FILM SYMBOLISM: Dead Poets Society as a Perfect Blend of Maturity and Coming of Age

 

TRIGGER WARNING: This blog post not only contains spoilers to the movie, but talks about mature themes such as suicide and abuse. If you feel uncomfortable with these topics, I suggest you do not read this particular blog post. Thank you!

        Yup, it's finally here. 

        All of my friends know that one of my favorite movies to ever be made is Dead Poets Society. It's honestly a film I feel like is overlooked and is an example of "good filmmaking" in almost every avenue of the creative process. It's a movie I also saw for the first time when I was around sixteen, which I feel like is the sweet spot to see a coming of age movie like this. What I'm trying to say is that I love this movie and this is going to be a very biased blog post, so bare with me. I'll do my best to stay as neutral as possible.

        What's so great about Dead Poets Society is that it takes the structure and basic story elements of a coming of age movie and surrounds itself with the textures and techniques a more mature movie would possess. A small example: Neil fits the classic "I'm not the perfect person everyone thinks I am because I'm broken on the inside and my parents don't understand me" coming of age trope (very Andrew Clark from The Breakfast Club). However, the way he communicates and processes events is very mature for his age (keeping a brave face for Todd during the flying desk scene, only truly breaking down about his family life to Keating, attempting to talk maturely to his dad about his feelings multiple times). Unlike characters like Ladybird (Ladybird) or Nadine (The Edge of Seventeen), he isn't impulsive or causes chaos when he doesn't get his way; Neil instead makes sacrifice after sacrifice until he physically can't do it anymore. 

    Another great way Dead Poets Society utilizes this great mix of younger and more mature movie making skills is in the use of literature and poetry in the film. From a normal movie goer's perspective, you can see the very surface level symbolism of poetry being linked throughout the events of the movie. There a tons of examples of it: 

- "That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse", which inspires Neil to start pursuing acting and Todd to try and find his voice throughout the duration of the film.

- "To put to rout all that was not life, And not, when I came to die, discovered I had not lived", which, after Neil's death, is what Keating finds in the poetry book as the likely main motive/ reasoning behind Neil's suicide (especially after the talk Keating and Neil had about Neil's acting career in conflict with his parent's wants).

- "For my purpose is to sail beyond the sunset", which Neil reads at the first society meeting, foreshadowing his purpose of needing to die in the end so that the others may flourish.

    And the list goes on and on. These are just some of the more important obvious uses of symbolism, as I stated earlier.

     But if you really look into the more artistic choices of the film, you can see how deeply the symbolism is rooted in this film... I'm about to blow all of your minds, so buckle up.

    If possible, I'd love for you to pull up the movie at timestamp 1:43:00.. We have to take this shot by shot.

    This sequence is Neil's death. Now this sequence is amazing for a whole bunch of reasons (lighting, cinematography, sound, mood, music, parallels, symbolism, and more!) but we'll be focusing on cinematography, parallels, and symbolism in this specific breakdown.

    So this first shot is of the wall, where we can only see Neil's silhouette. As a stand alone shot, this is beautiful, but it's the start of a sequence of shots with a very important detail that is seen throughout this whole scene (so remember that..). We see Neil get undressed, and at this point, I'm sure you're like "Okay?? And???" 

    Bare with me.

    He then slowly grabs the crown and makes his way to the window. Another shot (with beautiful framing) where we cannot see his full face. We cut to the next shot of him opening the window, and he stands, puts on the crown, and stares into the abyss.

    This particular wide shot of him inside of the window framing is a classic example of cinematographers using lines to isolate characters. Neil is feeling trapped, alone, afraid. So he is put inside the small frame of the window, with all four sides shown and around his body. He is trapped in the shot the way he feels trapped emotionally.

    This is where it starts to get good. The next shot is a closeup on his face. Neil looks out, releases his hands down and out to his side, and drops his head with his eyes closed...

    I'll put the specific frame I'm talking about below. By the way, I do not own any images used in this blog. This is for educational and reference use only to explain my own theories/ analysis of this work: 

    Now doesn't this look really familiar? No? Let me help you out:

    Mind blown, I know. Our boy Neil is representing Jesus. I kinda hinted at it earlier when talking about the more obvious symbolism moments in the movie (Neil as the sacrifice for the group... Jesus as the sacrifice for humanity), but I knew that would be a long stretch for anyone to pick up on. 

    So yes, Neil is the Jesus figure of this movie. Think about this: he's the leader of the club (just as Jesus was a leader of his disciples), Neil sacrificed so much for the betterment of his friends (Jesus sacrificed everything for the betterment of humanity), Neil is dying in an unjust way (Jesus died in an unjust way), and without Neil's death Todd cannot fully embrace himself and step up as a leader (without Jesus' death He cannot rise and humanity cannot have the hope of eternal salvation). He's even got the crown of berries to mirror Jesus' crown of thorns. Boom, I just blew your minds AGAIN.

    Now that we've solidified out symbolism, let's continue shot by shot in this sequence. Now we're going to reference back to that little detail I told you to remember about the earlier shots. We get an eerie shot of the doorknob of his room turning, a shot of his feet as he opens the door and steps out of his room. We have another shot of him walking down the stairs NOT facing the camera though... his back is towards the camera. We've hardly seen his face this entire sequence (minus the Jesus parallel shot)... picking up on the small detail yet?

    The next shot is a pan to his father, who is sleeping in his bed. This is where the parallels of the scene start coming in, and it's crucial we pay attention to the detail of visuals and timing between the shots of Neil and the shots of his father. 

    We then see another few shots of Neil getting the key to a drawer, opening the drawer, and pulling out the gun. We STILL have not seen his face since the last Jesus shot. Then the camera pulls out on Neil unwrapping the gun; we finally get to see his face for the last shot we get of him the whole movie.

    Now, you're probably like "Ellie, okay so what does the reluctance to show is face have to do with anything?" Well, I think there are a few consistent, symbolic reasons this could have been done. One, I think it's to show how solemn this action is. It takes the emotion and character out of the act of Neil doing it and puts emphasis on the act itself, like it has to be done. Also making the last two shots of Neil's face the sacrifice (we'll call it the Jesus shot) and the physical act of suicide bring the symbolism to its simplest terms for the audience. It shows the purpose of this action in this part of the story. After all, this is all one big symbolic, triumphant story, isn't it?

   Let's shift gears again and go back to our talk on parallels and the relationship between Neil and his father. The last shot we get of Neil is a pullout and the shot directly after that is a zoom in on Neil's father. Coincidence? I think not.

    Unlike Neil's exiting of his room (solemn, quiet, almost planned out with attention to every detail) his father exit is a wide shot of him messily putting on his robe and leaving.

    Neil walked downstairs in darkness (a reflection of his emotional state); his father is walking downstairs in light (as he is about to unveil the horror done in the dark). He checks in Neil's room, finding the window and the crown where it was left.

    Unlike Neil's shots (which were from the back and never showed his face), Neil's father's shots are all head on, with his full face in sight as he turns on all the lights going down the stairs. His face is continuously in shot as he goes in the room, discovers the smoke, and Neils body (which is done very well.. no blood or gore... just a shot of a hand and a gun can say so much). The sequence then ends with another lovely shot of Neil's father and mother crouched over his body, with the lines of the doorway, the desk, and the ceiling boxing them into a tight square visually.

    And boom, there ya go. That's one of the most prominent, artistically symbolic sequences of Dead Poets Society. It showcases everything this film does right (and more!) and really delivers a chilling climax. There's the coming of age (Neil dealing with his struggles and his suicides), the mature themes (suicide, parental neglect/ abuse of emotions), and the artistic execution (mainly in the cinematography and sequence parallels, as I discussed). 

    If you'd like to me to do another deep analysis like this on a scene from Dead Poets Society, let me know! Drop a comment! There are plenty wonderfully rich scenes like this one. And, as always, if you have not seen this movie, I so HIGHLY recommend you do. It's two hours long, and you can rent it on ITunes for cheap. I promise you, it will change your view on so many wonderful, philosophical ideas. And now, you have a whole new appreciation for it from a filmmaker's eye. 

Take a trip down to Welton Academy, and maybe go read some poetry on your own afterwards. It'll make you feel inspired, I promise.

To indeed be a god!