The film was a modest art house success, averaging $27,709 per screen its debut weekend, and eventually grossing $17,989,277 internationally. Noted for its artistic licenses, Quills filmmakers and writers said they were not making a biography of de Sade, but exploring issues such as censorship, pornography, sex, art, mental illness, and religion.[5]
Plot
In Paris, the encarcerated Marquis de Sade is confined to the asylum at Charenton, overseen by the Abbé du Coulmier. The Marquis has been publishing his work through laundress Madeleine "Maddy" LeClerc, who smuggles manuscripts through an anonymous horseman to a publisher. The Marquis' latest work, Justine, is published on the black market to great success. Emperor Napoléon I Bonaparte orders all copies burned and the author shot, but his advisor, Delbené, suggest another idea: send Dr. Royer-Collard to silence the Marquis. Meanwhile, the Abbé teaches Madeleine to read and write.
Dr. Royer-Collard later arrives. The Abbé rejects Royer-Collard's offers of aggresive archaic "treatments" and speaks with the Marquis himself, who swears obedience. Royer-Collard then travels to the Panthemont Convent in Paris to retrieve his promised bride, the underage Simone. They are given a run-down chateau by the Emperor, with a young architect, Prouix, on hand for its renovation.
The hasty marriage incites much gossip at the asylum, prompting the Marquis to write a farce to be performed at a public exhibition. The audacious play, titled "The Crimes of Love", is interrupted when the inmate Bouchon molests Madeleine off-stage, prompting her to hit him in the face with an iron. Royer-Collard shuts down the public theater and demands that the Abbé do more to control the Marquis. Infuriated, the Abbé confiscates the Marquis' quills and ink, prompting more subversive behavior, including a story written in wine on bedsheets and in blood on clothing. The Marquis is eventually left naked in an empty cell. A maid reveals that Madeleine has been helping the Marquis. Madeleine is whipped on the order of Royer-Collard until the Abbé stops him by offering himself instead and declaring that she will be sent away. That night, she visits the Abbé's chamber to beg him to reconsider sending her away and confesses her love for him in the process, prompting him to kiss her. However, he abruptly breaks away.
Meanwhile, Royer-Collard rapes Simone on their wedding night, and keeps her as a virtual prisoner. She purchases a copy of Justine, seduces Prioux, and the lovers run off together. She leaves behind a letter explaining her actions and her copy of Justine. Upon finding this, Royer-Collard seizes on the Marquis as the source of his troubles and embarks upon a quest for revenge.
About to be sent away from Charenton, Madeleine begs a last story from the Marquis, which is to be relayed to her through the asylum patients. Bouchon, the inmate at the end of the relay, is excited by the story, breaks out of his cell, and kills Madeleine. The asylum is set afire by the pyromaniac Dauphin and the inmates break out of their cells.
Madeleine's body is found by her blind mother and the Abbé in the laundry vat. Bouchon is captured and imprisoned inside an iron dummy. The Abbé blames the Marquis for Madeleine's death and prods him into a fury. The Marquis claims that he had been with Madeleine in every way imaginable, only to be told that she died a virgin. The Abbé cuts out the Marquis' tongue as punishment. The Abbé then has a dream in which he has sex with Madeline's corpse. The Marquis' health declines, but he perseveres, decorating his oubliette with a story, using feces as ink. As the Marquis lays dying, the Abbé reads him the last rites and offers him a crucifix to kiss. The Marquis defiantly swallows the crucifix and chokes to death on it.
A year later, the new Abbé arrives at Charenton and is given the grand tour. The asylum has been converted into a print shop, with the inmates as its staff. The books being printed are the works of the Marquis. At the end of the tour, the new Abbé meets his predecessor, who resides in the Marquis' old cell. Yearning to write, he begs paper and a quill from the new Abbé, who is herded off by Royer-Collard, now overseer of the asylum. However, the peephole opens, and Madeleine's mother thrusts paper, quill, and ink through. The Abbé begins to scribble furiously, with the Marquis providing the narration.
Kate Winslet as Madeleine "Maddy" LeClerc; Screenwriter Doug Wright called Winslet the "patron saint" of the movie for being the first big name to back it,[7] expressing interest as early as April 1999.[8]
Michael Caine as Dr. Royer-Collard; Kaufman drew comparisons between Royer-Collard and Kenneth Starr, particularly the publication of de Sade's works at the Charenton Printing Press and the release of Starr's report online.[5]
The interior set of Charenton was built at Pinewood Studios, where most of the filming took place. Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, and London stood in for the exterior shots of early 19th century France.[10] Production designer Martin Childs imagined the primary location of Charenton as an airy, though circuitous place, darkening as Royer-Collard takes over operations. The screenplay specifies the way the inmates' rooms link together, which plays a key role in the relay of the Marquis' climactic story to Madeleine.[11] Screenwriter/playwright Doug Wright was a constant presence on set, assisting the actors and producers in interpreting the script and bringing his vision to life.[12] Casting directors Donna Isaacson and Priscilla John recruited a number of actors from a disabled actor's company to play the parts of many of the inmates at Charenton.[12]
Costume designer Jacqueline West created the intricate period costumes, using each character as inspiration. West previously worked with director Philip Kaufman on his crime drama Rising Sun. For Joaquin Phoenix's Abbé, costumers designed special "pleather" clogs to accommodate the actor's veganism. In one scene, Rush's Marquis de Sade wears a suit decorated in bloody script, which West described as "challenging" to make. It features actual writings of de Sade and costumers planned exactly where each sentence should go on the fabric. Before production began, West gave Winslet a copy of French painter Léopold Boilly's "Woman Ironing" to give her a feel for the character, which Winslet said greatly influenced her performance.[13]
Music
The Quills soundtrack was released by RCA Victor on 21 November 2000 featuring the music of Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare in Love).[14] Featuring experimental instrumentation on such instruments as the serpent, the mediaeval shawm, and the bucket,[15] most reviewers were intrigued by the unconventional and thematic score. Cinemusic.net reviewer Ryan Keaveney called the album a "macabre masterpiece", with an "addicting and mesmerizing" sound.[16]Urban Cinephile contributor Brad Green described the album as a "hedonistic pleasure" that "captures the spirit of an incorrigible, perverse genius."[15] Soundtrack.net's Glenn McClanan disliked the "lack of unifying unified themes and motifs" that may have served each individual scene, but made the film feel "incoherent."[17]
Track listing
"The Marquis and the Scaffold" – 3:08
"The Abbe and Madeleine" – 2:19
"The Convent" – 2:22
"Plans for a Burial" – 1:18
"Dream of Madeleine" – 4:42
"Royer-Collard and Bouchon" – 4:15
"Aphrodisiac" – 2:59
"The Last Story" – 7:35
"The Marquis' Cell at Charenton" – 4:38
"The End: A New Manuscript" – 7:32
"The Printing Press" – 2:22
Though not included on the soundtrack, the opening notes of "Au Clair de la Lune," a traditional French children's song, recur throughout the film, usually hummed by the Marquis. The song is originally sung by John Hamway during the opening scene of a beheading which was filmed in Oxford. The English translation provides some illumination as to its selection as a theme for the Marquis:
By the light of the moon, My friend Pierrot, Lend me your quill, To write a word. My candle is dead, I have no more fire. Open your door for me For the love of God.
By the light of the moon, Pierrot replied: "I don't have any pens, I am in my bed Go to the neighbor's, I think she's there Because in her kitchen Someone is lighting the fire..."
Release
Box office
Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures in 2000, Quillspremiered in the United States at the Telluride Film Festival on 2 September 2000. It was given a limited release on 22 November 2000, with a wider release following on 15 December 2000. The film earned $249,383 its opening weekend in nine theaters, totaling $7,065,332 domestically and $10,923,895 internationally, for a total of $17,989,227.[3]
Critical reception
The film holds a 75% "fresh" rating at the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's consensus states: "Though hard to watch, this film's disturbing exploration of freedom of expression is both seductive and thought-provoking."[18] It has an average score of 70/100 at Metacritic, based on 31 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[19]
Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times complimented the "euphoric stylishness" of Kaufman's direction and Geoffrey Rush's "gleeful... flamboyant" performance.[20]Peter Travers for Rolling Stone wrote about the "exceptional" actors, particularly Geoffrey Rush's "scandalously good" performance as the Marquis, populating a film that is "literate, erotic, and spoiling to be heard".[21]Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com enthused over the "delectable and ultimately terrifying fantasy" of Quills, with Rush as "sun king", enriched by a "luminous" supporting cast.[22]
In a December 2000 review, film critic Roger Ebert, rated it 3.5 stars out of 4 and stated, "The message of 'Quills' is perhaps that we are all expressions of our natures, and to live most successfully we must understand that."[23]
The film was not without its detractors, including Richard Schickel of Time magazine, who decried director Philip Kaufman's approach as "brutally horrific, vulgarly unamusing", creating a film that succeeds only as "soft-gore porn".[24]Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times dismissed the picture as an "overripe contrivance masquerading as high art",[25] while de Sade biographer Neil Schaeffer in The Guardian criticised it for historical inaccuracies and for simplifying de Sade's complex life.[26]
Neil Schaeffer, detailed a number of disparities between fact and film. Schaeffer, whose The Marquis de Sade: A Life[30] was used by Director Philip Kaufman as reference,[5] in a review published in The Guardian, criticised the film for historical inaccuracies and for simplifying de Sade's complex life.[26]
Schaeffer relates that de Sade's initial incarceration "had nothing to do with his writing" but with sexual scandals involving servants, prostitutes, and his sister-in-law. He also criticised the opening scene's implication that the reign of terror caused the "sanguinary streak" of de Sade's writing, when "his bloodiest and best work, 120 Days of Sodom, was written in the Bastille – obviously before the revolution" and not at Charenton, as suggested by the film. In contrast to the film, the historical de Sade was "not at the height of his literary career nor of his literary powers" while at Charenton, nor did he cut the "tall, trim figure of the Australian actor Geoffrey Rush" but was of middling height and, at the time, of a "considerable, even a grotesque, obesity".[26]
The manuscripts smuggled out of the asylum were not the novel Justine, which features prominently in the film but was published thirteen years before de Sade's incarceration at the asylum. De Sade's smuggled works were not particularly outrageous, mostly consisting of conventional novels and a number of plays he worked on throughout his life in hopes of having them performed. Most of these were soundly rejected by publishers. De Sade was, in fact, involved in the theater productions at Charenton, though none like the play featured in Quills. The plays performed were popular, conventional Parisian dramas.[31] The government shut the Charenton theater down on 6 May 1813, years before the real Dr. Royer-Collard had any influence at Charenton.[26][32]
Schaeffer criticised also the film's treatment of de Sade's personal relations regarding his wife (who had formally separated from him after the revolution), the chambermaid (who did not serve as a liaison to a publisher but with whom he had a sexual relationship from her early teens until shortly before his death), and his "companion of many years" who had a room at Charenton (and actually smuggled out the manuscripts) but is ignored by the film. Furthermore, "De Sade's hideous death in the movie is nothing like the truth, for he died in his sleep, in his 74th year, as peacefully as any good Christian".[26][32]
According to Kaufman, Doug Wright did not have the rights to the original translations and therefore had to create and write the passages of de Sade's work that are included in the original play and the film. He applied the vocabulary used in the translations to the passages to imitate de Sade's style but the archaic language comes across as funny to a modern viewer whereas in the 1700s, as stated by Kaufman, these words were "incendiary".[5]
Related Research Articles
The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage is an unfinished novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785 and published in 1904 after its manuscript was rediscovered. It describes the activities of four wealthy libertine Frenchmen who spend four months seeking the ultimate sexual gratification through orgies, sealing themselves in an inaccessible castle in the heart of the Black Forest with 12 accomplices, 20 designated victims and 10 servants. Four aging prostitutes relate stories of their most memorable clients whose sexual practices involved 600 "passions" including coprophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, rape, and child sexual abuse. The stories inspire the libertines to engage in acts of increasing violence leading to the torture and murder of their victims, most of whom are adolescents and young women.
Pierre Paul Royer-Collard was a French statesman and philosopher, leader of the Doctrinaires group during the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830).
Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter who has directed fifteen films over a career spanning nearly five decades. He has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award along with nominations for an Academy Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. He has been described as a "maverick" and an "iconoclast," notable for his versatility and independence, often directing eclectic and controversial films. He is considered an "auteur" whose films have always expressed his personal vision. Kaufman's works have included genres such as realism, horror, fantasy, erotica, western, and crime.
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss. The work was first published in German.
Charenton was a lunatic asylum founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France.
Douglas Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. Known for his extensive work in the American theatre in both plays and musicals, he has received numerous accolades including the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award.
François Simonet de Coulmier was a French Catholic priest, originally a member of the Premonstratensian canons regular, and an active member of the French legislature at the start of the French Revolution and again during the First French Empire.
Patrick George Magee was an Irish actor. He was noted for his collaborations with playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, sometimes called "Beckett's favourite actor," as well as creating the role of the Marquis de Sade in the original stage and screen productions of Marat/Sade.
Verna Frances Bloom was an American actress.
Mark Jones was a British actor, who appeared frequently in various films and television series.
The Skull is a 1965 British horror film directed by Freddie Francis for Amicus Productions, and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Patrick Wymark, Jill Bennett, Nigel Green, Patrick Magee and Peter Woodthorpe. The script was written by Milton Subotsky from a short story by Robert Bloch, "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade".
There have been many and varied references to the Marquis de Sade in popular culture, including fictional works, biographies and more minor references. The namesake of the psychological and subcultural term sadism, his name is used variously to evoke sexual violence, licentiousness and freedom of speech. In modern culture his works are simultaneously viewed as masterful analyses of how power and economics work, and as erotica. Sade's sexually explicit works were a medium for the articulation of the corrupt and hypocritical values of the elite in his society, which caused him to become imprisoned. He thus became a symbol of the artist's struggle with the censor. Sade's use of pornographic devices to create provocative works that subvert the prevailing moral values of his time inspired many other artists in a variety of media. The cruelties depicted in his works gave rise to the concept of sadism. Sade's works have to this day been kept alive by artists and intellectuals because they espouse a philosophy of extreme individualism that became reality in the economic liberalism of the following centuries.
De Sade is a 1969 American-German drama film directed by Cy Endfield and starring Keir Dullea, Senta Berger and Lilli Palmer. It is based on the life of Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, named Louis Alphonse Donatien in the film.
Stephen Marcus is a British actor, best known for his role as Nick the Greek in the British gangster classic Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998).
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, usually shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1967 British film adaptation of Peter Weiss' play Marat/Sade. The screen adaptation is directed by Peter Brook, and originated in his theatre production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The English version was written by Adrian Mitchell from a translation by Geoffrey Skelton.
Antoine-Athanase Royer-Collard was a French physician and psychiatrist. He was a younger brother to philosopher Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763–1845).
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.
Joaquin Phoenix is an American actor who started his career performing as a child on television. He appeared on the shows Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1982) and Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia (1984) with his brother River Phoenix and on an episode of Murder, She Wrote (1984) with his sister Summer Phoenix. He made his feature film debut in SpaceCamp (1986) and had his first starring role in Russkies (1987). His first major film release was Ron Howard's dramedy Parenthood (1989) with Steve Martin. During his period as a child actor, he was credited as Leaf Phoenix, his self-given name. Six years later, he changed his name back to Joaquin and co-starred opposite Nicole Kidman in the Gus Van Sant-directed crime comedy-drama To Die For (1995), a critical hit. In 1997, Phoenix co-starred in Oliver Stone's crime thriller U Turn opposite Sean Penn and starred opposite Liv Tyler in the coming-of-age film Inventing the Abbotts. Phoenix starred in the crime-comedy film Clay Pigeons (1998), Return to Paradise (1998) followed by a role in the crime mystery thriller 8mm (1999) with Nicolas Cage. Phoenix's first role in 2000 was in his first collaboration with director James Gray in the crime film The Yards. He followed this with supporting roles in the Ridley Scott-directed historical epic Gladiator (2000) opposite Russell Crowe and as priest Abbé de Coulmier in the Philip Kaufman-directed period film Quills (2000), opposite Geoffrey Rush. For his role as the villain Commodus in the former, Phoenix earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Quills is a 1995 play written by American playwright Doug Wright. The play is based on the final days of the Marquis de Sade and was directed by Howard Shalwitz. It first opened at the New York Theatre Workshop in 1995 and ran from November 3 to December 22. Wright received an Obie Award for Best Playwright. He later adapted it into the 2000 feature film of the same name directed by Philip Kaufman.
↑ Childs, Martin (Production Designer) (2000). Quills: Creating Charenton (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
1 2 Wright, Doug (Screenwriter, Playwright), Kaufman, Philip (Director), Winslet, Kate (Actor), Phoenix, Joaquin (Actor) (200). Quills: Marquis on the Marquee (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
↑ Kaufman, Philip (Director), Winslet, Kate (Actor), Phoenix, Joaquin (Actor), Caine, Michael (Actor) (2000). Quills: Dressing the Part (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
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