Script To Screen: “Dead Poet’s Society”

The ending scene of the movie Dead Poet’s Society (written by Tom Schulman).

Setup: The schoolboy’s teacher Keating has been fired for deviating from “proper” teaching techniques.

INT. KEATING'S CLASSROOM - DAY

The students are all seated at their desks in silence. Everyone looks
as the door opens. They quickly stand as Mr. Nolan enters the room.

				MR. NOLAN
		Sit.

The students sit once again as Mr. Nolan walks to the front of the room.

				MR. NOLAN
		I'll be teaching this class through 
		exams. We'll find a permanent English 
		teacher during the break. Who will tell 
		me where you are in the Pritchard 
		textbook? 

				MR. NOLAN
		Mr. Anderson?

				TODD
		Uh, in the, in the Pr- 

				MR. NOLAN
		I can't hear you, Mr. Anderson. 

				TODD
		In the, in the, in the Pritchard? 

				MR. NOLAN
		Kindly inform me, Mr. Cameron. 

				CAMERON
		We skipped around a lot, sir. We covered 
		the Romantics and some of the chapters 
		on Post Civil War literature. 

				MR. NOLAN
		What about the Realists? 

				CAMERON
		I believe we skipped most of that, sir. 

				MR. NOLAN
		All right, then, we'll start over. What 
		is poetry?

There is a knock at the classroom door.

				MR. NOLAN
		Come.

The students look back as the door opens. They quickly turn
away when hey see it is Keating.

				KEATING
		Excuse me. I came for my personals. 
		Should I come back after class? 

				MR. NOLAN
		Get them now, Mr. Keating. 

				MR. NOLAN
		Gentlemen, turn to page 21 of the 
		introduction. Mr. Cameron, read aloud 
		the excellent essay by Dr. Pritchard on 
		"Understanding Poetry."

Todd slowly closes his book. Keating opens the door to the tiny
room off the classroom.

				CAMERON
		That page has been ripped out, sir. 

				MR. NOLAN
		Well, borrow somebody else's book. 

				CAMERON
		They're all ripped out, sir. 

				MR. NOLAN
		What do you mean, they're all ripped 
		out? 

				CAMERON
		Sir, we, uh- 

				MR. NOLAN
		Never mind.

Mr. Nolan takes his own book over to Cameron's desk and then
slaps the open page.

				MR. NOLAN
		Read!

As Cameron begins to read, Keating looks out at Todd as he puts
his scarf on. Todd looks at him for a moment and then glances away.

				CAMERON
		"Understanding Poetry by Dr. J Evans 
		Pritchard, Ph.D. To fully understand 
		poetry, we must first be fluent with its 
		meter, rhyme and figures of speech, then 
		ask two questions: 1) How artfully has 
		the objective of the poem been rendered 
		and 2)..."

The door squeaks as Keating shuts it behind him. Cameron pauses. 

				CAMERON
		"... How important is that objective? 
		Question 1 rates the poem's perfection; 
		question 2 rates its importance. And 
		once these questions have been answered, 
		determining the poem's greatness becomes 
		a relatively simple matter. If the 
		poem's score for perfection is plotted 
		on the horizontal of a graph--"

Keating passes by Todd and the others and gets to the back of the
classroom before Todd leaps up from his seat and turns to face him.

				TODD
		Mr. Keating! They made everybody sign 
		it. 

Mr. Nolan gets up from his desk and approaches Todd.

				MR. NOLAN
		Quiet, Mr. Anderson. 

				TODD
		You gotta believe me. It's true. 

				KEATING
		I do believe you, Todd. 

				MR. NOLAN
		Leave, Mr. Keating. 

				TODD
		But it wasn't his fault! 

				MR. NOLAN
		Sit down, Mr. Anderson!

Todd reluctantly returns to his seat.

				MR. NOLAN
		One more outburst from you or anyone
		else, and you're out of this school!
		Leave, Mr. Keating.

Keating hesitates at the back of the classroom.

				MR. NOLAN
		I said leave, Mr. Keating.

Keating slowly turns and heads to the door. As he opens
it, Todd, stands upon his desk and turns to Keating.

				TODD
		O Captain! My Captain! 

				MR. NOLAN
		Sit down, Mr. Anderson!

Keating pauses at the door and looks back at Todd on his desk.

				MR. NOLAN
		Do you hear me? Sit down! Sit down! This 
		is your final warning, Anderson. How 
		dare you? Do you hear me?

After a moment of indecision, Knox climbs up onto his desk.

				KNOX
		O Captain! My Captain! 

				MR. NOLAN
		Mr. Overstreet, I warn you! Sit down!

Pitts climbs up onto his desk, followed by several others,
including Meeks.

				MR. NOLAN
		Sit down! Sit down. All of you. I want 
		you seated. Sit down. Leave, Mr. 
		Keating.

More students stand on their desks until half the class is standing.

				MR. NOLAN
		All of you, down. I want you seated. Do 
		you hear me? 

				MR. NOLAN
		Sit down! 

Keating stands in the doorway, staring up at the boys in wonder. A
smile comes to his face.

				KEATING
		Thank you, boys. Thank you.

Here is the scene from the movie:

This is one of those scenes where it’s shot almost exactly as specified in the script, a testament to the writer nailing this pivotal moment in the movie.

I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this terrific scene from Dead Poet’s Society.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

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