Thrilled by numerous comparisons and analogies with Dead Poets Society I watched The Emperor's Club Maybe I expected too much but however I was disappointed. The promising story about a teacher who inspired his students turned out to be a far from spectacular and hardly inspiring movie with plenty of strangely prepared and rather questionable moral messages.
The movie follows a long experience of William Hundert (played by Academy award winner Kevin Kline) as a professor in a privileged and prestigious school for boys, particularly two episodes from his life divided by a long period of time. He is an idealistic teacher who believes that the main purpose of his work is moral development of his students, in his own words moving their characters. That sounds pretty good but from very beginning of the movie it meets some problems. Professor Hundert teaches history, precisely ancient Roman and Greek history. But besides this Hundert's history classes (I guess not the subject of primary importance in such schools) the movie is pretty ignorant about the rest of normal life in the school, the rest of teachers (by some minor details we can guess that not all of them share Hundert's beliefs) and students. Our group of students take Hundert's history classes every day, in their free time we can see that they're talking about them and learn by heart events and names from Roman history while they dearest ambition is a victory in a traditional school competition based on knowledge of Roman History. At least it's a bit strange and it leaves some kind of emptiness. Moreover Hundert's approaches of reaching his difficult way of moral development of his students are not very clear. Besides for a few sentences like "importance of living rightly" or "what will your contribution be" mentioned in a movie trailer most of the time we can see literally only learning of ancient history and in rare moments its interpretation, by the way, rather superficial and also questionable. The conception of moral development by only education is also a doubtful moment. There are two important scenes that bring some self-contradiction of the story. First one is when professor Hundert notices that one of his students is reading a history book about famous Carthaginian general the only words he found to say that this material is not included in school program of his course. Pretty strange for such a teacher. The second is related with main moral opponent of professor Hundert, Sedgwick Bell. Despite all above mentioned contradictions of the story it insists that before Sedgwick's arriving into that school there was a full idyll. So here we meet Sedgwick Bell, a son of a senator, who pay no attention to studying and whose behavior is rather too glaringly for others. It looks like a personal challenge for Hundert and after the first signs of understanding and possibly even sympathy between them the student eventually let him down. Here's the main movie conflict, a moral confrontation between good and evil and the beginning of future Sedgwick's moral degradation. However it's also not very clear. When Hundert meets Sedgwick's father despite his intentions (second important moment mentioned before) he comes just as a teacher complaining about a bad student and despite his attempts he is unable to rise above that. What is more the movie never shows teenage Sedgwick as an evil character. His character is too stereotypic image of modern American politics (well, not only American) but all that we can see in the movie is just a childish pranks, teenage rebellion easily expected in his age and situation. His lack of good manners in his first days in the school is obviously also signs of protest not rottenness or vicious character. The last part of the movie which obviously was supposed to show moral triumph and superiority of professor Hundert and his students over Sedgwick Bell is also has its contradictions an problem points . Now we meet new Sedgwick Bell, a successful citizen, businessman and politician. The movie asks a question what cost his social achievements were reached but the idea of re-matching school competition after many years as well as the fact that these lessons of ancient history survived in memory of former students after such a long time is far-fetched. The same thing is with an imposed impression that throughout the years all students except Sedgwick were successfully moved and inspired by professor Hundert. Using words of other authors, possible message of bad apple or leopard spots that evil is always evil meets lots of problem here. Another message about purposes and means (the end justifies the means) is looking much more suitable here.
Aside of the story there are some positive things here. The movie tries to avoid clichés usual for such a movies, cinematography is good here, some scenes are quite good and finally the acting in the movie is obviously not bad but unfortunately most likely The Emperor's Club is a movie where numerous flaws of the story and weakness of some moral messages easily outweigh all the rest. Kevin Kline and young casts have decent performances. To sum up my thoughts The Emperor's Club is a far from greatness but watchable movie, a movie full of large but unrealized ambitions and wasted opportunities. Well, at least on the contrary to majority of Hollywood production they tried to make something decent and memorable.
The movie follows a long experience of William Hundert (played by Academy award winner Kevin Kline) as a professor in a privileged and prestigious school for boys, particularly two episodes from his life divided by a long period of time. He is an idealistic teacher who believes that the main purpose of his work is moral development of his students, in his own words moving their characters. That sounds pretty good but from very beginning of the movie it meets some problems. Professor Hundert teaches history, precisely ancient Roman and Greek history. But besides this Hundert's history classes (I guess not the subject of primary importance in such schools) the movie is pretty ignorant about the rest of normal life in the school, the rest of teachers (by some minor details we can guess that not all of them share Hundert's beliefs) and students. Our group of students take Hundert's history classes every day, in their free time we can see that they're talking about them and learn by heart events and names from Roman history while they dearest ambition is a victory in a traditional school competition based on knowledge of Roman History. At least it's a bit strange and it leaves some kind of emptiness. Moreover Hundert's approaches of reaching his difficult way of moral development of his students are not very clear. Besides for a few sentences like "importance of living rightly" or "what will your contribution be" mentioned in a movie trailer most of the time we can see literally only learning of ancient history and in rare moments its interpretation, by the way, rather superficial and also questionable. The conception of moral development by only education is also a doubtful moment. There are two important scenes that bring some self-contradiction of the story. First one is when professor Hundert notices that one of his students is reading a history book about famous Carthaginian general the only words he found to say that this material is not included in school program of his course. Pretty strange for such a teacher. The second is related with main moral opponent of professor Hundert, Sedgwick Bell. Despite all above mentioned contradictions of the story it insists that before Sedgwick's arriving into that school there was a full idyll. So here we meet Sedgwick Bell, a son of a senator, who pay no attention to studying and whose behavior is rather too glaringly for others. It looks like a personal challenge for Hundert and after the first signs of understanding and possibly even sympathy between them the student eventually let him down. Here's the main movie conflict, a moral confrontation between good and evil and the beginning of future Sedgwick's moral degradation. However it's also not very clear. When Hundert meets Sedgwick's father despite his intentions (second important moment mentioned before) he comes just as a teacher complaining about a bad student and despite his attempts he is unable to rise above that. What is more the movie never shows teenage Sedgwick as an evil character. His character is too stereotypic image of modern American politics (well, not only American) but all that we can see in the movie is just a childish pranks, teenage rebellion easily expected in his age and situation. His lack of good manners in his first days in the school is obviously also signs of protest not rottenness or vicious character. The last part of the movie which obviously was supposed to show moral triumph and superiority of professor Hundert and his students over Sedgwick Bell is also has its contradictions an problem points . Now we meet new Sedgwick Bell, a successful citizen, businessman and politician. The movie asks a question what cost his social achievements were reached but the idea of re-matching school competition after many years as well as the fact that these lessons of ancient history survived in memory of former students after such a long time is far-fetched. The same thing is with an imposed impression that throughout the years all students except Sedgwick were successfully moved and inspired by professor Hundert. Using words of other authors, possible message of bad apple or leopard spots that evil is always evil meets lots of problem here. Another message about purposes and means (the end justifies the means) is looking much more suitable here.
Aside of the story there are some positive things here. The movie tries to avoid clichés usual for such a movies, cinematography is good here, some scenes are quite good and finally the acting in the movie is obviously not bad but unfortunately most likely The Emperor's Club is a movie where numerous flaws of the story and weakness of some moral messages easily outweigh all the rest. Kevin Kline and young casts have decent performances. To sum up my thoughts The Emperor's Club is a far from greatness but watchable movie, a movie full of large but unrealized ambitions and wasted opportunities. Well, at least on the contrary to majority of Hollywood production they tried to make something decent and memorable.