1) Dead Poets Society
You know a film has reached a certain level of impact in society when it joins the ranks of parodied movies, and Peter Weir’s inspirational drama is no exception. With an Academy Award winning screenplay by Tom Schulman – based on his own experiences – Dead Poets Society teaches us all one very important lesson: “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys, Make your lives extraordinary.”
Set in the 1950s, the film introduces a group of seven friends who are senior students at the elite prep school, Welton Academy – a boys-only institution, founded on traditional approaches to education and discipline. When a new English teacher arrives in the shape of former Welton Academy student John Keating (Robin Williams), he shakes things up and employs methods regarded as unorthodox at best by school management. He encourages his students to take every opportunity to view the world from a different angle, and “carpe diem.”
Keating is soon revered by the boys, who discover details about his time as a Welton student, and his involvement in an underground school literary club – The Dead Poets Society. Secretly reviving it, the students find that the school authorities and their parents blame the students’ sudden independence of thought on Keating and the club, after shocking tragedy occurs.
A wonderfully executed tale of the beauty of individuality and self-expression, in the face of oppression and stifling authority, Dead Poets Society inspires us to do more with our lives, as John Keating inspires his students. The entire philosophy of the film can be found in a simple classroom scene – as Keating explains to his young charges the importance of poetry, and the importance of passion:
“To quote from Whitman, ‘O me! O life!…of the questions of the recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless – of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.’ That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”