Last night I watched the movie Dead Poets Society, and I think it summed up my whole life up until this point. (If any of you have seen this, please comment because I know very few people who have that can identify with me on a writing standpoint.) If you are a writer (which you should already check yes, since you're reading this on YWS), then I highly recommend this movie to you. I don't care whether you write poetry, prose, screenplays, blogs, or letters; the overall theme of the movie was learning how to think for yourself even when your age gives you reason to doubt.
I found this brief summary of the plot on moviefone.com:
"Robin Williams toned down his usually manic comic approach in this successful period drama. In 1959, the Welton Academy is a staid but well-respected prep school where education is a pragmatic and rather dull affair. Several of the students, however, have their thoughts on the learning process (and life itself) changed when a new teacher comes to the school. John Keating (Williams) is an unconventional educator who tears chapters of his textbooks and asks his students to stand on their desks to see the world from a new angle. Keating introduces his students to poetry, and his free-thinking attitude and the liberating philosophies of the authors he introduces to his class have a profound effect on his students. Keating urges his students to seize the day and live their lives boldly; but when this philosophy leads to an unexpected tragedy, headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd) fires Keating, and his students leap to his defense. Dead Poets Society was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Williams; it won one, for Tom Schulman's original screenplay."
"They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary." ~John Keating
I found that I could identify the most with Neil. Not from a suicidal perspective - obviously I am alive and well, typing this - but I am under the same authoritative pressure that Neil receives from his father. I'm passionate about many things, writing being held at esteem, and when I talk, people listen (similar to how Todd viewed Neil). Yet when I am around my father, I fall silent; words fail me. And so this story inspired me, not only as a writer, but also to rise above who he sees me as - I will no longer be a victim, a statistic. Who I am inside is beautiful, and God has given me the ability to create beauty with words.
Wouldn't it be amazing if I could catalyze something like this in real life? Just imagine it - a revolution of writers exchanging words that rhyme, that inspire, that sadden, that fulfill, that knock on the door of one's heart..
Maybe we could start something here in this corner of the world as well.
Who was your favorite character from this book/movie? Which did you find you could identify the most with on a personal level? Favorite quote?
