Dead Poets Society

The body of work that defines an actor has the potential to leave them in a category that says "I never have to ask for forgiveness regardless of what projects I do in order to cash a check." I recently I felt like Robin Williams had finally removed himself for that standing when he finished a decade of mediocre at best and more often than not painfully bad work with the mind-blowingly awful suckfest that was Old Dogs.
Which brings me to Dead Poets Society. Watching this film again for the first time in several years I am remind of how Mr. Williams became a 4 time Oscar nominated actor and 1 time Oscar winner.
The film follows the lives of a group of prep school boys whose lives are changed by the new English teacher and his progressive manor of teaching. The setting is 1950's and the school itself has a reputation of preparing it's students for success in the Ivy League. The schools faculty believes that the best way to achieve this goal is to overload their students with so much work that they have no choice but to spend their entire lives studying. Williams plays John Keating, he is tough, but his focus is on creating free thinkers rather than book worms.
The boys themselves are a colorful bunch of otherwise one dimensional characters. You have "the leader" Neil Perry, the quite one whose life is changed the most in the end Todd Anderson (played by Ethan Hawke) along with the genius, the rebel, a romantic and a brown noser. They are one dimenshional, but they are not boring. There is something in each one that I can find relatable.
Which reminds, not to get off on a tangent, but I want to make one thing very clear. This is not a chick flick. Yes, it's a drama and yes it has the ability to make you cry and has made me cry in the past. It's a film I own because it is a "guys film." In the same vain as perhaps Scent of a Woman is a guys film because it's focus is on adolescent males and it is extremely successful in simply being and feeling very easy to relate to. It's true, I never hung out with friends and read poetry before, but I have sat around listening to music and watching movies with friends and in those situations what is ultimately the same is the fact that we are feeling inspired and conversation is sparked by other peoples art. Whether your reading Whitman, listening to OK Computer or watching Evil Dead it's all just guys hanging out together.
Okay, I got that out. I do think I should mention that as I study for my master's in education this is one of the films that resonates with me and made me want to be a teacher from the first moment I saw it. Robin Williams plays John Keating as a teacher whose passion comes from a belief that the best way to get through to his students is to believe in them and to share his passion. His methods are considered unorthodox in comparison to his colleagues and the film is realistic in the fact that throughout the film he has kids who sit dead eyed in his class, but the point is that he is trying to give them something they have never had before, an advocate.
Before watching this again I wondered if the loss of respect I have been feeling for Robin Williams because of his decade of dreadful work would have a negative effect on how I feel about this film, but there was no such negative effect. Williams work is inspiring and the film is still a joy to watch to this day. It makes me wonder if Robin Williams still has one great film left in him. Hopefully we can at least hope that he can't do any worse than Old Dogs.