Arts Vanity: How ‘Dead Poets Society’ Helped Me Survive My First New England Winter

The month was February. I was in the second semester of my first year of college, and all of the excitement and energy of the first semester had unfortunately worn off. As someone who was raised in San Francisco, I had gotten used to people warning me that I wouldn’t be able to handle the cold in Cambridge once winter rolled around. However, although winter was taking a toll on me, it wasn’t because of the cold. By mid-February, I could have sworn that the sun hadn’t come out from behind the clouds in at least two weeks, and that was something I simply couldn’t handle.

So, the month was February, and I was sitting in the eerie lighting of one of Sever’s first floor classrooms for my 10:30 a.m. English lecture. I struggled to keep my eyes open as my professor worked through the day’s lesson plan. I could feel every crease of my puffer jacket crumpled on all sides of me between myself and the cramped seat I found myself in. On the desk in front of me sat a half-empty Blank Street cold brew whose condensation was beginning to creep, at a snail-like pace, towards the copy of Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” which I focused and unfocused my eyes on as my professor continued to guide the class from passage to passage.

After a while, I noticed movement in the corner of my eye. I looked up from my desk to peer out of the classroom’s oddly-placed windows. Since I had entered the building for class, it had started to snow. Despite everything I was sad to give up in leaving San Francisco for college, the one thing that I couldn’t get back home was the chance to live somewhere where it snowed. After all, snow was just one component of the grand, romanticized vision I always had of studying English in New England as a result of my long-time love of my all-time favorite film, “Dead Poets Society.”

I can’t remember the last time “Dead Poets Society” wasn’t the answer to the question of what my favorite movie is. Everything about it is magical to me, from the old buildings, to the changing of the leaves from green to red to nothing at all, to an unbridled passion for studying literature that only an English major could fully understand. Ultimately, there is a certain tone, feeling, and aesthetic in that film which I have always been obsessed with, and have always dreamt about experiencing for myself.

Sitting in my English class, I watched the snow fall through the window and realized I had found myself living inside of my favorite movie. I was sitting in an old building, on a New England campus, as the seasons visibly changed around me, and I sat amongst people who wanted to learn and talk about literature just as much as I did. For the first time in a long time, I remembered that I was living my ultimate “Dead Poets Society” dream. Suddenly, I was actually listening to what my professor was talking about, and my eyes were actually following the sentences being read aloud. I straightened my shoulders, grabbed my previously untouched pencil, and began taking notes.

—Incoming Film Executive Nell G. Cunningham will be unreachable for the next two hours and eight minutes, as she is rewatching “Dead Poets Society” for the second time this week. Once she’s finished doing that, you can contact her at nell.cunningham@thecrimson.com.