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Based upon Ethan Canin's short story "The Palace Thief," The Emperor's Club
tells the story of William Hundert, a passionate and disciplined
classics professor who finds his tightly controlled world altered when
a new student, Sedgewick Bell, challenges his principles, resulting in
a life lesson that will still haunt him 25 years later.
"The Emperor's Club
manages to be so gripping and so moving without resorting to the usual
Hollywood menu: there is no car chase, no explosion, no special
effects, and, except for a brief twirling appearance inside the office
of a United States Senator, no gun," says Canin in the foreword,
written exclusively for this book, regarding the adaptation of his
story. "Instead, the movie operates on a single classical principle:
character."
For screenwriter Neil
Tolkin, who found himself "writing notes in the book's margin" when he
first read Canin's story, "The characters of Mr. Hundert, the classics
history professor, and Sedgewick Bell, the son of the powerful senator,
were astounding." In his original introduction, he goes on to tell the
tale of how The Emperor's Club became a feature film, including the two people who made the most profound changes to the original story: Kevin Kline and director Michael Hoffman.
When Kline sent
Hoffman the screenplay, he realized that directing this movie offered
him the rare opportunity to tell "a story of real significance." In his
afterword, Hoffman dissects the challenges of translating Canin's
story: How do you turn a literary work into a drama? How do you avoid
the traps of the first person narrative?
Directed by Michael Hoffman, the film stars Academy Award®-winner Kevin Kline,
Steven Culp, Embeth Davidtz, Patrick Dempsey, Joel Gretsch, Edward
Herrmann, Emile Hirsch, Rob Morrow, Harris Yulin, Paul Dano, Jesse
Eisenberg, Rishi Mehta, Roger Rees, and Rahul Khanna.
In the Newmarket Shooting Script®,
this book includes an introduction and a facsimile of the screenplay by
Tolkin, a foreword by Canin, an afterword by Hoffman, movie stills,
production notes, and cast and crew credits. |
