Carpe Diem! Start the year inspired to act with 3 movies with meaning: Dead Poet’s Society, Braveheart, and Michael Clayton.
Weekly series. Please send in your movies via email, twitter etc. Our format:
- Three movies with meaning (and movies you love and recommend!)
- One sentence on the core meaning you take from it
- Send a link to a YouTube clip from the movie that speaks to that meaning
WARNING: Spoilers often included, so if you haven’t seen the movies…
Happy New Year to you.. and the first movie of this list is one of my all-time favourites. I’ve already featured it in an earlier weekly Movies with Meaning post, but this time the focus is timely for the start of the year. Carpe Diem!
Dead Poet’s Society (1989)
“They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – – Carpe – – hear it? – – Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.“
“Make your lives extraordinary”. #Goosebumps
Braveheart (1995)
From my friend Marla Dukharan “, this story is based on fact and is, to me, the ultimate story about resistance”. Keep inspiring and changing the status quo, Marla. You are the spark that ignites the resistance (to paraphrase Star Wars – The Last Jedi !”
“In the Year of our Lord 1314, patriots of Scotland, starving and outnumbered, charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets, they fought like Scotsmen, and won their freedom.”
This whole clip, the final scene in Braveheart, more #Goosebumps for me as a Scot.
Michael Clayton (2007)
One of my favourite movies of recent years, with magnificent performances by George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson and others. I won’t spoil the plot with this post, it is simply the final scene, a stunning choice by director Tony Gilroy to have the credits roll with total focus on Michael Clayton as he reflects on everything, with the score by James Newton Howard building.
Watch the movie, then watch the end credits scene (sorry, it is no longer available on YouTube). Trust me though, a terrific film and performance by George Clooney as a man who faces a life without meaning and makes a brave choice.
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