You Can't Quantify `Dead Poet's'

Dead Poet's Society

Directed by Peter Weir

At the Janus Theater

USE the J. Evans Pritchart formula for evaluating poetry and extend it to film. Now, we can examine Dead Poet's Society by putting the method which the film uses to present its message (its "perfection") on the Y axis of a graph, and the importance of that message on the X axis.

The film's methods--the acting, direction, cinematography and music--are strong, beautiful, if sometimes convoluted. The importance of its message is unmeasurable despite its current cliche status.

So, according to the Pritchart method, Dead Poet's Society covers a huge area on a graph, and can clearly be viewed as a great film.

But, as Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) says, "Pritchart is excrement."

Dead Poet's Society is undoubtably one of the best--perhaps, indeed, the best--film of the summer. But, like poetry, its qualities cannot be graphed and measured.

AT the start of Dead Poet's Society, a class of prep school boys, who have spent their lives conforming to their parents desires, are presented by their new English teacher with the lesson "Carpe Diem."

Look at the photos of boys long gone from the Helton School, Keating tells his awed class, and look and wonder how many of them died before they had lived. And then look at yourselves.

And they did. Six of them looked further, back into Mr. Keating's years at Helton, and discovered the Dead Poet's Society, a group of boys who went late at night to the old Indian cave in the woods and read poetry aloud to each other.

Taken with the romance of the idea, Mr. Keatings' students decided to make their own foray to the Indian cave. They read poetry, sang, danced, smoked pot, told ghost stories and knew that they were no longer conforming.

Back in class, Mr. Keating made them stand on desks, walk strangely around the courtyard, recite poetry aloud and confront the secret desires they had never let through previously in their lives.

The message of the film seemed to be that by refusing to conform, by living "deliberately," you can learn yourself and be happy.

But director Peter Weir decided, wisely though painfully, to allow reality to intrude. And in the reality of a New England boarding school, the Dead Poet's Society floundered.

Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles) fell in love with a girl from the local public school and got beaten up by her boyfriend, although in the end he won her with poetry. Charlie Dalton took his individualism to the limits, demanded to be called "Nuanda," painted red lightening bolts for fertility on his chest and got kicked out of school for standing up for his convictions. (At the same time however, he tried to use the society to pick up women.)

And the rest, when confronted with the choice of standing behind Mr. Keating or saving themselves from expulsion, chose to betray the lessons they had learned.

The boys are like most boarding school boys--you can hardly tell one from the other--however, they are all quite good, and by the end of the movie several have distinguished themselves. Todd Anderson, who in the end seems to have learned the most from Mr. Keating, is remarkably good--insecure, quiet, lonely, a prep school boy whose parents must have sent him away at the age of 12.

Neil Perry, the frustrated actor whose father says gruffly, "You look like it's a prison term," as he tells Neil that he will leave Helton, go to military school, then to Harvard and to medical school, is the leader of the new Dead Poet's Society and the strongest character in the movie. In his talent, naivete and inability to move outside of his father's demands lies the film's tragedy.

ALTHOUGH casting Williams as Keating is misleading, since a Robin Williams role usually means humor, Williams' versatility is well-evidenced in this film. Solemn, intense, still a school-boy, but wiser than his years--everything that a teacher-who-changed-my-life always is--Williams is perfect supporting role for the unfolding drama of the boys' coming-of-age.

Behind the plot, which stands on its own, is a chorus of extremely wellplanned sound, staging and cinematography. The music, while it does not intrude into the film, especially demands recognition, as Keating is constantly listening to, refering to or playing music. The two themes which continued throughout the movie are Beethoven's 9th symphony and Handel's "Water Music."

The sets, like the music, are exquisite. The movie is filmed at St. Andrew's School, where huge gothic buildings, a calm lake, autumn leaves on New England trees and a blanket of white snow all play to the naturalistic and romantic poets whom Keating teaches to the boys.

And behind all of this is the stellar direction of Weir. He may not have built St. Andrew's, taught Williams how to act, written the Beethoven symphony or given universal appeal to the age-old theme, but Weir's dexterity in pulling all of those elements together in Dead Poet's Society must be commended.