Dead Poets Society; Legacy, Mental Health and Expectation
The Coming-Of-Age Genre is based around growing up. A prime example of the genre is the film The Dead Poets Society it was written by Tom Schulman and Directed by Peter Weir. The primary theme of the film is legacy, The Teacher Mr Keatings Played by Robin Williams tell his students to seize the day (Carpe Diem) and cement their legacy. While the film centres around individual legacy it also holds a legacy, originating in the German Bildungsroman novels that were eventually brought to the cinema with Truffaut’s first film The 400 Blows the beginning of the French new wave and The Coming-of-Age Genre. Dead Poets society breaks the conventions of earlier American coming of age films, by being set in a new England prep school, it shows students revolting and was one of the first films to have suicide and anxiety play an important role.
The Coming-Of-Age Film is based on a German Type of Literature the Bildungsroman. The Bildungsroman is a novel that follows an adolescent boy as he grows up (Iversen, 2009), this is similar to the Coming-Of-Age genre the main difference being scope, Bildungsroman is focused on the stage of life between childhood and adulthood while coming of age can take place at any point in a character’s life. The first notable coming of age or Bildungsroman film was François Truffaut 1959 French new wave autobiographical film ‘The 400 Blows’. (Alastair Fox, 2019). While not all French new wave films could be considered coming-of-age a notable majority can, French new wave films often centred around young characters and were made a lot cheaper than the popular blockbuster of the time. Like French new wave coming-of-age is often shot for a lot less than the currently popular action films. The Dead Poets Society is a coming of age film that cost 16 million to produce and grossed 236 million (IMDb, n.d. -b) if you compare this to Back to the future Part II which cost 40 million to produce and made 332 million (IMDb, n.d. -a) coming of age is a lot cheaper to produce usually only needing a few everyday location and little to no special effects.
The Dead Poets Society is a film made by Peter Weir it takes notes from previous American coming of age films such as Ferris Buellers Day out (1986) and Fast Times at Ridgemont high (1982), but it has a key difference in being set at a prestigious new England boarding school. While Ferris Bueller and Ridgemont High contains a lot more American high school iconisms such as parades, sports and cheerleaders. These are included in Dead Poets Society when Knox Overstreet goes to Ridgewood High a rival school where his crush, Chris Noel is a cheerleader, in one of the scenes we see the typical High school jocks and cheerleaders parading around before training. However, this is the only appearance of these symbols instead dead poets society prefers Christian and British imagery. At the time Dead Poets Society was made this was quite rare, but as the global audience was growing Weir decided to forgo the generic American public high school in favour of having the backdrop be a more prestigious English boarding school.
“That life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” (Weir, 1989) in the second English class with Mr Keating who tells the boys to rip up their textbooks. This is in an attempt to teach them about building a legacy, this is one of the key themes in this film along with the coming-of-age genre as a whole. We are first introduced to the anxious Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) by the headmaster, Mr Nolan telling him “You have some big shoes to fill, your brother was one of our finest” (Weir, 1989) this is one of the first pieces of dialogue in the film and immediately introduces us to that idea of Legacy. This keeps being brought up in the opening with Neil Perry’s Dad soon telling him off for disagreeing with him in public and that he can’t do that until he finishes medical school, Charlie Dalton and Knox Overstreet then reveal their parent’s expectation of them becoming lawyers and bankers. “The prep school environment would seem particularly fertile for producing rebels, with its orderly traditions and high expectations that readily invite challenges.” (Shary, 2014) when the friends find out Mr Keating used to be a part of a Dead Poets Society at Welton Academy, as an act of rebellion they create a new society.
“Keating is not meant to be a revolutionary figure of the type associated with the 1960s; the teacher’s intention is less to overturn the boys’ lives than it is to enrich them” (Wallin, 2017). While Dead Poets Society was not the first film to centre on an overthrow of the education system since then many films have centred around teacher using unorthodox teaching methods and the students rallying to overthrow the school leadership. School of Rock (2003) and Matilda (1996) both contain a teacher and students causing a change in their schools, Horace Green creates an after school program to teach rock and Miss Honey replaces the tyrannical Ms Trunchbull as the Principal of Crunchem Hall. While by the end of Dead Poets society, structural change has not been made the students gain the bravery to speak out against the headmaster “as Keating leaves the classroom for the last time, his students stand on their desks to proclaim their allegiance to his teachings, declaring, 'O Captain! My Captain!” (Wallin, 2017)
One of the primary conventions of the coming-of-age genre is that the characters change and typically come of age. The change in this film is most notable from Todd and Neil. Todd is a new student who has social anxiety, he is forced to make friends due to his proximity to Neil but is still too scared to speak Infront of the group and class. Mr Keating challenges this with his first assignment, the students are required to write and perform a poem in front of the class, Todd attempts to get out of this but Keating still call him up telling the class “Mr. Anderson believes that everything he has inside of him is worthless and embarrassing. Correct, Todd? Isn't that your fear?” (Weir, 1989) Keating pushes him in front of the class and reassures him that all is okay and that he can overcome his struggle with anxiety to which he succeeds. At the end of the film Todd is the first to stand up against the headmaster an act he never could have done if it wasn’t for Keating and Neil pushing him. In more recent times anxiety has become an issue commonplace in coming-of-age media. The 2024 film Turtles all the way down follows Aza Holmes a high school student who struggles with OCD and fears she is a burden on her friends (Hello Future Me, 2019), Perks of being a wallflower (2012) “follows Charlie (Logan Lerman) as he writes letters to an unnamed friend about his struggles as an anxious high school teenager.” (Collins, 2022), The Healing Powers of Dude (2020) follows Noah through his first week of middle school as he is assisted by Dude an emotional support dog to get through a full day of classes. All of these depict different types of anxiety and act as vessel for “people to see themselves in the characters” (Hello Future Me, 2019) and help find support.
In comparison Neil’s characters arc starts him off as a blank canvas, he is one of the most popular kids at school but his dad places to many expectations on him. Neil wishes to be an actor, but his dads does not allow him to instead forcing him to focus on getting good grades and overpowering him with expectations to become a doctor. Neil finds a poster asking for actors for Henley Halls production of a midsummer night’s dream, brought on by Mr Keating pushing the boys to seize the day Neil decides to go against his dads wishes and audition for the play. “Weir avoided setting up a dichotomy of 'evil adults vs good students', instead populating the narrative with teachers and parents who are simply raising their children as they believe best at the time” (Wallin, 2017) Thomas Perry (Neil’s Dad) genuinely believes it is the best course of action for Neil to be shipped off to an even stricter military academy, Neil attempts to debate this before withdrawing, “For Weir, this suggests that suicide was not Neil's only option” (Wallin, 2017)
The suicide scene in Dead Poets society was shoot as more metaphorically then physically, it opens with a half-naked Neil opening his windows to the cold outside and putting on the thorn crown he wears in the performance of a midsummer night’s dream. The climax of the film is set during winter rather than the usual summer that coming-of-age films typically take place during this is so the weather can serve as a motif for the mental headspace of the characters a metaphor used in many books and movies. The crown is a representation of the crown of thorns Jesus wore when he was crucified this fits with the ethereal choir that haunts the audio of this scene and parallels the previous religious scenes at the school. Neil walks downstairs and picks up his dad’s gun, the scene does not continue any further than this, no gunshot is heard, and the full gun is not revealed, instead we cut to Neil’s dad jolting awake and going to investigate the house when we see smoke from behind the desk and then a gun and Neil’s hand. Nothing more is revealed, the suicide is never shown merely implied.
the 2017 Netflix series 13 reasons why centres around the suicide of Hannah Baker, unlike Dead Poets Society Hannah Bakers death is a lot more graphic. originally being a 3 minute long sequence shot in heavy detail, it has since been sterilised, replaced with Clay Jensen describing that she slit her wrists and bled to death along with the image of her sitting in a bathtub. 13 reasons why goes into a lot more depth into suicide, depression, self-harm and other mature themes. ”Studies of youth suicide in the United States found an increase on the order of 10% following release of the show (Sinyor et al., 2019) when creating media to do with mental health issue you have to worry about two audiences, the people not aware of and affected by the issue and those affected by and aware of the issue (Hello Future Me, 2019). Dead poets society created a vague and informed scene showing the suicide of Neil however the domino effect of it is that shows and movies such as 13 reasons why and all the bright places exist and cause harm to people with pre-existing conditions.
Overall Dead Poets Society has created a legacy well beyond its time. it forces the audience to assess their legacy and deals with the challenging topic of mental health, expectations and power structures.
References
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