Saturday, November 06, 2004
A and I watched Dead Poets Society tonight, her first time. I had not seen the film since the early 90s, and given all that has passed that has changed me, it was a different experience. Its flaws were now evident to me, but many of its more rousing scenes had not diminished in emotional effect. I'm left with many questions, namely why I do not feel comeasurate warmth and sympathy for Mr. Keating in the final moments.
Neil's suicide is tragic because all suicide is tragic, but particularly tragic because it is committed as a "fuck-you" to his controlling father. Detractors of the film call this cold final act of the film "emotionally manipulative", and indeed it does appear to be a mis-step in an otherwise light-hearted story of tame rich-kids tapping into rebellion in the mids of the ultra-conformative 1950s. I found myself flip-flopping as I took in the familar denoument, is this maudlin Hollywood drama, or is it something more?
One conclusion that seems plausible is that the film deserves credit for raising and depicting teenage (or even just human) passion. The "carpe diem" theme is overstated, sure, but it is pure fun to observe the characters discover the maxim's truth on their own. In other words, that the story's protagonists are high school students (a breed I work with daily) excuses, or rather confirms the genius of using, the indulgence of using these exciting and clever scenes to make a cliched point.
Moreover, the movie makes a rather Whitmanian point about death. To Whitman, life was connected to everything, including death. The more the boys awaken into true sensual living -- into non-conformity, into sexuality, into alcohol, into chaos, into creativity -- the closer in tune they become with what it means to be alive. This leads the more intuitive of them, Neil, to discover the meaning and the power of death, which he ultimately uses.
It is therefore hard not to partly side with the fascist administration of Helton, which fires Keating for rousing the students passion in the first place. The film urges the audience to side with Keating; were the viewer in the classroom in the last scene, they too would stand upon their desks in defiance. After all, Neil's father is abominably controlling and the school unforgiving, seeking only to preserve its reputation; humanity slips through the cracks. Even given all these proven truths, it is still not possible to totally acquit Mr. Keating. Did he not inspire his pupils to think for themselves? Were not the warnings of his colleagues definitively expressed as their concern that they were too young to encounter such revolutionary education? Wasn't this an apt admonition, given the way the film bears out? I don't know.
Over two years of work and life at my School affords me special insight into the soul of the movie. On one hand, if my students were half as much gripped, understood, and moved by poetry as the students in the film, I'd do backflips of motherfucking joy. A lot of the time, I'm doing the motherfucking backflips just to ensure their even watching. They are good kids, mine, and intelligent in different ways and beautiful in other different ways, but none has the receptivity to hear the power of poetry, to let it into him. I didn't when I was in high school, and they are the same. When I first started working here, a friend warned "don't expect it to be Dead Poets Society", and I was quick to affirm that it was not. Society, obviously, has changed.
The struggle for absolute control over youth has abated, and is rightly considered an out-dated approach to education. My school was formerly steeped in the type of repressive regime depicted in the school, but my employment co-incided with a new regime and a new philosophy that more accurately reflects 21st century culture: multi-culturalism, technology, and post-modernism. The students, as well, are different than the those in the movie. Mine are not ruled by a culture that motivates them by showing them only one path to success and punishing them brutally from straying from it, they are lulled by a (popular) culture into thinking that their choices matter. They are, as opposed to the boys in the film, almost victims of too much non-conformity, to the point that they seem to conform to it like branches in a breeze.
My students are every bit as passionate and bottled-up as those in Dead Poets Society, and they are dying for anything to call their own. So dying, that they latch all too readily onto what capitalism has so studiously provided for them. In most cases, this ideal teen image is a manifestation of all the sentiments of non-conformity, rebellion, and tear-down-the-doors passion portrayed in the film as latent agents resting beneath teenage skin. I suppose it is an ironic wish, having finished watching the movie, to feel like my students are a little more focused on their future, a lot more respectful of language, or even paying attention at all.
So Dead Poets Society. A beautifully shot film, as all private school campuses are (at least mine is) beautifully landscaped beside bodies of gorgeous water, the best beauty it accomplishes is in its intelligent depiction of breaking loose, of teenage chaos. Live, when lived, is a danger. Conformity helps keep us away from that danger, but it might also keep us from living. This is pure Thoreau, as every bit outrageous as he was in his day, and just as true. It is this truth, not the film's occasional awkward step into schmaltz, which makes it great.
When the boys are in the cave, chanting and dancing and letting themselves expand, it is hard not see a prediction of the late 1960s, in all its youthful, hedonistic, activism. And the progressive movements of the 1960s, as important and relevant as they were, still displayed an exorbitant degree of impropriety and immorality, even by liberal standards. Similarly, the characters of the movie are seen ultimately as transgressors, and rightly they should have been shown by the filmmakers. I still refuse to side with that red-haired bastard Cameron, but his side of the argument (Keating as miasmatic demagogue; youth as dangerous when handling life's extremes) maybe has more credit than the film portrays.
It's a delicate balance, educating teenagers. The film does a decent job of portraying this, even if it stacks the odds slightly to make a point. It's still enjoyable to watch. Enough for now.
Neil's suicide is tragic because all suicide is tragic, but particularly tragic because it is committed as a "fuck-you" to his controlling father. Detractors of the film call this cold final act of the film "emotionally manipulative", and indeed it does appear to be a mis-step in an otherwise light-hearted story of tame rich-kids tapping into rebellion in the mids of the ultra-conformative 1950s. I found myself flip-flopping as I took in the familar denoument, is this maudlin Hollywood drama, or is it something more?
One conclusion that seems plausible is that the film deserves credit for raising and depicting teenage (or even just human) passion. The "carpe diem" theme is overstated, sure, but it is pure fun to observe the characters discover the maxim's truth on their own. In other words, that the story's protagonists are high school students (a breed I work with daily) excuses, or rather confirms the genius of using, the indulgence of using these exciting and clever scenes to make a cliched point.
Moreover, the movie makes a rather Whitmanian point about death. To Whitman, life was connected to everything, including death. The more the boys awaken into true sensual living -- into non-conformity, into sexuality, into alcohol, into chaos, into creativity -- the closer in tune they become with what it means to be alive. This leads the more intuitive of them, Neil, to discover the meaning and the power of death, which he ultimately uses.
It is therefore hard not to partly side with the fascist administration of Helton, which fires Keating for rousing the students passion in the first place. The film urges the audience to side with Keating; were the viewer in the classroom in the last scene, they too would stand upon their desks in defiance. After all, Neil's father is abominably controlling and the school unforgiving, seeking only to preserve its reputation; humanity slips through the cracks. Even given all these proven truths, it is still not possible to totally acquit Mr. Keating. Did he not inspire his pupils to think for themselves? Were not the warnings of his colleagues definitively expressed as their concern that they were too young to encounter such revolutionary education? Wasn't this an apt admonition, given the way the film bears out? I don't know.
Over two years of work and life at my School affords me special insight into the soul of the movie. On one hand, if my students were half as much gripped, understood, and moved by poetry as the students in the film, I'd do backflips of motherfucking joy. A lot of the time, I'm doing the motherfucking backflips just to ensure their even watching. They are good kids, mine, and intelligent in different ways and beautiful in other different ways, but none has the receptivity to hear the power of poetry, to let it into him. I didn't when I was in high school, and they are the same. When I first started working here, a friend warned "don't expect it to be Dead Poets Society", and I was quick to affirm that it was not. Society, obviously, has changed.
The struggle for absolute control over youth has abated, and is rightly considered an out-dated approach to education. My school was formerly steeped in the type of repressive regime depicted in the school, but my employment co-incided with a new regime and a new philosophy that more accurately reflects 21st century culture: multi-culturalism, technology, and post-modernism. The students, as well, are different than the those in the movie. Mine are not ruled by a culture that motivates them by showing them only one path to success and punishing them brutally from straying from it, they are lulled by a (popular) culture into thinking that their choices matter. They are, as opposed to the boys in the film, almost victims of too much non-conformity, to the point that they seem to conform to it like branches in a breeze.
My students are every bit as passionate and bottled-up as those in Dead Poets Society, and they are dying for anything to call their own. So dying, that they latch all too readily onto what capitalism has so studiously provided for them. In most cases, this ideal teen image is a manifestation of all the sentiments of non-conformity, rebellion, and tear-down-the-doors passion portrayed in the film as latent agents resting beneath teenage skin. I suppose it is an ironic wish, having finished watching the movie, to feel like my students are a little more focused on their future, a lot more respectful of language, or even paying attention at all.
So Dead Poets Society. A beautifully shot film, as all private school campuses are (at least mine is) beautifully landscaped beside bodies of gorgeous water, the best beauty it accomplishes is in its intelligent depiction of breaking loose, of teenage chaos. Live, when lived, is a danger. Conformity helps keep us away from that danger, but it might also keep us from living. This is pure Thoreau, as every bit outrageous as he was in his day, and just as true. It is this truth, not the film's occasional awkward step into schmaltz, which makes it great.
When the boys are in the cave, chanting and dancing and letting themselves expand, it is hard not see a prediction of the late 1960s, in all its youthful, hedonistic, activism. And the progressive movements of the 1960s, as important and relevant as they were, still displayed an exorbitant degree of impropriety and immorality, even by liberal standards. Similarly, the characters of the movie are seen ultimately as transgressors, and rightly they should have been shown by the filmmakers. I still refuse to side with that red-haired bastard Cameron, but his side of the argument (Keating as miasmatic demagogue; youth as dangerous when handling life's extremes) maybe has more credit than the film portrays.
It's a delicate balance, educating teenagers. The film does a decent job of portraying this, even if it stacks the odds slightly to make a point. It's still enjoyable to watch. Enough for now.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Relevant Music, Election Night/Morning 1:01 AM
"Cuyahoga" - R.E.M.
"The Years Without Light" - Gwar
"I See a Darkness" - Bonnie Prince Billy
"Four Horsemen" - The Clash
"The End" - The Doors
"We're Only Gonna Die" - Bad Religion
"The Thing That Should Not Be" - Metallica
"Here We Go Again" - Operation Ivy
"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" - The Smiths
"There's a Tear in my Beer" - Hank Williams
"Requiem part V, Confutatis" - Mozart
"Cuyahoga" - R.E.M.
"The Years Without Light" - Gwar
"I See a Darkness" - Bonnie Prince Billy
"Four Horsemen" - The Clash
"The End" - The Doors
"We're Only Gonna Die" - Bad Religion
"The Thing That Should Not Be" - Metallica
"Here We Go Again" - Operation Ivy
"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" - The Smiths
"There's a Tear in my Beer" - Hank Williams
"Requiem part V, Confutatis" - Mozart
