“Dead Poets Society” on TV, here’s what happened to the protagonists

On June 2, 1989, “L’attimo fuggente” arrives in American cinemas (on Italia Uno at 21.20), a film by Peter Weir with an extraordinary Robin Williams. The actor plays Professor John Keating, a literature teacher who arrives in 1959 at the austere and conformist Welton boys’ boarding school in Vermont. A Walt Whitman aficionado, Keating holds fiery poetry lessons and invites his young students to freely express their creativity and aspirations. The boys are enraptured by his teachings and refound the clandestine “Sect of extinct poets” (the original title of the film “Dead Poets Society”). Soon the professor’s methods collide with the strict rules of the college and after the tragic suicide of one of the boys Keating is sent away. But before leaving, he will receive a moving tribute from the students. The film is a hymn to rebellion and free thought and enhances the saving power of poetry. The film conquered critics and audiences: costing 16 million dollars, it earned 235 at the box office and soon became a cult. But with the Oscars it won’t go very well: of the four nominations obtained. only an Oscar to Tom Schulman for best original screenplay. The scene in which the professor invites the students to “seize the moment” and the final sequence in which the students go up to the desks and greet Keating by pronouncing Whitman’s verse “O captain! My captain!” are unforgettable. 30 years after the film, here’s what happened to the protagonists.