Film Review of Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society: Why So Notable?

The title of this 1989, critically acclaimed release, is Dead Poets Society. The setting for this film is at Welton Academy, a private boarding school located in Vermont, in the year 1959. This extraordinary film was directed by Peter Weir, and the main characters included: John Keating (Robin Williams), Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke), Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), Charlie Dalton (Gale Hansen), and Knox Overstreet (Josh Charles).
Two main characters had an immense effect on the outcome of the film: Neal Perry and Todd Anderson. Neal Perry was sent to Welton because his father wanted him to become a doctor. Neal was merely following his father’s wishes when he agreed to attend Welton, playing the part of the model son in order to make his father proud. However, Neal had no desire to become a doctor; but rather, he wanted to participate in the arts, acting. Naturally, Neal’s father objected to this proposition, which later had a detrimental effect on Neal’s life. His roommate, Todd Anderson, has been sent to Welton to follow in his brother’s footsteps. Todd’s brother had just graduated from the school the previous year, as Valedictorian of his class. Todd knew he had big shoes to fill, but a motivation from his English teacher, Mr. Keating, led him elsewhere. Mr. Keating was not only Todd and Neal’s English teacher, but the entire casts’ English teacher. Keating acted less like a teacher, and more like a guide and mentor toward the boys, motivating them with random activities, and stories of his pastimes: “Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.” One of these stories that the boys manage to obtain from him, is that when Keating attended Welton, he acted as part of a group that called themselves the Dead Poets Society. The boys of his English class were both stimulated and inspired by this concept of meeting secretly, and reading aloud poetry for the sheer enjoyment of it. This led to the recreation of the Dead Poets Society at Welton, led by none other than Neal Perry himself. The boys, and teachers for that matter, are expected to conform to the rules and lifestyle of Welton, although Mr. Keating is a nonconformist, who attempts to teach his students to be the same way. His methods of teaching lead a series of events to occur, from which nothing good emerges.
This film was an Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay (Tom Schulman), and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Robin Williams). The film also won Best Foreign Film for Cesar awards, Best Picture for British Academy Awards, and Best Original Music Score for British Academy Awards (Maurice Jarre). This touching, epic motion picture will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last scene, where the culmination of previous events occurs.

Critical Analysis of Blade Runner, 3

Overall, the light and shading effects in Blade Runner help to enhance the central theme of what comprises humanity’s most defining characteristics. It does so by creating a dark, dreary setting which emphasizes the need to question everything, and not take human nature for granted. As it ultimately turns out, the humans turn cold and machine-like while the replicants begin to feel emotion, particularly hatred.

The point of this film was to make the viewer think about how they define humanity. To reassess what characteristics one feels define the human race, is how I personally responded. This film has reinforced my perception that not all human beings act like stereotypical human beings should, in that not everyone feels finite emotion or cares about anything in particular. Overall the symbolism contained in the added themes of inequality and genetics help make this film incredibly complex as well as intuitively stimulating. The Blade Runner script is well thought out and written, and very intricate, and the acting is likewise decent. This film has become a classic in the world of cyberpunk, for it carries an incredibly film noir feel and evokes a sense of mystery about the future role of genetics in technology and humanity.

Critical Analysis of Blade Runner, 2

From a theatrical standpoint, Blade Runner is fairly well put together. The themes of eyes containing deeper meaning, and culture, are two of the most omnipresent in the film, although it is latent with many others like genetics and inequality. The opening scene of the film depicts a fireball erupting out of an explosion, which is viewed via a reflection in a man’s eye. This is an impressive effect symbolic of the theme of deeper meaning that pervades the entire film. Eyes are utilized a lot in Blade Runner, primarily in the Voight Kampff test, which determines humanness based on pupil dilation in response to questions. In almost every instance where eyes are used, though, it is to emphasize the point that eyes carry a deep connotation which cannot always be determined by surface-level observation of physical characteristics. It is what is underneath that reveals personality and true humanity.
Culturally, the producers of Blade Runner have made many mistakes and included many stereotypes of Asian culture in their film. Primarily, the distinction between Japanese and Chinese cultures is blurred. A fairly large scene occurring at the beginning of the film is said to take place in “Chinatown.” Oddly enough, and while advertising signs latent with Chinese characters permeate the scene, nobody in “Chinatown” speaks Chinese in this particular scene or in the rest of the film; each person is speaking Japanese. Likewise, when Deckard is escorted out of the scene, he brings his stereotypical bowl of noodles with him. In Asia, when someone sits at a bar and eats noodles, they are almost always in a soup of some kind, and not simply piled sky-high in a bowl meant for eating rice out of. In the next scene, when the eye-designing geneticist is visited, he has papers lying around that have Japanese characters on them, yet when he speaks English, it is with a Chinese accent. Being as culturally sensitive as I am, I found it demeaning that the line between Chinese and Japanese had been blurred so badly.

Critical Analysis of Blade Runner

The Determination between Man and Machine
The 1982 film Blade Runner has become a science fiction icon over the last two decades. Starring Harrison Ford as “Rick Deckard,” the film was directed by Ridley Scott, a magnificent director who ultimately guided the production of the hit film Gladiator. Blade Runner depicts the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 as a dirty, overpopulated, and rundown megalopolis that is being abandoned by its inhabitants. Off world colonies is where these citizens have begun an exodus to, and is also where replicants are meant to legally reside. Because it is illegal for replicants to remain on Earth, a special branch of policemen, called blade runners, have been tasked with the duty of exterminating, or “retiring” all the replicants remaining on Earth.
Rick Deckard is one such blade runner, and as he catches suspected replicants throughout the course of the film, he interrogates each one. Using a retinal monitor of sorts, he proceeds to ask questions of each suspect that are meant to evoke a specific emotion. Replicants in Blade Runner are machines that are physically identical to humans and who have preprogrammed memories making they themselves think they are human, but who evoke a different emotional attitude than a normal human would be expected to. When a suspected replicant shows limited or no emotion, or blushes in an odd manner when asked a question, Deckard knows he has found a replicant.
As the film progresses, an ironic paradox results regarding this test known as the Voight Kampff test. The real humans that Deckard is testing seem to be showing signs of replicants, most likely because they have been forced to live in the traumatizing and cold-hearted world of 2019 Los Angeles. Because of this, Deckard has a difficult time identifying humans as really humans. On the contrary, when Deckard comes across a woman known to be a replicant, it takes almost four times as many questions to identify her as being a replicant than it ordinarily should have. In other words, she was feeling emotion, and therefore showing signs of being human. Ultimately what is discovered is that the replicants have begun to feel emotions for their fellow replicants that are being retired. In this way, the replicants seem more human than they actually are.

Movie Review: West Side Story

The title of this 1961, critically acclaimed release, is West Side Story. The setting for this film is the Upper West Side of New York City in the late 1950s. This particular film was produced by Robert Wise, and directed by Wise and Jerome Robbins. In the film, Maria was played by Natalie Wood (sung by Marni Nixon); Tony was played by Richard Beymer (sung by Jim Bryant); the part of Riff was performed by Russ Tamblyn; Anita was represented by Rita Moreno (sung by Jim Bryant); and Bernardo was portrayed by George Chakiris. The plot of this silver screen classic follows that of “Romeo and Juliet” almost exactly. The only different though, is that there is no tragic double-suicide in the end. West Side Story received 11 Academy Award nominations, 10 of which were won. The awards won were for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Color Cinematography, Best Color Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Scoring of a Musical Picture, Best Film Editing, and Best Color Costume Design. The award not won was Best Adapted Screenplay.
Several key factors have truly added to the success of this film. The first appealing factor of the film which I wish to acknowledge is camera angles. The camera always seemed to be focused very well on what was happening right then and there. Also, whenever Tony and Maria would kiss, or when they imitated their wedding, the camera would be down-low, looking up at them. In the background, there were always stained glass windows, symbolizing a church, and the two actually being married. Next was the choreography; it was the finest I have ever seen. Jerome Robbins, the choreographer, made a superlative showing in this film, of how “real” choreography should be done. Throughout the film, the dancing and suave movements of the characters added feeling and emotion, for it expressed feelings and thoughts in such a way that it was easy for the viewer to comprehend. A third element of the film that deserved great praise was the soundtrack. There were a total of 12 songs sung by characters in the film, all of which were great, for they fit in very suitably wherever they may have been placed. Not only did the singing take on great meaning, but the background music was very appropriate as well. Where there may have been a slow acting scene, there was slow, elegant background music; where there was a fast-paced scene, bursting with action, the background music sped up a considerable amount. This, in a way, set the stage for what was going to happen, and gave the viewer a sense of assurance. It is obvious that choreography, camera angles, and the soundtrack, all had a profound impact on the way the viewer perceived the movie, which was found by myself as being extraordinarily exciting. Such a combination of factors made the film an unforgettable magnum opus that shall linger in my mind for years to come as one of the best musicals ever. I confer this film 4 stars.

Hotel Rwanda

The epic film Hotel Rwanda is based on the 1994 massacre of almost one million people in just a few weeks, in the central African country of Rwanda. The film itself is placed at a hotel called “Hotel Des Mille Collines,” in Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali. The main character is named Paul Rusesabagina, and is played by actor Don Cheadle. Essentially, the film is about how Paul, acting as the manager of this Rwandan hotel, is forced to cope with the attempted Interhamwe extermination of all the Tutsis in Rwanda. The hotel and its respective chain as a reputation for class as well as luxury, and when the fighting in Kigali breaks out, he is forced to keep the hotel from becoming a refugee camp for fleeing Tutsis. Because of the large presence of foreigners located within the hotel, either for tourism or to cover the peace accord being signed in the country, the UN has manned the gates of the hotel in order to protect it from outside threats of violence. It is under this protection that friends of Paul’s seek refuge and a safe haven.

The premise of the film is the underlying tension between the Tutsi and Hutu sects of Rwanda. These two groups came into existence several decades before when the occupying Belgians separated the population based on factors as unusual as nose length and skull size. Paper documentation then separated the population. Terry George, director of Hotel Rwanda, has authored a book by the same name. He says that the Tutsis became the ruling minority until 1959 when they were ousted from power by a Hutu revolution. Then in 1990, a large group of exiled Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and invaded from Uganda, starting a four year war that was supposed to end with the signing of the Arusha Accords in 1994. Unfortunately, the Hutu genocide of Tutsis continued until the summer of 1994, when the RPF regained control of Rwanda, and all fighting was able to cease (94-95).

Paul Rusesabagina, manager of Des Mille Collines, has an ideal life when the film begins. Business at the hotel is fantastic, and he makes regular trips to a local war lord’s den to retrieve liqueur as well as other basic food supplies. He also arranges Cuban cigars and fresh lobster for his guests to enjoy, while enjoying the façade of a four-star luxury hotel. Paul manages to maintain good relations with the community in all of these ways, for he acts as a good Hutu while befriending influential government and military leaders. For example, he knows a Rwandan military General named Bizimungu, as well as the Canadian Colonel Oliver who is in charge of the UN peacekeeping force.

Paul’s wife and neighborhood friends, however, are Tutsi, and when all hell breaks loose in Kigali, they all come to Paul seeking shelter. There are several times during the film when Paul is forced to pay bribes of several thousand dollars in order to spare the lives of these individuals. Ultimately, the United Nations is forced to pull all intervention troops out, and abandon the Mille Collines. The phone calls and prayers of the unfortunate Rwandans still at the hotel cause enough international pressure that UN troops are forced to organize a convoy that will extradite those left behind out of the country. As the film wraps up, Paul locks up the hotel and climbs aboard a large truck that is to take the remaining 200 of about 1,000 hotel refugees across the front lines of the civil war and to safety.

Ultimately it is Paul’s courage through each of the tribulations that faces him, that keeps the guests of his hotel alive. Paul’s constant bribes and suavity are what add a tremendous amount of suspense to each scene of Hotel Rwanda, as well as sculpt the main theme. The fact that to 1,268 people, as the Hotel Rwanda screenplay reads, one man could make such an extraordinary difference, is a marvel feat to be revered with deference and admiration (George 244). Another largely emphasized theme is that of inequality. In the film, the UN peacekeeping leader Colonel Oliver tells Paul that his people, Africans, that is, are “dirt” (George 177). This allows for some of the West’s longstanding beliefs in superiority—economically, socially, and racially—to reveal themselves. These same themes are also highlighted in the readings this course has included.

One of the largest problems with the Rwandan genocide that hindsight shows, is that both Western and developed nations everywhere refused to lend support in helping to stop the mass killings taking place. Nelson Kasfir, in his article on Sudan’s Darfur, unmasks an interesting bit of irony between US policy during the Rwandan crisis and the Darfur crisis. He describes the US government as having been “negligently reticent during the Rwandan massacres in 1994,” as he triumphs over the fact that the same government has been very quick to declare “genocide” in Darfur (Developing World 115). Perhaps the US learned from its mistake in Rwanda, but that does not erase the fact that Western ignorance and superiority essentially aided in the deaths of over 800,000 innocent people. Scott Sernau agrees with my assessment when he says that “the international community was slow to respond and quick to move on to other problems” (Global Problems 212). The world did not wish to meddle in the affairs of this one, central African country. In the meantime, however, people like Paul Rusesabagina looked on with disgust as his own people were chopped and maimed to death under the blade of a machete. In the film, Paul thinks out loud as he speaks to a news correspondent who had just captured some amazing footage of a massacre taking place, when he ponders how the rest of the world could not act after they see the same footage. Besides Western superiority, however, other themes covered in our readings can be found included in the film.

Ethnicity played probably the most prominent role in causing the Rwandan conflict of 1994. Aimable Twagilimana asserts that the “codification of ethnic groups constituted a clear institutionalization of ethnicity by the European master” (The Debris of Ham 55). Two groups, the Tutsis and the Hutus, “shared the land for centuries,” as Sernau says, until the occupying Belgian force decided to split them into two, creating an ethnic split that would ultimately become the driving force behind each war that plagued Rwanda during the next 60 years (212). The Tutsis were designated, using methods as archaic as measuring nose length, as the more privileged and well-to-do division of society. Identity cards were issued, which, as the film illustrates, became the only piece of property that could keep you alive. If your ID card was stamped “Hutu,” you were allowed to pass checkpoints and retain you dignity, as well as your life. For a long time the Tutsis dominated Rwandan society, until ultimately it was the Hutu army who, in the early 1970s, embarked on a radical quest to take over the country. The basis for this fighting, and ultimately the Hutu based Interhamwe slaughter of almost a million Tutsis thirty years later, clearly was the ethnic divisions that the Belgians put in place. The film introduces this concept near the beginning, as two ladies, one Tutsi and the other Hutu, sit having drinks together. The reading for this course describes ethnic divisions as being essentially the root of all conflict in the modern world, citing the Middle East and its tendency toward Islam as a specific example of this phenomenon. However, this proved true in Rwanda as well, for the ethnic divisions already in place there are what ultimately led to the genocide of 1994 to take place.

Obviously the largest concern that the international community developed throughout the genocide was human rights. The big debate became over whether or not peoples’ human rights, per the UN’s Declaration of Human Rights, were being violated. By the time the bulk of Tutsi slaughtering had ceased, Shaharyar M. Khan says that only 3 human rights observers had made it to the country (The Shallow Graves of Rwanda 60). During the time of the genocide, Khan retained the title of Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Rwanda, and ultimately ended up lobbying for the deployment of what ultimately became almost 150 human rights observers to Rwanda. Unfortunately, these individuals came too late after the crisis to actually prevent any further killing from taking place. Throughout the film, there are numerous scenes where innocent women and children are being killed, and there is no one to help them. For expressing concern about human rights, the rest of the world was incredibly slow to act in helping the situation in Rwanda. Perhaps the strongest aspect of Third World life that the film conveys is the unfairness that the people are forced to cope with. Nobody came to their rescue in 1994 when, as the movie shows, the last thing they saw was the person next to them being hacked to death with a machete.

As a view from the Third World, this film is an excellent teaching tool. It gives insight into the life that many Third World inhabitants are forced to live with. The way that Paul gets so upset when the West essentially abandons not just his hotel and the innocent, unfortunate people therein, but his country as well, is unforgettable. In my mind, it left a lasting impression of how the West, particularly the United States, really treats Third World countries. I had never before seen such an interpretation from this point of view, and I feel that this film is truly what defines this course. I was able to obtain a view from the Third World, and it has really changed my perspective on how I view the world’s attitude toward these countries. I have resolved to begin working toward helping these countries, and I have vowed that, should I ever have the power to truly do something in a situation like that which Rwanda experienced, I would not hold back in doing so. What did happen, should never have been allowed to happen, and had the RPF Army ultimately not regained control of the capital, I shudder to think what further damage the Interhamwe and Hutu Army could have provoked.

Western dominance and superiority, ethnicity, and human rights are the three main topics that the film Hotel Rwanda aims to highlight. The main actors in the film do a remarkable job displaying each of these themes from as foreign a perspective as possible. This provides an incredibly worldly point of view on the subject matter, which is what this course has aimed to address. The film as a piece of art is quite a magnum opus. Everything from the costumes to the soundtrack is exceptionally authentic, which adds a large amount of life to the film, and makes it as realistic as can possibly be. Naturally it is a daunting task to attempt to recreate scenes of a genocide, but the entire time while watching the movie I did not think once that what I was seeing was actually a production synthesized by actors and an orderly support crew. I was shocked when the film finished, that I could feel so moved by just watching this one film. I think that my watching the film individually also added something by allowing me to focus on the implications of the film, without being distracted. I believe there are certain films that every student who takes Views from the Third World should watch, and this is definitely one of them. As I mentioned before, it truly provides insight into a topic that is not widely understood. This film truly displays one of history’s most tragic events in recent years as a view from the Third World.

Works Cited

George, Terry. Hotel Rwanda. New York: Newmarket Press, 2005.

Hotel Rwanda. Screenplay by Keir Pearson and Terry George. Dir. Terry George. Perf. Don Cheadle, Nick Nolte, and Fana Mokoena. MGM Home Entertainment, 2004.

Khan, Shaharyar M. The Shallow Graves of Rwanda. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2000.

Pearson, Keir, and Terry George. "Hotel Rwanda." Hotel Rwanda. Ed. Terry George. New York: Newmarket Press, 2005.

Sachs, Jeffrey D. “The Development Challenge.” Developing World 16th ed. (2006): 5-10.

Sernau, Scott. Global Problems. Boston: Pearson Education, 2006.Twagilimana, Aimable. The Debris of Ham. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 2003.