Dead Poets Society

He was their inspiration. He made their lives extraordinary.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Timing: 2:9 (129 min)
8.1/10
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8.3/10
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8.1/10
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Release date
Country
Genre
Budget
$16 400 000
Box office
$235 860 116
Website
Director
Scenario
Producer
Steven Haft, Paul Junger Witt, Tony Thomas
Camera operator
Composer
Artist
Wendy Stites, Louis M. Mann
Audition
Howard Feuer
Editing
William M. Anderson
Whole Team (45)

Short description

At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.

What's left behind the scenes

  • The original script had Professor Keating dying of leukemia, but the director decided to abandon this and focus the story on the school's students.
  • The author of the now-famous Latin phrase “Carpe diem” was the Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, who lived from 65 to 8 BC.
  • Film director Peter Weir attended The Scots College, a private boys' school in Sydney, Australia, in his youth. The school uniform, strict discipline, and overall atmosphere of this school were largely reflected in his film.
  • According to the initial plans, Jeff Kanew was to direct the film, and Liam Neeson was to play the lead role. Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman were also considered as candidates for the role of Professor Keating.
  • When the boys show Professor Keating his photograph in the old school yearbook, we actually see a real photograph from Robin Williams' school years, when he was a student at Redwood High School in Larkspur, near San Francisco.
  • Filming took place primarily at St. Andrew's School, a private school in Delaware, and its surroundings from November 14, 1988, to January 15, 1989. Berry College, a private arts school in Georgia, was initially considered as a location, but the climate was too warm for the winter scenes, and creating a large amount of artificial snow would have incurred significant additional costs.
  • The film's plot is partly based on the relationship between students at one of the private schools in Nashville and Professor Samuel Pickering Jr. For Professor Keating’s mannerisms and individual character traits, actor Robin Williams based his performance on his high school history teacher, John Campbell.
  • In 2008, former technology teacher Walter Skould, inspired by the film, created the "American Dead Poets Society," whose mission was to locate the abandoned graves of American poets. By October 2011, Skould had visited the graves of 225 Americans who had once been a national pride.
  • The film's phrase “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary” was ranked 95th on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movie quotes.
  • To better convey the development of the relationship between Professor Keating and his students, director Peter Weir decided to shoot all the scenes in chronological order.
  • All scenes featuring actress Lara Flynn Boyle were cut from the final version of the film, and she was only informed of this on the day of the premiere.

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