Dead Poets Society

Dead poets society is a story about an English teacher John Keating who inspires his students to live deliberately and suck all the marrow out of life.

My initial reaction about this movie was that it was quite feeble and disappointing through the director was full of ambition to arouse educational concerns from many, as the film just talked in generalities in favor of the inspirational state which encouraged people to seize the day. It didn't get the crucial point.

Upon further reflection and class discussion, my opinion of the movie is unshaken. There are a number of unreasonable plots and noise about poetry making the film a failure. For instance, Keating required his students to rip it out the "introduction" of their poetry text book simply because he personally considered it ridiculous. This radical way violated his own belief of being a free thinker who keeps his mind truly free, open and inclusive. As for the poetry, there were merely brief quotations from Tennyson, Herrick, Whitman, and so on without any account for the further meaning. However, incredibly, all the students readily embrace the poetry, and strongly moved by Keating. That is strange and the real world never works like that!

My opinion is echoed by reviewer Roger Ebert from website Rottentomatoes. He said that the quotations were simply plundered for slogans to exhort the students toward more personal freedom and there was also a curious lack of depth to his character compared with such other great movie teachers. I can't agree more that Keating is more of a plot device than a human being.

Indeed, a common praise of the movie was that it was inspiring and uplifting. I don't agree because it is completely not grounded in the reality. What's more, children can easily be misleaded into turning against our parents by the movie.

For the above reasons, I assert that the film which attempt to pander the audience is not worthy of the name great.