Set in Paris in the late 1800s, Total Eclipse is the story of Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, two of France's greatest poets. Verlaine is a volatile alcoholic torn between his lovely yet conventional wife and the seductive, dangerous and brilliant Rimbaud, a young poet whose life and work is fuelled by an insatiable hunger for intense experience, unbounded by rules or consequences. Total Eclipse is the audacious, demanding and provocative story of a volatile romantic triangle and the lives it consumes. This screenplay is based on Christopher Hampton's highly successful stage play, originally written in 1967.