这是我的Blog上的第一篇英文文章，在公司进行English Training时老师推荐了一部影片，《死亡诗社》，又名《春风化雨》，看了还有点感觉，随便写写，顺便也当写个了作业可以贴到Training的Online Forum中，一举两得啦。
It’s our English Training teacher Adam-Paul who suggested us to watch the film “Dead Poets Society”. I did hear about this film before but there was nothing special could push me to see this particular film – there are so many wonderful films I haven’t seen, why I have to choose this?
Adam said that this film is about teacher who wants to break the old rules of the school and do some creative things in his teaching. This makes me interested in this film because this recalls me about the film I saw half a year ago: “Les Choristes”. It’s also a film about school and teacher.
I started to watch this film seriously, because I knew this film is talking about some hard things. Also I didn’t pay too much hope on this film, I really didn’t want to be disappointed if the film is not as good as I thought. I found my worries was really unnecessary once the film began, and immediately I decided to write something after watching the film.
I don’t want to write down the story the film told us, since there is already too much comments for this on the Internet. I just want to write some of my feelings, may be it’s not the core of the film, but I have noticed that and I just want to write down.
The first thing I want to say is about music. When I watch the “Les Choristes”, the music of the film has impressed me a lot. Not only the “Künstlerleben Walzer” (Artist’s Life Waltz) of Jonhann Strauss II in that film is one of my favorite music pieces but also the songs from the children are very impressive. For this “Dead Poets Society”, more kinds of music elements has been arranged in the film. There are classical music like Beethoven’s Symphonies and Piano Concertos and Handel’s Water Music, as well as some pop music with different styles, Rocks, Blues, R&B etc. These different types of music make the film to behave in different rhythms and tells different feelings of the story. For emxample, when the boys are playing football, the Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 (Chorus) begins, this let me feel the strength of the music and the passions of the boys. The Blues on the party let people feel the joyfulness of the party and the unpeace environment. Also when saxophone sounds in the cave with poems read out, it’s really great.
Besides music, there are also many elements in the film can recall my memory and give me much impression.
The first one is “Discipline”. I learnt this word in the film “The Shawshank Redemption” which I have watched no less than eight times. In that film, the warden Norton said “I believe in two things. Discipline and the Bible.”, and later Red said “These walls (the symbol of ‘discipline’) are funny. First you hate them, then you get used to them. After long enough, you get so you depend on them.”, and at last Andy break the discipline with the help of the Bible. These two films are telling us to break the disciplines. There are too many disciplines in our lives, the laws, the rules, the beliefs, the customs, etc. Those disciplines are limiting our actions, especially those disciplines we defined for ourselves. To break a discipline is really a hard thing, but we have to try and don’t be afraid of mistakes or failures. In this way, we can make more progresses.
The second one is “speak out your opinion”. I am always a good listener and a bad talker. Sometimes this is because I have no idea about what to say and sometimes it is just to be afraid to say my own opinion. I met a person on the Internet and become friends last year because both of us are fond of the “Neujahrskonzert der Wiener Philharmoniker” (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Concert). He is a real fan of classical music, but I always position myself as the pseudo-fan of music. When he is talking his feelings of certain music pieces, he can talk and talk, so many feelings to talk. But I have to listen, I wonder why he can say so much while I can say nothing. I always use the reason “I’m new to classical music” to give myself the explanation. Until last month, he was guiding me to listen to the Symphony 9 of Beethoven, he asked me “What is you feeling about this?” I really feel ashamed to always reply such question as “Nothing special”, so I forced myself to think about the music more and said my feelings. “Wonderful! Who said you are a pseudo-fan of classical music?”, he praised me. Suddenly, I found it’s really not a difficult thing to express oneself. What you have to do is just think more about things and try to be brave. It’s really important to speak out one’s opinion which can make the communication two-way and more effective.
Neil’s suicide was what I didn’t expected. I always prefer the Hollywood’s Happy End. I think the director arranged this was want us to feel shock of victims, a victim of the family education and oneself. Neil is alway want to be a good child in family, so he is always hesitate to say out his own opinion and finally causes the terrible thing happened.
In this film, different students with different characteristics reflects different aspects of people. I have learnt many things from them, may be it’s just difficult to express all these feeling in words. The timid Todd in the film may have the nearest characteristics with me, so when I watching the film, I really hope he can become much braver and get more passion. This is also what I want for myself, I’m encouraging him and encouraging myself.
As the title told us, there is many beautiful poems in the film. The English poet Lord Byron is mentioned in film several times, although my English name is the same as his last name, to tell the truth, I have forgotten all the poems after I finished the film. I believe I will watch this film in the future, I think I can better understand these poets at that time.
It seems that I have missed the most important person – the teacher Keating – in my article. Yes, to be a discipline-breaker is hard. I remember a debate on the Internet between Jing Xuliang from Bejing Institution of Technology and Yuan Feng these days about how to teach computer science and technology in college. Jing thinks that practice is the most important thing and Yuan thinks that theory is the foundation and must be the most important thing. To be a good teacher is difficult, you have to learn more and face different situations. Especially you want to break the tradition way of teaching, you need much courage. Keating told the students to call him “Oh, captain, my captain”, it’s a title of a poem written by Walt Whitman. I didn’t know this, and this let me remember another film about teachers, students and disciplines – The Sound of Music. In that film, the Captain Georg von Trapp changed lot and break many disciplines with the help of the governess Maria. In this film, I think, “Captain” means the one who will gives you the right direction.
Still many things to say, but I’d like to stop here. I wish you can feel the film by yourself.
The “Dead Poets Society” is a special film, it has neither exciting stories nor shocking visions, and it also doesn’t have too many moving sight. But it tastes like a cup of coffee, you feel the strength of the film and you will feel like to see it for more times.