Coming of Age Films—Dead Poets Society

Most coming of age films are essentially light-hearted, even if there are serious or soul-searching moments in them. But this week’s film, Dead Poets Society [1989] by Tom Schulman, tells a different kind of story.

Set in an exclusive boarding school in New England, the film focuses on two boys—Todd and Neil—and how the lessons they learn from a new teacher, Mr. Keating, shape their lives.

Todd is shy and afraid to tell his parents that he doesn’t want to follow in his brother’s footsteps and become a lawyer—that in his heart of hearts, he wants to become a writer. And his popular roommate Neil doesn’t want to follow his dad’s insistence that he become a doctor to live up to his family’s tradition.

Mr. Keating is an avant-garde teacher—stressing to his students the importance of thinking for themselves. Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye4KFyWu2do

It’s funny—when you look at the clip, the film it seems to be all about Keating, the teacher, but the film is much more about how Keating’s honesty about life affects these students, how that honesty changes them, and how it makes them strive to be all that they can be. If Keating could be allowed to shape these boys, they would all be happier and more in tune with themselves. But it’s the parents—and the school’s acquiescence to the parents—which stops the boys from becoming the people they should be.

The film is a terrific story about how being innovative—and being right—can, in the end, cause you to lose your job. And how being wrong [as the parents are] can cause you to actually lose your child—in one case, because that child will grow apart from you because Keating finally gave him the courage to go for the life he wants, and in another case because the parent is SO controlling the student will commit suicide to escape that father’s control.

This film treats the school experience quite differently than, say Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, doesn’t it? It’s not light-hearted let’s-get-back-at-the-dolts-who-run things, it’s a serious look at the pressures put on children by their parents and by elite educational institutions who care more about parental support for the school than the actual education of their students.

This is a powerful film. And it’s just as relevant today is it was in 1989. As Keating would say, “Carpe Diem”—Seize the Day. So why don’t you do that—seize the day and watch this film. And let it lead you to think about really serious coming of age films and what it would mean to try and write something in this vein.

Copyright © Diane Lake

15Aug21

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