Dead Poets Society

"And what will your verse be in the poem of life?"
"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." (Henry David Thoreau, "Walden.")

Hands up folks, how many of us discovered Thoreau after having watched this movie? *Really* discovered I mean, regardless whether you had known he'd existed before. How many believe they know what Thoreau was talking about in that passage about "sucking the marrow out of life" cited in the movie, even if you didn't spend the next 2+ years of your life living in a self-constructed cabin on a pond in the woods? How many bought a copy of Whitman's poems ... whatever collection? (And maybe even read more than "Oh Captain! My Captain!"?) How many went on to read Emerson? Frost? Or John Keats, on whose personality Robin Williams's John Keating is probably losely based? Judging by the vast majority of the reviews on this site...

Be careful if you want the Director's cut
Be careful about the label 'Special Edition' if you are still waiting, like me, for the fabulous Director's cut that was released on laser disk but not on DVD. It contains essential extra footage added by Peter Weir that fleshes out the motivations behind many of the characters and answers some questions that the theatrical cut raises. The Director's cut is 142 minutes so this DVD is just a re-release of the original theatrical version.

"Special Edition" is Less Special Than it Could Be
I just received the "Special Edition" and was disappointed. The reviewer who advised caution was correct-this is just the same version with a few "bonus" features. The "Deleted Scenes" or "Raw" footage contains only the couple of minutes of Keating meeting the boys at the cave after Neil's performance. The version shown on USA (I haven't seen the Laser Disk Director's Cut) containing the extra footage of Knox's dinner at Danbury's and meeting Ginny Danbury, the scene rehearsing near the lake, the boys being assigned their extracurricular activities are all missing. The original script called for Knox and Chris to kiss near the frozen waterfall after the Keating-led meeting. That's not here, either. Too bad - those scenes really tie up the story much better.

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