The Emperor's Club: Privilege Demands Integrity

Essay

Rose Pacatte, FSP

Director, Pauline Center for Media Studies
3908 Sepulveda Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90230
310-636-8385
RosePacatte@aol.com

There are at least 600 references to water in the Bible with three main interpretations as a symbol: a cosmic force that only God can control, a source of life and as a means of purification.

In Universal Pictures new film, The Emperor's Club, water figures mainly in the form of a river, a millionaire's swimming pool and unshed tears. What the water means in the film is, of course, up for interpretation.

The Emperor's Club is the story of a man, Mr. Hundert (Kevin Kline) who teaches rich boys in a posh New England boarding school in 1972. It is a time of social and cultural chaos, when values were being publicly questioned and jettisoned by American youth. For others, however, like politicians, the ends continued to justify the means. Consequences for the chaos were for the future, as we now know. What would the small almost cloistered world of St. Benedict's of twenty-five years ago have to do with any of this? As Mr. Hundert rows on the river morning after morning, what is he thinking? What does he know? What will he do? When does his river become the Rubicon?

Hundert teaches the Greek and Roman Classics to freshman who are too young to rock the boat of their academic world. Mr. Hundert loves the ancient philosophers and believes that their contribution to the world provides young men with the high ethical ideals and values that can mold their characters so they can face the world with truth and goodness.

Enter Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), a young man who couldn't care less about the school or anyone in it. His father is a senator who has no affection for him. The other students are attracted by Bell's devil-may-care attitude, and Mr. Hundert takes pity on him. Hundert decides to manipulate Bell's test results so he can be a finalist for the annual Mr. Julius Caesar competition. Hundert believes that Sedgewick is worth saving. Hundert's arbitrary act starts the series of events that conclude with the final sequences of the film. Hundert's action seems well motivated. But was it right and good?

Meanwhile, Bell and some of his followers steal the school boat to row across the river to the girls' school. They are caught and slightly punished, but the river has been crossed. The young men are no longer innocent. For some at least, they had crossed their Rubicon.

Bell cheats at the competition, and though Hundert does not unmask him, he prevents him from winning. Twenty-five years later, Bell is rich and powerful. He offers a bequest to the school, but only if Hundert will come to his estate for a Julius Caesar rematch so that Bell can prove his mettle. The swimming pool creates an ambiance of luxury, and the viewer hopes, an occasion for purification.

Bell's need to win goes hi-tech but an astounded Hundert catches him anyway. As they wash their hands later in the men's room, they talk about cheating and character. Bell states categorically that character is not what matters, winning is. His young son overhears his father and is crushed.

The Emperor's Club, a work of fiction based on the 1994 short story, The Palace Thief, by Ethan Canin, is not your typical teacher-school-student film, because the hero, is, at best, flawed. The audience wants him to be perfect, but he is not. At what point does he make the first flawed decision? How many does he make? And why? What did he think about as he rowed on the river?

Sedgewick Bell is so consistently obnoxious that it's difficult to sympathize with him. Yet, as Director Michael Hoffman said, what if we look at the film from Bell's point of view and put a fairy tale spin on it? He has an evil father, is offered an opportunity for salvation by a fairy godfather, rejects it and is left with the questionable ethics his father taught him to guide him through life? At what point does a person control or take responsibility for their own character and choices?

If you like well-acted films that ask more questions that they answer, if you are a seeker or lover of wisdom, or both, then by all means see The Emperor's Club. It will give you much to talk about. One of the more potent statements in the film has Hundert saying that, "Privilege demands integrity." What does that mean, exactly? In real life, Kevin Kline, who plays Hundert, says that this is a film about "Virtue and values vs. expediency." How timely.

The film presents a large canvas on which to exercise one's ethical and moral imagination, where philosophy and divine revelation can meet. Look for the water and the unshed tears of boys who become men, and a man who aspires to greatness in his life but falls short. What would you do in their places? Would you row the river or cross it?