A Scottish Tune

  

Peter Weir's 1989 classic, Dead Poets Society gives an ephemeral look into the world of the student at Welton Academy. The film begins with the year’s opening ceremony. A procession of students enters a stone chapel filled with family members as bag pipes drone in the background. Each student holds a banner bearing words like "EXCELLENCE", "VIRTUE", and "TRADITION". The Scottish tune played by the bag pipes gives the watcher a sense of the importance of this ceremony, as if the school is comparing its self a Scottish castle of old. While exuding this sense of self importance, the physical appearance and gait of the banner bearers have an ironic entropy to them that contrasts their environment. Combined with the pompous expression of the head master and the standards upon the walls, these elements contribute to the establishment of the setting in this first scene, from which, the rest of the movie can continue.