I admire people that come out and tell it like it is. I may not always agree with them, but at least some people just come right out and tell you what you already know but seem to either forget or just conveniently over look. Take for example retired basketball star Charles Barkley who has always maintained that he is not a role model. That he is not responsible for raising your kids. Some people were outraged by this. He is an icon, he is a celebrity, he is a sports star that kids look up to and he has to act accordingly. He responded by saying, yes I am an athlete, yes I am in the public eye, but education and manners and morality starts at home. Not with a man that is being paid millions of dollars to put a ball through a hoop. No one ever annointed guys like Barkley or Jordan or Britney Spears or the President of the United States to raise your kids. That is up to the individual parent(s). Jim Carrey also made a similar point about Eminem at one of the award shows.
I start with this opening prelude to the review about Quills because although I thought the movie to be somewhat of a let down, I did appreciate it and respect it for what it was saying and trying to convey to us. Times haven't changed from the 1500's to the 1800's to the 2000's. Sure there is a greater thresh hold from the public about what will be tolerated and what won't but there is still that insistent fear that if a twelve year old hears the F-word or if an adult watches too much porn that they will act out some asinine, fatuous scenario based on what they have seen and or heard. Marquis de Sade, the man may have been a murdering, heinous man, but not because he wrote about it but because he had acted upon it. Words cannot kill you, that can only be accomplished by one person's hand.
"They're only words," he says at one point in the film.
Quills follows de Sade's final days in an insane asylum where he is at first allowed to write because the asylum's priest, Abe Coulmier, (played well by Joaquin Phoenix) has actually befriended him in some way. He believes that by letting Marquis continue his writings this will provide a cleansing of sorts from his noxious fantasies ( I guess his fantasies were so barbaric that they actually made a word after him, sadism--quite the achievement ). Once his privileges are taken away from his ( because they have developed a cult following outside the prison walls ) he uses any means possible and perseveres by using his clothes, melted wax, his own blood and excretement to get his message out. This ultimately spells imminent doom as Napolean sends in a hard nosed, sadist of a doctor named Royer Collard ( Michael Caine ). It is up to him to get Marquis to curve his insatiable desire to write such filth. Kate Winslet plays the maid who smuggles out his manuscripts.
Phillip Kaufman is the man at the helm of Quills and I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of his work. I found Rising Sun to be a boring thriller and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to be quite slow as well. I did however admire 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers but there was no innovativeness with Quills the way there was in Body Snatchers. Perhaps Kaufman's strength lies with great character development and action is not really his forte. And if that sounds acceptable to you, then Quills works well. I however, wanted to know more. I wanted to know how it is that he became so driven, so sadistic, so thirsty for his indelible taste for violent and perverse sexual practices. I didn't get any of that here. And seeing as this is a film that has such an interesting message about the dangers of sensored sex, sensored writing and sensored living, I am surprised that it didn't offer more.
The acting by Phoenix and Winslet and especially Michael Caine is wonderful. I was however a little surprised with Rush's performance. To me, he was good but he didn't seem any different than he was in The House On Haunted Hill. The two characters could have been reincarnations of one another. To agree with Roger Ebert, Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe or an aged and makeup enhanced Steve Buschemi would have been quite interesting in the film in the lead role.
Quills is interesting if not a little slow. I admire it for all that it says about us as human beings. Life is deranged enough as it is with real instances of violence and rape and sodomy. To blame that all on what we read and watch is taking the easy way out. We have to lay the blame on us
as parents in some way or another. I grew up listening to NWA telling me to f*** the police and to country and western songs ( my parents listened to WCXI, all country, when I was 7 )about cheating spouses and that doesn't mean that I am going to gun down an officer of the law or have sex with someone other than my wife. I understand right and wrong, so do most other people. If they do these things it is because they wanted to not because they were influenced or compelled to because of a song or a movie or a book. On that level Quills is excellent. It just falters in other avenues. Still, it is a good effort.
6.5 out of 10
I start with this opening prelude to the review about Quills because although I thought the movie to be somewhat of a let down, I did appreciate it and respect it for what it was saying and trying to convey to us. Times haven't changed from the 1500's to the 1800's to the 2000's. Sure there is a greater thresh hold from the public about what will be tolerated and what won't but there is still that insistent fear that if a twelve year old hears the F-word or if an adult watches too much porn that they will act out some asinine, fatuous scenario based on what they have seen and or heard. Marquis de Sade, the man may have been a murdering, heinous man, but not because he wrote about it but because he had acted upon it. Words cannot kill you, that can only be accomplished by one person's hand.
"They're only words," he says at one point in the film.
Quills follows de Sade's final days in an insane asylum where he is at first allowed to write because the asylum's priest, Abe Coulmier, (played well by Joaquin Phoenix) has actually befriended him in some way. He believes that by letting Marquis continue his writings this will provide a cleansing of sorts from his noxious fantasies ( I guess his fantasies were so barbaric that they actually made a word after him, sadism--quite the achievement ). Once his privileges are taken away from his ( because they have developed a cult following outside the prison walls ) he uses any means possible and perseveres by using his clothes, melted wax, his own blood and excretement to get his message out. This ultimately spells imminent doom as Napolean sends in a hard nosed, sadist of a doctor named Royer Collard ( Michael Caine ). It is up to him to get Marquis to curve his insatiable desire to write such filth. Kate Winslet plays the maid who smuggles out his manuscripts.
Phillip Kaufman is the man at the helm of Quills and I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of his work. I found Rising Sun to be a boring thriller and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to be quite slow as well. I did however admire 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers but there was no innovativeness with Quills the way there was in Body Snatchers. Perhaps Kaufman's strength lies with great character development and action is not really his forte. And if that sounds acceptable to you, then Quills works well. I however, wanted to know more. I wanted to know how it is that he became so driven, so sadistic, so thirsty for his indelible taste for violent and perverse sexual practices. I didn't get any of that here. And seeing as this is a film that has such an interesting message about the dangers of sensored sex, sensored writing and sensored living, I am surprised that it didn't offer more.
The acting by Phoenix and Winslet and especially Michael Caine is wonderful. I was however a little surprised with Rush's performance. To me, he was good but he didn't seem any different than he was in The House On Haunted Hill. The two characters could have been reincarnations of one another. To agree with Roger Ebert, Christopher Walken and Willem Dafoe or an aged and makeup enhanced Steve Buschemi would have been quite interesting in the film in the lead role.
Quills is interesting if not a little slow. I admire it for all that it says about us as human beings. Life is deranged enough as it is with real instances of violence and rape and sodomy. To blame that all on what we read and watch is taking the easy way out. We have to lay the blame on us
as parents in some way or another. I grew up listening to NWA telling me to f*** the police and to country and western songs ( my parents listened to WCXI, all country, when I was 7 )about cheating spouses and that doesn't mean that I am going to gun down an officer of the law or have sex with someone other than my wife. I understand right and wrong, so do most other people. If they do these things it is because they wanted to not because they were influenced or compelled to because of a song or a movie or a book. On that level Quills is excellent. It just falters in other avenues. Still, it is a good effort.
6.5 out of 10