Quills

Rating:
Summary: Brutal! I loved it!
Review: This film was Brutal! It had everything, Swearing, nudity, fire and necrophelia! Got your attention Geoffrey Rush should have won an Oscar for his portrayal of the Marquee. This movie is not for the squeemish. It is Raw and to the point. For a fun drinking game take a drink everytime there is a sexual enuendo. This movie deals heavily with freedom of speech, and sexual expression. No it's not porn. This has plot and little sex. Except for the dead body thing. Winslet and Phoenix also do well as a handmaiden and preacher in the asylum. Michael Caine also plays a pivotal role and also deserves and oscar worthy performance. The clothing, backgrounds, and scenery is just wonderful. the imagery is overpowering. The movie is just brilliance, you would think it was a foreign film.

Rating:
Summary: This movie definately makes my list of GREAT FILMS
Review: Ah yes the Marquis de Sade--a poor fellow who will forever be interpreted poorly in film. At least that was what I thought until I watched the movie Quills. This movie is excellent.

The story starts off simply enough. The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is locked away in an insane asylum. There he is looked after by the resident priest (Joaquin Phoenix). Sade is compelled to write during his stay at the asylum and his perverse and erotic literature is smuggled out to publishers by a laundry maid (Kate Winslet). After the writing is published it causes royalty of France much unhappiness. So in response to the Marquis' words a harsh doctor (Michael Caine) is sent to the asylum to get things in order and shut the Marquis up--however not everything goes as planned.

This movie is filled with witty erotic humor that will make anyone laugh and drama that could make anyone cry. Rush's acting is so superb as the Marquis. He gives such an incredible performance showing the Marquis travels deeper into madness. Winslet comes off splendidly as a laundry maid. This movie re-establishes that Winslet is a good actress. Caine and Phoenix's performaces are also extremely well acted. I honestly feel there could not have been a better cast. However, a great cast does not automatically make a great movie--It also takes fabulous direction, scripting, costumes, cinematography and much more--all of which Quills has.

If you are looking for a guilty pleasure movie, a humorous movie, a dramatic movie, a great movie--then please check out Quills.

Rating:
Summary: Suprisingly enchanting
Review: The characters were quite interesting and full of life. The acting was amazing. And it was a very good story to follow. Great movie, two thumbs up.

Rating:
Summary: Great acting and directing, I wish there was more
Review: You can't fault the directing or acting, I'm a big fan of Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet and there were ever present in the film. They were pretty much as they always are, excellent all the way around.

The thing that got me about the film was the endless debauchery, with no other depth. The Marquis de Sade had an infinitely dirty mind, like he couldn't ponder anything other than really dirty and violent sex. I've met people like this (you know who you are), but I don't hang out with them and I don't enjoy their company. That's the main reason I didn't enjoy the movie all that much.

I've heard it described as having a conversation with an intelligent person, when they are constantly swearing. It was like that. I'm sure that it's probably not that big a deal with most people, but for me, it ruined the movie experience.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best films of 2000
Review: This is a terrific film about the infamous Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush), who wrote pornography from his cell in a mental institution and smuggled it out to be published to the delight of Napoleonic France. The story is brilliantly written by Doug Wright, who also wrote the play upon which the film is based. The rapid-fire dialogue is intelligent and biting and the humor is delightfully nasty and ironic.

Philip Kaufman's direction is excellent. The pace is exceptionally good and he brings out inspired performances from the entire cast. The period is well rendered without excessive flourishes. The costumes are appropriate, but not overly ornate as would be expected of the characters (Jacqueline West was nominated for an Oscar for best costume design for this film). Kaufman allows the characters to dominate the images rather than trying to insert slick effects and stylish perspectives, a definite plus in this film.

The story is a dark and twisted examination of the Marquis and his relationship with the Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), who runs the asylum, Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), who is sent by Napoleon to keep the Marquis under control, and Madeleine (Kate Winslet), who helps him to smuggle his bawdy manuscripts to the publisher. Despite all their efforts to keep the Marquis from writing, he always outwits them and produces another "masterpiece". The scene where he puts on a play about Royer-Collard and his child bride is hysterical, with the mirthful invective coming so fast that you have to rewind it a couple of times to fully appreciate it.

As good as Geoffrey Rush was in "Shine", I thought he was even better here. Rush is electrifying, playing an extremely complex character on the very brink of insanity. He plays the role like a man possessed, and ranges from wickedly funny to frighteningly frenzied. His performance was nominated for the Oscar for best actor that went to Russell Crowe for "Gladiator". Both were deserving of the prize, and it is a pity one of them had to walk away empty handed.

Joaquin Phoenix (who ironically co-starred with both best actor nominees, and was nominated himself for best supporting actor for "Gladiator"), turns in another fine performance as the Abbe, and continues to prove himself one of the up and coming dramatic actors of his generation. Kate Winslet emerges from her self-imposed banishment to obscurity ("Hideous Kinky", "Holy Smoke") with a wonderfully rich performance in a supporting role. No Winslet performance would be complete without at least one frontal nude scene, and this film is no different in that regard. However, she also provides a well-acted portrayal of a very sympathetic character in Madeleine that makes one think that perhaps her Oscar nomination for "Titanic" wasn't a fluke. Michael Caine, as always, is fabulous as the underhanded Dr. Royer-Collard. Caine is a highly versatile actor, and he brings vibrancy to almost every role he plays.

This has my vote as one of the best films of 2000. It opened in theaters in limited release, so many people are not familiar with it. Now that it is in the rental market, perhaps it will find a larger audience. It is splendidly directed, the acting is superb, and the writing is intelligent, darkly humorous and engaging. I rated it a 10/10. Though not a film that will have mass appeal, it is a delight for the uninhibited intellectual viewer.

Rating:
Summary: Middle-brow.
Review: How fitting that a movie which spends 2 hours lecturing us about freedom of speech uses a setting 200 years in the past. Natch, if Kaufman's movie had been called *Laptop* instead of *Quills*, and told a story of a moviemaker's struggles with a film studio about whether his movie should be slapped with an NC-17 rating, Kaufman's movie wouldn't've been made. Freedom-of-speech issues are much safer when illustrated in a time period when men wore wigs, to say nothing of personifying that issue in a writer who, all agree, was a sociopath whose only real achievement was to have had a word named for him. The writers make a half-hearted attempt to present the other point of view, i.e., that entertainment can be damaging . . . but they illustrate that point by way of an already-dangerous psychopath who lives in the insane asylum where the movie's set. This intellectual stacking of the cards doesn't stop there: we get Michael Caine served up as a hypocritical contrast to Geoffrey Rush's De Sade, i.e., the Real Sadist vs. the Campy One. Middle-brows (or knee-jerk liberals, at the least) all across America will rejoice at *Quills*, just like they did at Kaufman's *Henry and June*. Some other aesthetic observations: the camera lenses used to film the movie were apparently covered by cheesecloth that had been soaked in that household helper called "Simple Green." Ug-leee. And poor Kate Winslet! -- *Titanic*'s curse continues apace, as both her and shipmate DiCaprio have yet to make a good movie since. Here, Ms. Winslet has to endure being the recipient of an overwrought act of necrophilia -- an apt metaphor for her career? She turned down *Shakespeare in Love* for roles like this?

Rating:
Summary: Hypocrisy in Dallas
Review: This is more of a reaction to the reviews of _Quills_ than a review itself. I found them mostly true to the spirit of the film and its themes of hypocrisy, repression, and perverse censorship--how can we know unless we read, unless we see. While I don't recommend that young children see such a film, for they are unequipped to understand its powerful images, I am most disappointed (but not surprised) by the superficial and ill informed evaluation of the film emanating from the Lone Star state, where I now teach film, writing and literature. The review is unsigned for good reason. I would not put my name nor a recognizable alias to such a weak ad hominem attack either.

Just so, the review is valuable. It represents a certain sensibility with which teachers struggle daily and by which society continues to be strangled. _Quills_ and works like it are supremely threatening to people with small minds and insufficient understanding. But just as _Quills_ should not be censored, neither should those who fail to understand it. It is better to know what one is up against than to be blissfully ignorant and thus unprepared.

Rating:
Summary: Unrestrained And Unforgettable.
Review: "Quills" is a powerful, passionate and unforgettable masterpiece. It is a surreal, realistic journey into the world of the Marquis De Sade, brilliantly played by Geoffrey Rush. Director Philip Kaufman films "Quills" with elegant style and surreal brilliance, this movie reminded me of the great Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel, who "Quills" would make proud. The movie is visceral, chilling and shocking. Kaufman is not afraid to venture into the mind of Sade, into the realms of what he was writing. And Rush in his incredible performance shows us the tight-rope between madness and genius. He is charming and savage, vile and romantic, much like Sade's works. The photography and art direction can be hypnotic and the screenplay by Doug Wright is brilliant in its construction and complexity. "Quills" is also a look into the mirror with the characters. We see representations of the hypocrites who attack Sade and yet practice what he writes about behind closed doors and nice people who are restrained from even love because of who they are. "Quills," though sometimes strong and gothic, also has touches of dark romanticism and passion. It speaks to the restrained spirit but also to the intellectual debater. It speaks to forbidden lust and to strong moral ground. "Quills" is a great film. It is insane, comic, perversely alluring, darkly romantic, and a great gothic tale. Not to miss.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Looking Piece of Garbage
Review: "Quills" marks a milestone in the career of its director, Phillip Kaufman. This is the first time he's made a bad - I mean, really bad film. During the 70's and 80's he made some of the best American mainstream motion pictures: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978) demonstrated his ability to dress up an old sci-fi premise in modern chic; "The Right Stuff" (1983) was a wonderfully, boyishly enthusiastic celebration of the early days of the American space program while "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988), his masterpiece, was probably the finest major film about sexuality since "Last Tango in Paris."

What all three of those films shared, in varying degrees, was Kaufman's sense of exhiliration of his characters' discovery and celebration of freedom - be it sexual or spiritual - from the binding conformity of the institutions (the US space program, Communist Czechslovakia) which encompass their lives. Whether its the transient glory of whirling around the globe in a tin can or whirling around the room with a lover, Kaufman strives to convince his audience of the necessity of emotional transcendence - of breaking free of the barriers of one's existence. His best films have a literate free-wheelingness that's a refreshing contrast to most big-budget Hollywood films. There's a playful daring in them that's bracing.

Following two rather muddled films - the overwrought "Henry and June" (1990) and the almost-good "Rising Sun" (1993) - Kaufman made "Quills" as an examination of his favorite themes - artistic freedom, sexual liberation, and the repressiveness of institutions. Unfortunately, he's chosen the wrong subject and taken the wrong approach to the material. The material is poorly thought out, it is underwritten, and ends up being very silly.

The film concerns the final years of the French author and libertine, the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), as he rots away in an insane asylum. Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is notorious for writing some of the most hideous and deviant literature in human history but Kaufman treats him as a free spirit shackled to his cell. The selections from Sade's works are mild at best and don't convey the hideous sexual violence abundant in them. Kaufman's (and his scenarist, Douglas Wright's) Sade is slightly twisted Romantic - misunderstood and punished by a society that doesn't understand or appreciate his art.

Kaufman takes Wright's fundamental misconception of Sade and elaborates it with mountingly absurd mistakes. The only people offended by Sade's works are the alsyum director the Abbé de Columier (Joacquin Phoenix) and his Javert-like nemesis, a doctor sent by special command by Napoleon to cure Sade, Royer-Collard (Michael Caine). Kaufman quickly establishes that the Abbé is repressed - he harbors a secret lust for the full-bosomed laundry maid who sneaks Sade's writings out of the asylum (Kate Winslet) - and Royer-Collard is a sadistic hypocrite - he professes to uphold "moral values" while raping his child-bride and torturing the prisoners.

Kaufman provides no additional depth to these characters because they're straw-men set up to prove the point that Sade and his admirers are True To Themselves and Live According To Their Emotions and Celebrate Artistic Freedom while the authority figures are Repressed Control-Freaks Who Stifle Freedom. And Sade is the agent of liberation. Both Winslet's character and the doctor's child-bride find in Sade's writing a source of sexual liberation that anyone who has any knowledge of his work would find appalling. (Sade's work almost consistently stressed the total submission of women at the hands of an all-powerful male libertines). And to make Sade a combination of Lord Byron and Alexander Comfort is really not to deal with Sade at all - its Sade as reconceptualized as an eccentric counter-cultural hero. The danger that lurks in Sade's fiction is trivalized and rendered fairly harmless.

Kaufman compounds the problem by filming this ludicrous mess in the most earnest style possible - there isn't a trace of wit in the whole 2 hours. Indeed, the film has the overwrought earnestness of a fledging filmmaker Out To Send The World A Message.

"Quills" demonstrates that even intelligent filmmakers with open-minded views can really blow it when they try to force history to conform to them. "Quills" alternates between being boring and being risible but never once does it ground itself in anything like recognizable human experience. Simone de Beauvoir once asked if we must burn Sade; perhaps not - but tomatoes at the screen is the pretty appropriate response here.

Rating:
Summary: Overlong and overrated
Review: I kept looking at my DVD player's readout to see how much longer there was to go. The ultimate fate of the Marquis is disgusting and lacks the artistic balance needed to justify its unpleasantness.

Rush is good in the lead, although through most of the film his character is more eccentric and obsessed than provocative and perverted. Michael Caine delivers yet another forgettable performance. His character is a cookie-cutter hypocritical ..., and his actions fairly predictable (although obviously Caine did not write the script). Kate Winslet is, sad to say, adequate at best.

It's hard to recall a film filled with so much sex and sexual innuendo and so little genuine eroticism. Scenes of sadism -- such as a public flogging -- seem as fake as they in reality are.

For an intelligently written and acted film with erotic texture, go instead with the same director's "The Unbearable Lightness Of Being." Or better yet, watch "Dangerous Beauty," which offers up more authentic BDSM undercurrents in a single scene than the entirety of "Quills."

In summary, "Quills" is a decent film. It's simply not the masterpiece many think. Keep your expectations in check, and you may enjoy it more than I did.