Oh, captain! My captain!

************這篇影評可能有雷************

Who are you?
What do you really want?
Before I watched Dead Poets Society, I can answer the questions quickly with those words told by my parents, "You are a girl whose duty is studying hard and whose goal is becoming a great and famous woman in the future. I put all my expectations on you. " But now, I keep asking myself, is that what you really want?
Wellton is one of the best Preparatory Schools in America, whose four pillars are: tradition, honor, discipline and excellence. New term began, there came a new teacher called John Keating who was very special and totally different from other teachers. He led the students listen to the voice of death--carpe diem, to speak out their ideals on the pitch, to stand on the desk and look at things with a new perspective while other teachers focused on points only. He was called Captain by the boys because of the famous poem he chanted, "Oh, captain, my captain!" Actually, as a captain, he did guided those students who were trapped in authority and inspired them to pursue what they really want bravely. Then, a group of students reorganized the dead poets society and hid in the cave to read the poets full of passion aloud.However, things went wrong quickly. Charlie revealed the secret of Dead Poets Society, and Neil suicided as a result of the contradiction of his father's expectations and his own dream.
To my great surprise, this school is similar with those in China nowadays, who attach most importance to grades, and students there are deprived of freedom and creativity. Students who were constantly being instilled the thoughts of reality, tradition and authority were victims of this pathological education system. As we can see in the movie, their bones of poetry, beauty, romance and love were all gone, or in other words, were frittered away by this temporal society culture. It's not hard to imagine, we do feel depressed and angry if our future is controlled by others while the only thing we can do is being calm and silent. The soul of us beat with a white heat beneath the combined fires of desire and reality, which often makes us struggle for hundreds of times.
Fortunately, Mr.Keating appeared at this time and light up a candle for those boys, also for all of us. He is the captain, the guider, the inspiration of students! With the help of Mr.Keating, they learned to rethink the meaning of life and death, they learned to use their own heart and taste to appreciate poets instead of some fixed rules, they learned to walk in their own path and style, to be a free thinker, and the most important, to be what you want to be! No doubt, students changed apparently. Take 安德生 for example, as a boy who grew up in the shadow of his older brother(the speaker at the graduation ceremony), he was very timid and had low self-esteem at the beginning. After being encouraged in crazy ways by Mr. Keating, he became much more confident and began to have his own thoughts of right and wrong. In fact, what impressed me most in this movie is the ending scene. When 安德生 got up first and stood on the desk, saying "Captain, my captain!" with the music suddenly from soft to strong, I could feel tears flowing down my cheek and the complex emotions rolling in my heart. I was deeply touched by 安德生's change might because I am the same timid person as he used to be, but not lucky enough to have a teacher who finally released my heart.
I must say that there are many problems in our education system, and among them, the character of Teacher is one of the most urgent and essential parts to change. There's no denying that Mr.Keating is a real teacher who knows what education should be and lead students in an ideal way, as a helper instead of a commander. Actually, every teacher plays the captain role for many students in his life, the way he think and the angle he see this world have a great influence on their entire life. Afterwards, people we need today are not copies of professional doctors and lawyers, but fresh livings and independent freethinkers. From this perspective, we, no matter teachers or schools, all need to introspect of being what kind of captains.
Finally, let me end this review by speaking out the voice in heart, using the poet Neil read in the cave, "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived." That's what Keating-their captain taught them, also is what the movie taught us: Seize the day, make your life extraordinary!   舉報