Older Reviews- Quills

Quills is a well-done film about a difficult historical figure. Blessed with a leading cast of four Oscar nominees (two of which double as Oscar winners), the film is fun, thought-provoking, and strangely educational for a film with such a pornographic subject.

            The film studies the life of the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) in his years at the Charanton Insane Asylum. The asylum is surprisingly enlightened for an 18^th century France establishment. Inmates are given many opportunities for self-expression, including group games, painting, and even public theater, using the Marquis’ prose as a medium. Some of these scenes are a bit unbelievable- the paintings in the art room are all magnificently done, the patient choir is full of magnificent singers, the inmates are given access to candles and, in the Marquis’ case, almost everything he desires, and dangerous inmates, while usually locked up, are far too often free with only the Abbe (Joaquin Phoenix) and a few women to guard them. Patients at modern crisis centers are denied everything from pens to shoelaces, so it is amazing to wonder that France, in the era of the guillotine, no less, is so enlightened.

            Alas, these many opportunities for self-reflection are not enough for the Marquis de Sade. Desiring publication, he smuggles his erotic literature out of the asylum with the laundry maid, Madeline (Kate Winslet). Madeline, in her life of cleaning the linens of the insane, desires much in the way of excitement, and is smitten with both the Marquis and his prose. Everyone, for that matter, loves the Marquis de Sade in this world, from Madeline to the inmates to the Abbe himself, who calls him a friend. Under the Abbe’s handsome nose, the Marquis’ pornographic novel, Justine, is published in the outside world.

            Never fear, viewers. Doctor Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) arrives just in time to ruin the brain-healing utopia. Having read the Marquis’ smuggled novel, Napoleon orders the doctor to undergo an impossible task and cure the Marquis de Sade. In his first scene, the doctor demonstrates a “cure” for madness that involves forcibly dunking them in buckets of water over and over again. His every action suggests a sadistic nature that would make even the Marquis de Sade proud. The Marquis, in fact, is quick to make this connection himself, after hearing that the doctor has taken a young wife directly from a convent and virtually imprisoned her in his mansion. The inmates of the asylum instantly and at the last second pick up the Marquis’ comedy about a wealthy, elderly doctor raping his young wife to perform for the public, including the doctor and his underage bride. This gives Collard the ammunition necessary to really attack the kind-hearted atmosphere of the Abbe’s asylum.

            The movie moves from farce to tragedy as the Marquis ruins himself and everyone around him in his quest for notoriety. After the Marquis refuses to be reasoned with, the Abbe confiscates his quills and writing implements. He proceeds to write in wine on his linens. After being given only bread and water, he writes on his clothing in his own blood. When stripped of his clothes and locked in solitary confinement, he passes the story orally through the patients in the other stalls to Madeline, who proceeds to copy it. After Madeline is murdered by a highly suggestible inmate and Dauphin, the asylum’s pyromaniac, sets his bed on fire, the Marquis writes all over the walls of his cell with his own excrement.

            The movie does raise several interesting questions about the nature of pornography. Should the Marquis de Sade be allowed to publish, even though his works are, as the Abbe says, “unprintable” and in the case of Justine, “nothing but an encyclopedia of perversions?” Probably the most controversial notion raised is that the Marquis’ pornography insights violence. One inmate constantly attempts to assault Madeline, generally after having heard the Marquis prose. After foreshadowing it the entire movie, he rapes and drowns her during the movie’s climax (no pun intended) where the inmates pass the story through the walls of the asylum. The movie gives little indication that sane people are just as likely to commit these acts; however, the Marquis’ novel does inspire the doctor’s young wife to commit adultery with the architect sent to design the interior of her prison.

            Aside from its inconsistencies, the film is beautifully made. Kate Winslet, Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, and Michael Caine are acting at their best in four drastically different roles. Phoenix is loveable as the Abbe and manages not to become insufferable, and the viewer finds it easy to root for his character from the beginning to his tragic end. Kate Winslet manages to be both innocent and corrupt, and Michael Caine is delightfully sinister as the doctor. Of course, Geoffrey Rush stands out as the likeably crude yet undeniably dangerous Marquis de Sade. Nominated for three Oscars, Quills should be on the viewing list of anyone looking to learn more about the issue of forbidden sex. Or just anyone in the mood to see a decent film.

Grade: A

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