Spoilers herein.
When writers are in charge, the film is about writing. The device here is to weave and overlap three tried and true conventions:
-The play within the play. Here, most everything deSade writes comes true, underscored by his actually producing a play in the film. As the writing deteriorates, so does the stability of the world.
-The question of whether the inmates or their keepers are insane, here amplified by the cruel and ignorant techniques of the doctor.
-The issue of whether writing is a compulsion on both parts (writer and reader), and whether it is intrinsically noble.
Two layers are created. The Battle Royale is fought between two method actors (Caine and Rush) wound so tight their acting is obvious. But this just underscores their roles in the play-within-the-play. Caine plays the smarmy, hypocritical, sanctimonious Republican senator (a role that might not work as the film ages); and Rush an equally uncomplicated compulsive. Between them on a different more `real' level are the continually tempted and confused Winslett and Phoenix. Their acting is more `natural,' as their world requires.
Nothing about sex really IS, you know; rather always something deeper is involved. And so with this, the point to be made is that convention always stifles art, and art will always harness our natural energies and flourish. Despite lots of talk, the sex, and particularly the depravity are only window dressing here, and are actually less present than in your average film. The one exception is a necrophiliac encounter at the end, but whoops, it's only a dream folks so forget it. Even `Romeo and Juliet' is riskier in this regard than `Quills.'
So unless you have problems with male nudity, this is pretty pale stuff. A much more interesting point is made, with more complexity and with much more disturbing obsession and depravity in the remarkable `The Pillow Book" (with Ewan McGregor after he spotted trains and before he walked skies). See that first.
I'm a fan of Winslett's. Her character is written as the center of this film, but she handily captures it anyway. She is very internal, perhaps too intelligent in projection for today's mass audience. Where Phoenix has the job of playing someone not in control, she has the relatively more difficult job of actually being in control, which makes her undoing more mysterious. Her role is worth seeing - the others are first class actors too, but she really charms. I will see anything with her in it and look forward to her maturity.
Notable are two minor female roles, whose identity I cannot tease out from the credits. A woman is beheaded in the beginning. Later the doctor's young wife awakens sexually. These are simple but amazingly effective moments of passion and alone provide the patina of sex. (There's some groping among servants, but it has little projection.)
When writers are in charge, the film is about writing. The device here is to weave and overlap three tried and true conventions:
-The play within the play. Here, most everything deSade writes comes true, underscored by his actually producing a play in the film. As the writing deteriorates, so does the stability of the world.
-The question of whether the inmates or their keepers are insane, here amplified by the cruel and ignorant techniques of the doctor.
-The issue of whether writing is a compulsion on both parts (writer and reader), and whether it is intrinsically noble.
Two layers are created. The Battle Royale is fought between two method actors (Caine and Rush) wound so tight their acting is obvious. But this just underscores their roles in the play-within-the-play. Caine plays the smarmy, hypocritical, sanctimonious Republican senator (a role that might not work as the film ages); and Rush an equally uncomplicated compulsive. Between them on a different more `real' level are the continually tempted and confused Winslett and Phoenix. Their acting is more `natural,' as their world requires.
Nothing about sex really IS, you know; rather always something deeper is involved. And so with this, the point to be made is that convention always stifles art, and art will always harness our natural energies and flourish. Despite lots of talk, the sex, and particularly the depravity are only window dressing here, and are actually less present than in your average film. The one exception is a necrophiliac encounter at the end, but whoops, it's only a dream folks so forget it. Even `Romeo and Juliet' is riskier in this regard than `Quills.'
So unless you have problems with male nudity, this is pretty pale stuff. A much more interesting point is made, with more complexity and with much more disturbing obsession and depravity in the remarkable `The Pillow Book" (with Ewan McGregor after he spotted trains and before he walked skies). See that first.
I'm a fan of Winslett's. Her character is written as the center of this film, but she handily captures it anyway. She is very internal, perhaps too intelligent in projection for today's mass audience. Where Phoenix has the job of playing someone not in control, she has the relatively more difficult job of actually being in control, which makes her undoing more mysterious. Her role is worth seeing - the others are first class actors too, but she really charms. I will see anything with her in it and look forward to her maturity.
Notable are two minor female roles, whose identity I cannot tease out from the credits. A woman is beheaded in the beginning. Later the doctor's young wife awakens sexually. These are simple but amazingly effective moments of passion and alone provide the patina of sex. (There's some groping among servants, but it has little projection.)