In Russia since 1965 The Teacher’s Day was celebrated on the first Sunday in October.
But since 1994 by a special order of the President of Russian Federation this red letter day has been October 5.
My impression of the film “The Emperor’s club”Sveta Shashkina
I think that if you’re sick and tired of Hollywood blockbusters and B-movies with violence, a lot of special effects and action you should watch “The Emperor’s club”, a sincere movie that deals up with the relationship between a teacher and a pupil.
The central figure of the film is William Hundert, a professor of ancient history at St Benedict's. He is a principled professor, who is passionate about his subject and believes the history of the Greeks and Roman is more than just a lesson about the past. He also believes that the role of a teacher is not only to educate a pupil, bur to mold the pupil’s character.
But his world up-ends with the arrival of a new freshman – Sedgewick Bell, an arrogant, selfish son of senator. Mr. Hundert’s firm moral standards and unshakeable integrity are challenged by Sedgewick's behaviour, but the teacher believes he could change this young man while maintaining his integrity. In order to inspire him Hundert fudges the results of the exams, involving Sedgewick in the school's annual Julius Caesar contest, which is staged as an intellectual tournament. However Sedgewick doesn’t win the competition and the teacher realizes the pupil he believed in was cheating. For William Hundert the fact that he couldn’t help the boy to change for the better was a grievance that is not really resolved, even 30 years later.
Thus we see that Sedgewick’s motto is “The end justifies the means”, which contradicts his teacher’s principles as well as the notion of integrity. The film arouses the problem of choice: every person decides what means to use to achieve different aims. For some people like Sedgewick Bell it’s quite normal to break the principles, to lie and to do everything to win, but they should realize that sometimes they would regret and it would be too late.
Watching this film we can’t help thinking about the rewards and challenges of teaching. We also begin to think of a role of a teacher in our life: thus Mr. Hundert is not only obsessed with teaching his pupils Greek and Roman history, but he also strives to inspire his students to live rightly, he tries bring out the strong and true character that he believes to be at the core of every student At the beginning of the film we found ourselves wondering: what should pupils learn ancient history for? But then we understand that Mr. Hundert wanted to show to them that eternal values, passing through a centuries, don’t lose their meaning.
I liked the film very much, because it makes you think. I think Cavin Kline did the most of the role as he gave a superb portrayal of William Hundert. Also in this film there are a lot of movie scarlets who created true-to-life images. “The Emperor's Club" is a very good, thought-provoking and philosophical film.
My evaluation of the film «The Emperor’s Club»
Maxim Jackubowski
Having watched this film I realized over again that the profession of a teacher is of enormous social importance. In this movie William Hundert is not only a scholar of Antiquity but also a person of utter integrity and high moral standards. He does not simply impart knowledge to his students because he is supposed to, he feels dutiful to “mold” their characters, to inculcate in them love for antique culture and traditions, which, to my mind, is an indispensable part of moral upbringing. At lessons of Classics Mr. Hundert acquaints his pupils with proceedings of Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Julius Caesar, Heraclites thus enriching their morality, extending their knowledge of moral principles, making them wise and veritable patriots of their fatherland.
I believe the key idea of the film is to focus the viewers’ attention on the importance of moral upbringing as a component of education. Michael Hoffman, the director, means to inspire that schools must make children strong educationally as well as morally, which he manages excellently. Michael Hoffman provides a dignified portrait of a principled but very humanу teacher, William Hundert, who condemns the ideology to believe that success is more important than honesty, and that greed and lack of principles became an accepted norm. It seems evident that Hundert’s concern for his boys took up a great deal of his energy during his time. He tried to redirect their lives, hoping they would somehow see the lessons of history and discover their own potential for ethical living, avoiding the negative influence of Sedgewick Bell. And in the end he does not change the boy, which truly amazed me. Most of the time in films like these, we see the free-spirited kid become proper and respectful. But 25 years later Hundert realizes that in those years when Sedgewick attended his class, he ignored the other students who were trying - and actually cared - about what they were doing. Only then does the teacher realize how deeply he is mistaken.
On the whole, the film is well managed and all the actors are cast to advantage. I hope their careers will continue after this film. At the end of the movie, I like the subtle differences in years. In the 1970s, a group of boys travel across a lake to flirt with girls from the school nearby but the nuns chase them away. 25 years later, as Kline's character walks towards his schoolroom, we see boys and girls walking around and studying together. In 28 years society has changed, and it is amusing to wonder if that group of boys from the 1970s ever thought that in 28 years, what they were paddling across a lake for would be right next to them.
