A Robin Williams and Disney Standoff Almost Ruined ‘Dead Poets Society’

The big picture

• Society of Dead Poets
  has become a cult classic thanks to its celebration of the arts and the performances of its all-star cast, led by Robin Williams.
• Disney insisted on casting Williams, but he initially rejected the film and walked away
  Society of Dead Poets
  the fate of in a temporary limbo.
• Robin Williams' uniquely empathetic performance drives
  Society of Dead Poets
  lasting success; the role earned the comedian his second Academy Award nomination.

Released in 1989, the critically acclaimed Society of Dead Poets rooted in pop culture memory. Its success helped launch the careers of the then newcomers Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonardi Josh Charleswon Robin Williams his second of four Academy Award nominations, and won for writer Tom Schulman an Oscar for best original screenplay. This last fact is particularly appropriate since society celebrates the power of the written word. If you've heard someone recite “o captain, my captain,” there's a good chance they're quoting society and not him Walt Whitman poem said phrases references. It's quite an indelible film taylor swift reunited Hawke and Charles for their 'Fortnight' music video which accompanies the debut single from their latest album, Department of Tortured Poets.

Williams' lead performance as John Keating, an atypical English teacher at an all-boys boarding school, marked a turning point in his career as the comedian transitioned into heavier roles dramatic Despite this, a collision of wills between Williams and the Walt Disney Company — the first of several confrontations — almost prevented Society of Dead Poets to be done Despite greenlighting the production, Disney burned down the sets before the cameras actually rolled.

Why did Robin Williams turn down “Dead Poets Society”?

when Society of Dead Poets was in pre-production, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Touchstone Pictures, a division of the Walt Disney Company marketed to older audiences, wanted to cast Robin Williams. They were following the success of their Academy Award-nominated turn Good morning, Vietnama comedy with a spicy backbone. Jeff Kanewthe first director attached to society and known for Revenge of the Nerdspreferred Liam Neeson. According to a 2013 interview with Tom Schulman at the University of California, Williams “wouldn't say no, but I wouldn't say yes to working with this director. We actually prepared the movie, we built the sets. […] and Robin just didn't show up on the first day. He never said he would, but Disney kept trying to pressure him going forward. After the first day he didn't show up, they canceled the production, burned the sets. We actually have diaries of the sets burning.”

At that point, it seemed like the end of the story: Society of Dead Poets it was a lost cause. A year passed before the tides turned. As explained by E! Online, when Touchstone signed the director Peter Weir on the project, Williams accepted the role. Disagreements aside, the Mouse House was right: Robin Williams was the right choice, and perhaps the only option. Their contributions and Society of Dead PoetsThe lasting impact of his life is inseparable.

What inspired the 'Dead Poets Society'?

Society of Dead Poets he argues that the arts are as essential to life as breathing. To explain it better, Williams' character John Keating describes “poetry, beauty, romance, love” as “what we stay alive for.” The film has the sly articulation of a poet and wears its bleeding heart on a torn sleeve. This philanthropy has realistic roots. Tom Schulman modeled Keating's philosophy and radical teaching methods after one of his high school instructors, a man named Samuel F. Pickering Jr. During a Script Magazine retrospective with Peter Weir and Ethan Hawke, Schulman said:

“I had a former sophomore English teacher who was charming and loved his students, but he was an iconoclast. When we came back for our freshman year, he was gone. Rumors spread that he had a affair with the director's daughter
i
the director's wife, but we were all too afraid to ask what really happened. If we had, we would have learned that he simply got a better job. But since we never knew that, it left an opening for my imagination to write another story around an eccentric teacher and what happened to him. The idea of ​​resistance to traditional thinking came about as part of that.”

Robin Williams gives a face to the empathy of the Dead Poets Society

Hoping to expand his filmography and armed with Schulman's script, Robin Williams' approach to the role evolved. Interviewed by Tom Schulman at the University of California, Williams said that Williams' initial take was “too tight, he was too tied to the script”. Similarly, Peter Weir shared with Script Magazine that he and Williams brainstormed how to strike the ideal balance between Williams' established strengths and letting the actor flex his muscles. The answer was not a dark gravity, but a restraint suited to the needs of the material. “I didn't want to completely bury his gift, because that's what audiences loved about him,” Weir explained, “so it was really a case of scale, kind of like turning down a volume control. what point can you go down. , where people will see Robin in character?”

Seeing Robin Williams inside John Keating is the skeleton key behind the character's enduring appeal, and by that logic, Society of Dead Poetsthe cultural importance of his. Keating is the vessel through which Schulman's script conveys its message, which is multiple: the importance of words goes hand in hand with rejecting the kind of social conformity that limits creative expression. To do it seriously, society it needs the groundwork laid by Williams' performance. There is always a glint in Keating's eyes, a warmth that welcomes, envelops and submerges. This is the gift of Robin Williams redirected. Keating's playful wickedness lacks malice; he is shrewd and cheerful, his gentleness lowers his students' emotional barriers and disarms their assumptions. His winks, whether literal or metaphorically applied through his offbeat lessons, have everyone leaning in to catch every word and cherish every hinted smile.

Good comedy brings joy to people. Hopefully, it will make them think too. Williams' comic training matches Keating's understated smoothness. When supplanting com John Wayne i Marlon Brando would recite William Shakespeare, silly gestures allow his students to connect with the ancient words of the Bard for the first time. They see Shakespeare differently, which is the point; Keating advocates individualism and independent thinking. The difference between Keating and the rest of the teachers at Welton Academy, who restrict, run around and chant boring slogans, is clear. Instead of marching your students to a single beat, Keating frees these young people. He is the reason their eyes light up, and why their souls want to seize life with white fists. Their intimate vivacity makes them brave. Any spectacularly trained performer could deliver an excellent, fully realized Keating. Williams' singular distinction taps into something deeper, a vein of honesty that draws its inspiration from a real individual.

How did Peter Weir influence the “Dead Poets Society”?

When Robin Williams officially joined Society of Dead Poets after her clash with Disney, Tom Schulman thought she was a perfect fit alongside Keating, but questioned whether Williams's dark scenes would be “very beautiful and dark”. Schulman immediately dismissed that concern passed on to the crowd at the University of California saying, “but that didn't happen.” By contrast, Peter Weir, whose naturalistic touch ensures the film's emotional empathy, knew Williams was capable because Weir “had known this quieter, more thoughtful, funnier side” of Williams.

The director's gut rang true on several fronts. He politely refused to direct society unless Schulman removed a plot where Keating died of cancer, believing it detracted from the man's idealism and the story's thesis. During the shoot, Weir fired Society of Dead Poetschronologically, and the Shakespeare sequence was a filmed improv exercise that made the final cut. The moment helped Williams shape her performance; he realized that teaching children was, like stand-up comedy, a dialogue. Weir also told Williams not to cry during the climactic final scene:

“The audience will cry, but you won't. You [as Keating] don't cry until after you leave and you're alone in the car. Right now, you want these guys to take care of themselves, so keep it together, for them. Just say “Thank you” and get out!' And Robin said, 'F*** you're right!'”

There is no 'Dead Poets Society' without Robin Williams

Years later Society of Dead Poets hit theaters, Williams cited the experience as a career highlight. Explaining why, highlighted Peter Weir's skill behind the camera and the audience's passionate reactions. A man once told Williams that the film inspired him to quit his corporate job and join the art world, to which Williams replied, “I have to buy you a lot of 'art now!'

John Keating tells a class full of impressionable boys hungry for direction and fulfillment that “we must constantly look at the world in a different way.” Art frames our perspectives through its art, either Society of Dead Poets or beyond, Robin Williams helps us see the world in a different way. His affinities and knowledge, honed through comedy, give societythe request to understand a compassionate face. Keating's students apply his wisdom to their lives, whether seizing the day (“Carpe Diem“) or expanding their horizons by standing defiantly on a desk. Let's do the same.

Society of Dead Poets is available to rent or buy on Prime Video in the US

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