![]() Originally, for instance, Cameron was set to join the bunch of students standing on their desks come the end of the movie, yet Kussman objected. ![]() He’s easy to write off as one of the antagonists, but – thanks in no small part to the work of actor Dylan Kussman – you understand why he makes the choices he makes. Take the character of Cameron as an example. Notwithstanding the careers the film launched – Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard for a start – there’s a believability to the pupils of Welton. I think, on screen, the ensemble that Dead Poets manages to assemble is what helps makes it so special. Several months after the first attempt to start production, cameras started rolling, but not before the new director had assembled his young cast for two weeks of rehearsals (they also stayed in the same place together for the duration of the shoot). With Weir on board, things came together. Then-Disney chief Jeffrey Katzenberg asked him if he’d fill in the 12 month gap by making another film, and Weir duly read the screenplay on a long haul flight. He, in turn, was able to take on Dead Poets due to a delay to his planned then-current project, Green Card (that he would make immediately after he’d done with Dead Poets Society, casting Gerard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell). Yet scheduling difficulties meant that he too ultimately had to pass.Įventually, then, the film landed on the desk of eventual director Peter Weir. He in fact signed on both to play John Keating, and to helm the project. For even then, after Kanew departed the film, Dustin Hoffman was next in line. The film’s future didn’t look too clever, and the project was put on hold, and it would be a number of months before it came back to life. That’s why, as this Mental Floss article notes, the sets to Dead Poets Society were promptly burned down a day into production. He wanted Liam Neeson for the role of Keating (and Mel Gibson had also turned the part down by this stage), but Disney was keen to re-employ Williams. Kanew – not unreasonably – had his own casting ideas. If you’re thinking he sounds like an odd choice, then you might just be right. But eventually, it hired Jeff Kanew – the director of Revenge Of The Nerds – to helm the movie. Disney, through its Touchstone arm, bought the project, and toyed at one stage with making it into a musical(!). That said, getting the film to the screen wasn’t straightforward. As he revealed in the commentary on the disc release, he wrote further revisions, but elected to send off draft zero. ![]() And it would go on to be the first screenplay he sold, eventually winning him an Oscar for his troubles.įurthermore, the version of the script that he eventually sent off was his very first. He created the character of John Keating, the role Williams would take, as a mix of two of his own teachers (when Williams took the part, he saw Keating as the kind of teacher he wished he’d had). Tom Schulman penned the screenplay for the movie, basing the story loosely around his experience at a Tennessee-based prep school. “Carpe Diem”īefore we get there far, though, it’d be remiss not to acknowledge that Dead Poets Society didn’t easily slip into production. Rest in peace Robin Williams, you will be greatly missed…ġ) “Carpe….Hear it? Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.And I think much of that has to do with director Peter Weir, and his wrangling of an excellent ensemble cast. It was then that I fell in love with one of my favorite movie characters of all-time, Professor John Keating portrayed by the genius Robin Williams. With Williams’ untimely passing on Monday, it is here that I share five pre-mature life lessons I learned and still carry along my journeys from dear O ’ Captain, my Captain John Keating, through quotes and travel images, in honor of one of my favorite actors, comedians, and creative inspirations of all-time. ![]() As a millennial obsessed with pop culture and digging up old movies from a young age, I stumbled upon my first entry into the wanderlust worlds of Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau and Robert Frost via sneaking a view of Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society past my bedtime. Far too young to fully understand the depth of the various themes outlined throughout the film until I later encountered the original texts, I nonetheless was emotionally inspired by the overarching message of living life to the fullest without seeking the permission of others to explore self-expression through the arts.
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