Writer and director Philip Kaufman is an American with a continental European art-house sensibilities when it comes to films. Yet he also has a populist touch which tends to make his films accessible to the many. He is after all along with George Lucas the co-creator of the character Indiana Jones and co-wrote the story Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Quills is a bawdy and satirical romp. It is an adaptation of a stage play and features a fictionalised story of the Marquis De Sade. It is certainly not a bio-pic.
The Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) here is a morally dubious and depraved character living in relative luxury at an insane asylum. The asylum is run by a liberal priest Abbe du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix). The Marquis attacks his faith and celibacy by trying to put ideas in his head.
When Napoleon tires of the Marquis sexual tomes he puts Dr Royer- Collard (Michael Caine) to deal with the Marquis. The doctor is a man who uses torture to cure his mental patients. It is clear he will use extreme methods on the Marquis. The doctor is a hypocrite of the highest order. He marries a young convent girl who he imprisons in a large house and has rough sex with her without any tenderness.
Madeline (Kate Winslet) is a laundry girl who helps smuggles out the writing of the Marquis. She is being pursued by one of the asylum patients and also desired by du Coulmier. Yet although she enjoys the salacious tales of the Marquis she has not acted on them.
Simone (Amelia Warner) the young wife of Dr Royer-Collard is the one person who acts on the tales of the Marquis by seducing and running off with the architect much to the fury of the doctor.
Of course the film wants to make a point about free speech and censorship. It wants to give the middle finger to the conservative shock jocks in the USA who want to censor left, right and centre and then espouse free speech when it is convenient for them.
However the Marquis de Sade as the standard bearer for freedom of speech, seriously? The real de Sade was a sadist. The word is named after him!
The film rather loses its way in the latter part of the film where the screenplay becomes rather blunt. Madeline wants a final story relayed to her by the Marquis which drives some of the inmates mad, including the one who has in the past assaulted her and is the person who relays it to her.
It is du Coulmier who takes extreme action against the Marquis when you know given the humiliations heaped on him by the Marquis and that his young wife betrayed him, it should had been the bad doctor.
The film is well acted. However Rush who we only glance at briefly here and there at the opening part of the film maybe plays him too nice and sympathetic.
I kept thinking how this film would have turned out if it got into the hands off a director such as Peter Greenaway, wayward he may be but it would had been a full on riot.
Quills is a bawdy and satirical romp. It is an adaptation of a stage play and features a fictionalised story of the Marquis De Sade. It is certainly not a bio-pic.
The Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) here is a morally dubious and depraved character living in relative luxury at an insane asylum. The asylum is run by a liberal priest Abbe du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix). The Marquis attacks his faith and celibacy by trying to put ideas in his head.
When Napoleon tires of the Marquis sexual tomes he puts Dr Royer- Collard (Michael Caine) to deal with the Marquis. The doctor is a man who uses torture to cure his mental patients. It is clear he will use extreme methods on the Marquis. The doctor is a hypocrite of the highest order. He marries a young convent girl who he imprisons in a large house and has rough sex with her without any tenderness.
Madeline (Kate Winslet) is a laundry girl who helps smuggles out the writing of the Marquis. She is being pursued by one of the asylum patients and also desired by du Coulmier. Yet although she enjoys the salacious tales of the Marquis she has not acted on them.
Simone (Amelia Warner) the young wife of Dr Royer-Collard is the one person who acts on the tales of the Marquis by seducing and running off with the architect much to the fury of the doctor.
Of course the film wants to make a point about free speech and censorship. It wants to give the middle finger to the conservative shock jocks in the USA who want to censor left, right and centre and then espouse free speech when it is convenient for them.
However the Marquis de Sade as the standard bearer for freedom of speech, seriously? The real de Sade was a sadist. The word is named after him!
The film rather loses its way in the latter part of the film where the screenplay becomes rather blunt. Madeline wants a final story relayed to her by the Marquis which drives some of the inmates mad, including the one who has in the past assaulted her and is the person who relays it to her.
It is du Coulmier who takes extreme action against the Marquis when you know given the humiliations heaped on him by the Marquis and that his young wife betrayed him, it should had been the bad doctor.
The film is well acted. However Rush who we only glance at briefly here and there at the opening part of the film maybe plays him too nice and sympathetic.
I kept thinking how this film would have turned out if it got into the hands off a director such as Peter Greenaway, wayward he may be but it would had been a full on riot.