The Piedmont Recreation Department sponsors free films on the second Thursday of each month.
The Robin Williams classic “Dead Poet’s Society” will be screened on Sept. 11 at 1:00 p.m. Sponsored by the Piedmont Rec Department, the event takes place in the Center for the Arts at 801 Magnolia Avenue on the second Thursday of each month. Doors will open at 12:45 p.m. The event is free and available to anyone over 18 years of age.
Participants are invited on a drop-in basis, though registration with the PRD is encouraged HERE.
Everyone is welcome to bring snacks or lunch.
Enjoy the film and a discussion with friends afterward
So, it’s fall, 1959, and when you walk into your staid New England prep school English class for the first time, your teacher asks you to stand on your desk. You do. It’s both exhilarating and alarming. Is this higher learning? What in the world could come next?
High school junior Todd Anderson, finds out fast from John Keating, a new addition to the faculty, who, when he himself was a student there years ago, belonged to something called “The Dead Poets Society.”
One of the rewarding pleasures of movies is seeing one with friends and then chatting about it when the lights come up. That’s just what the Piedmont Flix Fest, which meets on the second Thursday of each month, offers: a great movie in a comfortable setting, and then a lively discussion of it afterward.
This month’s selection is 1989’s Dead Poet’s Society, directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams as the
unorthodox teacher, Keating, and Ethan Hawke as his student, Todd. The school, Welton Academy, is an all-boys prep school known for its ancient traditions and high standards. A breath of fresh air, Keating uses unorthodox methods to reach out to the teenage boys, who face enormous pressures from their parents and the school. With Keating’s help, students Todd Anderson, his friend Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) and others learn to break out of their shells, pursue their dreams and seize the day.
The film received mixed reviews from critics, but it’s been an audience favorite for years. Attendees polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare “A+” grade. Time Magazine said, “Williams, who has comparatively little screen time, has come to act, not to cut comic riffs, and he does so with forceful, ultimately compelling, simplicity,” and Pauline Kale said, “Robin Williams’ performance is more graceful than anything he’s done before. He’s totally, concentratedly here. He reads his lines stunningly, and when he mimics various actors reciting Shakespeare, there’s no undue clowning in it; he’s a gifted teacher demonstrating his skills.”
The next movie in the Piedmont series is the Francois Truffaut classic, “Jules and Jim”, to be screened in October.