Your Film Professor

(This is the fourth entry in an ongoing series; see my posts on The Creation of the Humanoids, Billy Jack, and Lost Horizon for my previous entries.)

Remakes/Reboots/Sequels That Need to Happen: Dead Poets Society (1989, Peter Weir)

I just want to say up front that I know Dead Poets Society is a much loved film by many and for good reason; though I have issues with the film, I also still like the film and like it especially for what it does succeed at doing, and I like it for its well-intentioned attempt to at least posit — though not succeed at — another element that is near and dear to my heart, why I decided to pick this film as a film that needs to be remade.

Before I get to the latter element, let me stress what I think the film got right. To my mind, the film advances a profound point, that young people (or people in general for that matter) need to find their own “voice,” to take the “road less traveled,” to “seize the day” (“carpe diem”), e.g., to not conform to institutional pressures and to not be determined by exterior forces (ideologies), which includes exerting one’s will instead of letting external pressures silence you. In terms of this key thread in the film, the film begins with the overwhelming influence of “tradition,” an ideology in itself, in that it dictates institutional norms that drive (indoctrinate) individuals to conform to. So, for example, in the opening segment we get the dean of the school Welton Academy stressing the “accomplishment” of the “best preparatory school in the United States,” sending “more than 75 percent” of its graduates to the “Ivy League.” Here we get the focus on “tradition” and how entailed in that “tradition” is the school’s focus on not learning for learning sake than learning as a means to an end, getting the stellar grades and credentials (among other things, graduating from prestigious Weston Academy!), which in turn, gets students into an “Ivy League school,” which, in turn, presumably leads to a prestigious career that will garner them the real barometer of “success,” e.g., power, privilege, wealth, status, image, and material positions. I’ll come back to this vital point.

Reinforcing this very narrow way of being is Neil’s (Robert Sean Leonard) father (Kurtwood Smith), who demands a strict adherence to his agenda of his son dedicating himself to what he thinks his son should be (e.g., a doctor), which means that Neil must also adhere to what his father deems as worthwhile activities to pursue, Neil’s passion for acting not being one of them.

Importantly, also reinforcing this myopic view of what signifies success is Richard Cameron (Dylan Kussman) who epitomizes obedience, doing whatever he is told to do, especially by those institutional standard bearers of the ideologies he lives by. In other words, Richard literally does not have a mind of his own, mindlessly accepts being determined by ideological forces. Richard is the polar opposite of what it means to be a “freethinker,” which, in this case means he embodies the ideological view of “tradition” and “success” geared towards whatever is deemed by ideological norms as fulfilling an image of prestige and privilege.

In the form of English teacher John Keating (Robin Williams) we get the voice against conformity. In one of the most powerful threads in the film, Keating tells Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke) to find his “voice,” which for Todd is more than breaking through his shyness, e.g., it is about being his own self, free to self-actualize his self instead of trying to be his much admired brother, who was apparently a model of “accomplishment” at Welton Academy, a model of this ideological norm of “tradition” and “success.” In this context, we can see how this ideology of “success” and “accomplishment” — again, rigidly defined as getting the grades to get into an Ivy League school and then turning that opportunity into a prestigious career — oppresses and suffocates the self  instead of “freeing” the self to self-actualize (Todd is especially fearful of developing his own “self” less he not live up to his brother’s high standard of “success”). This latter directive is directed at all the boys, to self-realize their selves instead of being what the school, their parents, or society tells them they should be. And the film does indeed at least give us a pretense at this element, with three key threads in the film. First, despite his father’s opposition, Neil acts in the play A Midnight Summer’s Dream, where he plays Puck, the free spirited character, an echo of what Neil wants to be, a “free spirit.” Second, Charlie Dalton (Gale Hansen) chooses to be expelled rather than turn against Keating; he is the only one of the “Dead Poets Society” group that stands his ground and truly “voices” his independence despite the high cost. Finally, of course, some of the boys — notably all of the “Dead Poets Society” crew, except of course Richard — led by Todd, stand on their desks, standing both in homage to their mentor (following one of their mentor’s activities) and as a way to resist the power of conformist forces (conspicuously, the Dean himself is teaching the class) trying to cow the boys into passivity and obedience.

To my mind, the crucial term that Keating (the film) specifically uses that covers all of the above is his belief in being a “freethinker.” In at least an ostensible way, the film does support this conception, in that at least some of the boys test the waters of nonconformity, the above examples illustrating this nonconformity by at least some of the boys. However, and this is where I think the film utterly fails, to be a “freethinker” means something much, much deeper than what the film goes on to illustrate.

To be a “freethinker” means being “free” of dogmatic ideologies that determine us, determine for us how to be. That is, to be a “freethinker” means being a good critical thinker, interrogating and deconstructing ideological norms and seeing them for what they are, constructs that determine us. In this way, then, we can take the next step to being a “freethinker,” self-actualizing the self instead of letting ideologies determine us. But to do that, we must (A) understand that we are determined, and (B) understand what exactly determines us. Otherwise, finding one’s “own voice” amounts to singular acts of rebellion instead of an actual change in one’s very way of being. In other words, Keating/the film (Peter Weir) only go half way, telling the boys to think for themselves without giving them the understanding of what that exactly means, how to actually understand why they don’t think for themselves, how this process of being determined works, and, then, given this understanding, how to “free” themselves (relatively speaking since one can’t ever wholly free one’s self entirely from these determining ideologies) from these determining ideologies.

So, for example, in the specific context of Dead Poets Society, the ideological norms of “tradition” (see above) and singularly living for “success” and all that comes with what that entails, e.g., privilege, power, status, image, wealth accumulation and accruing material possessions, makes learning all dictated on a means-for-end modus operandi, meaning that learning is about getting into Yale or Harvard and then becoming successful instead of learning being about actually opening up new horizons of thought and being, determining one’s self according to what actually enriches one’s life not monetize it.

I also have to add this important point: Living for being “successful” (in the terms I convey above) doesn’t bring happiness, which, translated, means having meaning and purpose in one’s life. Only by pursuing meaningful activities and choices can one get that, which stems from such pursuits as creativity (which we see with Neil’s joy of acting), art appreciation (which is kind of what Keating was trying to instill in the boys, how poetry can indeed inform meaning, and purpose) but also such activities and choices as knowledge pursuits, volunteerism, and activism, which is sorely lacking in this film, and when we are dealing with individuals who are already extremely privileged, it would be nice to see them actually stand for something that matters, such as fighting for some issue or fighting for the rights of Others (e.g., people of color, women, LGTBQ people, the working class. etc.).

That’s what I contend the film sorely lacks, a serious exploration of how one resists being determined by the underlying ideologies that dictate our existence (e.g., not just “tradition” but capitalism in general – very much indirectly targeted in this film – and other ideologies such as authoritarianism/fascism, white supremacy, patriarchy, hypermasculinity, religious belief systems, and so on) and how one’s very mode of being cannot truly be non-conformist if one isn’t investing in how these determining ideologies are the root cause of many societal issues (e.g., for one thing, think about how Neil and Todd’s alienated state of being allegorically speaks to rampant alienation in general) and also how these determining ideologies determine Others, especially in terms of oppressing Others, which we do get in this film, in the form of Neil’s father tyrannically oppressing his son to the point of attempting to elide his identity.

I would contend that in lacking this serious exploration, the film feels like a largely superficial exercise of the privileged not really investing much — or risking much — in straying just a little bit from the norm, or, in the language of the film “seizing the day” and not much beyond that.

The closest we get to a serious exploration of living a life of meaning and purpose (e.g., being a “freethinker”) is Neil’s thread. Again, the film gives us at least a taste of living for what enriches us in Neil’s desire to act and create instead of being determined by the school and his father. Of course, the film pretenses Neil in this direction but only so far as he desires to find his own way, not in terms of educating him — and, importantly, us the spectator – to the forces (ideologies) aligned against him, which, if he had been ingrained in this truly radical way of being, perhaps he wouldn’t have committed suicide. That is, if Keating had instilled this kind of depth in his teaching, perhaps Neil would have understood that he is one with many other courageous individuals and movements who have resisted power in attempting to self-determine identity. Neil saw no way out of his seeming irreconcilable bind of wanting to determine his own life and being controlled and determined by his father – which is both reinforced by the school and informed by his father’s own determined way of being, e.g., his father too believes that “success” is dictated by wealth, status and power – but if he had a larger historical context of his situation, he would have realized that he was part of a larger historical project of resisting power and authoritarianism in all of its manifestations, part of a collective who share his oppressed way of being, subjected to all kinds of oppressive actions, including beatings, torture, intimidation, and even murder. Perhaps if Neil had come to understand that the endpoint of the kind of suffering he had to endure was indeed self-actualization, he would have been better equipped to cope with his father’s tyranny. Perhaps if Keating had instilled in him hope and the kind of inspiration that comes from many poets and other artists and activists, perhaps then Neil would have fought and endured instead of surrendered.

(Note: As I say, Neil’s thread is one of the few illustrations of living for meaning and purpose in one’s life. That that the film also gives us some superficial illustrations – e.g., Knox pursuing a young girl who would seem to be out of reach or Charlie Dalton changing his name to what sounds like an indigenous name [“Nuwanda”] – speaks to I think the film’s main defining goal, e.g., to pretense something deep but in fact making that subsidiary to its main thrust of just being dramatic and entertaining.)

And that gets to my final complaint of the film. While I am content with the poets used by Keating, I would also have liked him (the film) to have used more radical poets in instilling in the boys the kind of radical thought that may have actually jarred them from their pedestals of privilege and actually got them to see the Real context of their privileged lifestyle, not to mention the nature of their (traditionalist) indoctrination to reproduce — or determine — their way of being.

Where is William Blake or Lola Ridge or Heinrich Heine or Percy Bysshe Shelley?

And, hey, a remake needn’t focus on poetry or just on poetry; make it about other art forms as well (call it the “Dead Artists Society”!).

In sum, Dead Poets Society came close to being a truly profound and important film, which is why it needs to be remade, to actually fulfill its promise to radically reveal the invisible chains holding us back from truly self-realizing our potential selves.