Quills

The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is locked up in the Charenton Insane Asylum run by Abbé du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix). Laundress Madeline LeClerc (Kate Winslet) falls for the lascivious Marquis de Sade and helps him smuggle out his writings. Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte wants him stopped and sends Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) with his tortuous treatments. Royer-Collard marries the young Simone (Amelia Warner) who lived in a convent.

Geoffrey Rush is absolutely brilliant as the Marquis de Sade. The acting in this is first rate. I wish Rush get more screen time as the lead character. He's nominated for the Oscar as lead actor but he's more as one of the cast. Royer-Collard's hypocrisy is interesting but the movie spends a little too much time on him. I would rather the movie stay with Geoffrey Rush from start to finish and more Kate Winslet.

This was a good movie, but I thought it had somewhat of an unsatisfsying ending (well, to me anyway). Sad too. It moves nicely, though and you don't want to be interrupted. It can get rather graphic at times, but that's mainly because of the subject material, I guess. Geoffrey Rush is brilliant.He has a real knack for bringing strange and twisted characters to life. Michael Caine is doing his usual job of being superb as well. Every new role Kate Winslet performs is different from the previous and she excels every time. She expresses emotion very well. And my goodness, Joaquin Phoenix. I wouldn't say that I was ever a *fan* of his, but damn, now I am. If there was ever a performance that just made me melt, this was it. The restrained emotions and frustration of unfulfilled desires of his character were just performed brilliantly. This guy's an amazing actor.

Quills is a movie about the man The Marquis De Sade. If you are not familiar with him watching the movie would be advisable even though your own research might be better. The film follows him played amazingly by Geoffrey Rush in a insane asylum. Michael Caine who is an expert at "curing" people of their madness wishes to take a new approach at solving the mental in-capacities of the inmates of the Charenton. This of course it that of more brutal methods than that of the Abbe played by Joaquin Phoenix. What does seem of the least cruel of the punishments in this movie turns out to be the most costly, Sade is no longer allowed to write. This had dramatic affects on him and his state of mind.

In the movie Geoffrey Rush simply shines. Here he proves once again how he has undoubtedly one of the most under appreciated actors around today. His performance is unique in that he plays a man considered perverse yet brilliant, a man of many self contradictions. As the film wears on Geoffrey Rush does not take the easy way out in making his performance extraordinary flashy, in fact it remains quite subtle. His subtly is what truly makes his performance great with the many underlying tones he carries. Michael Caine whenever in a film carries this great presence with him and continues to do so here. He is obviously a man of many secrets and I had wished he was given more screen time to study his more of his character motivations and actions. Kate Winslet and Joaquin Phoenix play well in this movie but have had better performances which is a true testament to their abilities.

The writing of the movie is very good in that the movie remains interesting throughout. What fails though is the directing. It was solid but refused took unnecessary turns in the film. The romantic tension between Winslet and Phoenix was pushed upon the story a bit too hard and at times dragged away from what was a compelling enough of a theme: freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is something that we all have to have in our lives. If we do not have it we will go crazy like many of the inmates of the Charenton. Our ideas is what keeps us going and when that right is taken away from us our problem do not disappear they erupt. For example some people express their ideas through writing such as the Sade in this film. If that is taken away not only do we lose our sanity but along with it our very humanity. We can no longer differentiate between fantasy and reality as Geoffrey Rush so perfectly illustrates. That is what this film showed but unfortunately did not show enough of. If it had stayed more consistent with this theme and picked it apart in other aspects it would have reached at the height of greatness. Yet it did not and is very good recommendable film but not what it could have been.

QUILLS / (2000) ***1/2 (out of four)

By Blake French:

"To know virtue we must aquatint ourselves with vice."

Marquis de Sade

Philip Kaufman's "Quills" will leave some audiences cheering and others disappointed and disgusted; there are good logical arguments from both sides. One of the most controversial movie of the year, "Quills, " based on the play by Douglas Wright, doesn't entirely examine the torpid mind of the disreputable 18th century French author, the Marquis de Sade, but instead indicates the impact his sexually and sadistically explicit literary work influenced the public. The biggest argument could be made with the sanity of Marquis de Sade himself, as whether he was a perverted, sex-obsessed psychopath or simply a spirited aristocrat who only stood for artistic expression and freedom of speech. The movie's characters take their own sides; after becoming aware of the authors material, Napoleon wants de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) shot dead at the insane asylum he is being held at, but instead a sadistic torturer named Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) is assigned to take charge of the patient; the virginal laundress Madeleine (Kate Winslet) , thinks de Sade is a writer, not a madman, and helps to smuggle his erotic stories out of the institution for public publication; the asylum priest, Adde Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), first befriends de Sade and grants him special privileges, but once he discovers the extremity of his subversive ideas, he reluctantly changes opinions. De Sade inarguably had some fanatical fantasies, but the film leaves it up to us to realize his lustful imagination captured on paper are transpired due to his inability to experience them in the real world outside of his chambers. The subject is carnal and a bit unsettling, and the movie exploits the eroticism clearly on screen; the film is strictly intended for mature audiences. But director Philip Kaufman ("The Right Stuff") does not portray the likes of de Sade in a disturbing manner, but keeps the story engaging. The atmosphere feels accurate and convincing, and the movie is not without humor and the expected material found within the mental institution, like the patient who thinks he is a bird, a pyromaniac, and the hulking horny guy who has his mind set out on raping any human with two legs with no external organs between them. There are a few scenes that could have captured the audience a bit more exclusively. However the entirely convincing, intense, brave, Oscar worthy performances by Michael Caine and Geoffrey Rush make up for that. The Marquis was an extremely complex individual, and Rush captures that through a character without heart or compassion, but with spirit and zest; even though de Sade went through each day with suffering, he still approached life with insight, ambition and curiosity. He is so determined to fulfill his need to write his perverse ideas, after forbidden and when his quills are taken away he still prevails by using blood, wine, and feces in the place of ink, and his clothes, sheets, and walls as paper. De Sade stands as an example that society is most successfully established when people understand that we are all simply expressions of our own nature, that it is most healthy to declare our motives and passions to ourselves. He is also a prime example of self-control, and that freedom of speech only carries us so far. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Marquis de Sade was to live in present times and if he was to exploit his ideas on screen or in novels. I think he would push the envelope to yet another level and have quite an influence on today's society. I hope people who see the artful "Quills" share their opinions with one another, after all, that is the reason why filmmakers make movies like these.

Quills is a delightfully unsettling account of the demise of the Marquis de Sade and those he brings down with him. The film presents viewers with all the evidence they need to identify the fallacies of society's separation of "good" from "evil" and "moralists" from "sinners." It subtly asserts that the values traditionally used to pass judgment are compromised by convention and religion, and that there is moral danger in accepting these values without question.

During the film, one form of sin is only replaced by another, which defeats its resistors and beguiles the rest by hiding behind a pretentious shroud of religion and convention.

Viewers are horrified to discover that they can actually identify with the marquis, whose name inspired the word "sadist" to describe those who derive sexual pleasure from violence. Most viewers' senses of morality are sullied by the realization that they are hanging on every twist of the plot, desperate to know what will next beset these wretched characters.

Based on historical fact, Quills catches up with the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) during the twilight of his life, when he has already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Charenton Asylum. No longer able to pursue the perverse sexual escapades that had landed him in the madhouse after decades of unspeakable offenses, he now purges his demons by writing. At the urging of the saintly, ever-tolerant and even-tempered Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), the marquis describes his imagination's disturbing scenes on paper.

Trouble arises when one of his books, smuggled to a publisher by a sympathetic admirer - innocent laundry maid Madeleine (Kate Winslet) - catch the disapproving eye of Emperor Napoleon.

There is no escape from sin when the man sent to purify the Charenton, Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), only seeks to replace it with intolerance and unimaginable cruelty.

True to the spirit of the film, the sets are imbued befittingly with gloom and grime, and the inhabitants of the Charenton are realistically ragged.

Rush and Winslet's performances as the marquis and Madeleine are stunning. The film's delicious impropriety is heightened by their chemistry, which is so potent as to be communicable to viewers.

The super-intelligent plot is unexpectedly circular, leaving viewers feeling as though they may well be next in line for the madness bred at the Charenton. Their fears are seemingly verified by he change they know the film has already inspired in them.

Far from resolutive, the only solace the ending holds for viewers is a sense of, "Aha, now I know," and a new way to evaluate the good in evil in themselves and others.