Dead
Poets Society: Special Edition
Picture: B
Sound: B Extras: A- Film: A-
Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the
longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau
said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Don't be resigned
to that. Break out! -Mr. Keating
Usually when people talk about ‘teacher’ movies or
something along those similar lines of inspiration, Dead Poets Society is mentioned.
At first I can certainly see how that might be lumped into a category as
such, but at the same time this is selling the film a bit short. Dead
Poets Society is not Mr. Hollands
Opus nor is it Music of the Heart,
Dangerous Minds or Lean on Me; rather it is a film with
deeper roots. Most people forget about
some of the subplot details that are occurring within the film. I have found over the years since the films
initial release that there are many fans of the film who completely fall to the
films trance, while others feel mixed about it. Perhaps it’s like poetry itself where some people read through a
few Emily Dickinson lines or Yeates, Poe, Bryon, etc and feel very little,
while others are moved deeply by the words.
Dead Poets Society at one
point in my life…moved me, since then it’s held a somewhat special place in my
heart, but that’s the hopeless romantic part of me speaking, which sometimes
battles the film critic part.
Dead
Poets Society makes quite a few interesting points within its runtime,
mostly dealing with ‘old’ and ‘new’ ways of thinking, which is reflected
differently through our characters. The
film also deals with suicide and coping, but also touches on other important
character traits like trust and honor.
The Dead Poets Society is a group of boys who have decided to form an underground
club in which they meet together away from their college to do things like
recite poetry, play music, or even hang out with girls. In short, it’s a way for the boys to become
men. Nowadays you could substitute
these rituals with smoking, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, etc. This is one area where the films time period
certainly shows it’s innocent time in American history, but there is little
difference in ‘growing up’ still. The
conflict is that this secret society is somewhat encouraged and promoted by the
boys’ professor, Mr. Keating (Robin Williams), which goes against the schools
high standards and strict disciplines. This happens to be one of Williams’s
greatest performances verging on both comedy and drama at the same time and
this is clearly a fitting role for him that would forge his status as a more
serious actor to eventually land parts in Good
Will Hunting, One Hour Photo, or
even Insomnia.
Dealing with certain pressures the film also brings up
formidable debate over right and wrong and also whether it is wrong to have
creative freedoms in life or should all things be academic? Where is the boundary line? Sometimes finding out a little bit about
‘who’ you are is worth much more than learning things from a book or becoming
more engulfed in knowledge of random unimportant things versus being what you
are destined to become. I am reminded
of With Honors starring Joe Pesci
and Brandon Frasier. While the film
wasn’t exactly the greatest film ever made, it certainly had a few highlight
moments. If nothing else the film dared
it’s main characters to think about living life more than just studying the
things about life. Both of these films
are a bit more complex than your standard ‘coming-of-age’ film, which people
tend to typically group together as well.
Most of the time they are written off as being cliché and trite, but
this film manages to evoke more of an emotional draw, which is credited to no
less than the filmmaker himself as well as the overall production.
Paramount has been reissuing many films lately to DVD,
more specifically the films of Peter Weir, including this film. The others are also reviewed on this site: Gallipoli, The Truman Show, and Witness. All of these films are being reissued with
some new extras, which certainly help in the coercion of buying or re-buying
them. The question is always whether
it’s worth upgrading and so many consumers do a quick cost/benefit analysis and
make up their minds, while others are fans regardless of how many times they
need to re-purchase the film.
Picture quality in this case is a mix as the picture is a
shade too light and you can actually tell that the blacks are a bit too
gray. Even from the opening title you
can tell, as the black in the film does not quite match the widescreen
bars. Upon further inspection you can
also see this throughout the film in various places, which tell us that the
film suffers from being a bit soft and black levels are not quite where they
should be. Personally I prefer a much
darker more saturated color scheme, but this does no justice to John Seale's
A.S.C. cinematography at all. While the
1.85 X 1 anamorphic transfer is clean it is not nearly as detailed as one might
like. Colors are good although I
question whether skin-tones are a shade too pink, but this could be more
accurate than what I can recall from a theatrical experience. In fact I almost am mindful of MGM’s DVD
issue of Michael Cimino’s brilliant epic Heaven’s Gate, which also had
similar issues with the color and/or detail.
The sound design for this film is always one that has
stuck with me over the years. This is
worth mentioning for a few reasons, mostly because it’s always interesting when
a drama has good sound design, but more than just good design the film has
intensity and depth with it’s sound.
There are a few scenes that mostly stick out for atmosphere, which is
common in a Peter Weir film. Weir films
rely heavily on music cues and a score that enables the viewers senses to
become well aware of what they are hearing, but in a more subconscious type of
way. During the second half of the film
there is a more haunting type of atmosphere that is created, which is
none-the-less painted by John Seale’s camerawork in various shades of blue,
which work incredibly well as a strong counter measure from the normal golden
hues created earlier. The 5.1 Dolby mix
created for this DVD is good overall and certainly beats a 2.0 with surround
mix, which was the case on various DVD editions around the world. The 5.1 utilizes more of the front channels
as can be expected, but music is spread throughout the surrounds in a decent
fashion. There is little .1 LFE
activity happening in this film, so that’s a non-issue.
The extras for this DVD edition seem to be the same as
that of the Region 2 disc from Touchstone, which came out around 2002. So why have we been awaiting these extras
for over 3 years in the U.S.? Good
question! The best part of this DVD is
the commentary track provided by Weir and Seale, which document many interesting
things about the production and their insights into certain decisions that were
made throughout filming. There is a
26-minute scrapbook featurette as well, which is a great addition along with
some raw unedited footage, which is a little less absorbing. There are also two important other features,
one for the music of the film with Alan Splet and also the visual components of
the film with John Seale. These are
semi-lengthy, but nothing too in-depth and will reach most peoples attention
level. A theatrical trailer is lumped
into this special edition making it a nice neat little deal from Paramount that
blows away the previous DVD edition in all categories.
It’s always a great thing when a deserving film gets a
special edition DVD, regardless of how long it takes for that to finally
happen. While some people may not
necessarily hold the film in high regard there shouldn’t be too many complaints
about the overall presentation or the extras for this film. A great recommendation for the poet in all
of us!
- Nate Goss
