial success. For the film Nolan received his first nomination for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film, and for writing its screenplay he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He next directed the mystery thriller remake Insomnia (2002) which starred Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank. It was his first film for Warner Bros., and was a critical and commercial success.