Quills (DVD)

Tackling a portrayal of the life of someone as controversial as the Marquis de Sade was always going to be a difficult task for writer Doug Wright, but that is what he set himself to do in 2000 `s Quills. The premise of the film is this, for various perverse crimes, de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) finds himself subject to incarceration. Due to his aristocratic status and the influence of his wife instead of the prison that he would expect, he is interned ...
...and a decent lifestyle, and under the direction of the Abbe de Coulmier (Joaquim Phoenix) is encouraged to write as a form of therapy, the idea being that writing his perverse thoughts down will purge his will to enact them. Unfortunately unbeknown to the young Abbe, de Sade with the aid of a besotted serving girl (Kate Winslet) is publishing these erotic works and making a tidy income. Word of his publications comes to the attention of Napoleon ...

steerpyke 10.01.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

...stayed up late to watch Quills which was showing on one of the Sky movie channels. I did not know a lot about it, other than it was about the Marquis de Sade. I was pretty sure that any film about the infamous Marquis was going to be, at the very least, a bit risqué, so I despatched my youngest daughter to bed. Quills won the National Board of Review's Best Film of 2000. The script was by Doug Wright and it was directed by Philip Kaufman. The thing ...
...be a film based on sex, it couldn't be much else if it was about the Marquis de Sade. However, its main parts are played by Michael Caine, Kate Winslet, Geoffrey Rush and Joaquin Phoenix. I was surprised to find actors of this calibre in what I had been informed was basically a soft porn movie! I was to be very surprised. Firstly, for any of you that are not familiar with the Marquis de Sade or his writings allow me to give you just a little background ...

water-witch 25.08.2002 (27.08.2002) · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

How do you define making an impact on the world? How about being so infamous, having such an impact on the state of mind of a nation, that you have a word names after you? And all for putting on paper what many, many people think about, but never dare admit. Sadism. Named after the Marquis de Sade. Written about with… quills. Do you see? Set in 1794 Paris, this is a fictionalised account (by Doug Wright, adapted from his own play) of the rise ...
...(Shine, Mystery Men). The movie opens on what appears to be a torrid love scene, which soon turns out to be something else entirely, all watched from the prison cell of the Marquis. Years later, and de Sade is now resident in the Charenton mental asylum, but continues his depraved writings from his luxuriously furbished cell. His latest work, Justine, is being smuggled out, chapter by chapter with the assistance of laundry worker Madeleine (Kate ...

peppersinclaire 15.10.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

*_--_*_--_*_--_*QUILLS*_--_*_--_*_--_* Nominated for 2 Academy Awards ''Winslet and Phoenix create real fire'' Rolling Stone ''Stunning devastating…. Dark'' Film Review -*-*-*-*-Historic Information and Plot-*-*-*-*- Paris, 1794. Begins with a story of a prisoner during execution following to a brief introduction to the situation/location of the Marquis de Sade. Historically the Marquis was known as Donatien Alphonse François (1740-1814), whose ...
.... The story brings the audience to the lavishly decorated prison cell of the Marquis in the Mental Asylum of 'Charenton' in France where he worked on an array of books and volumes, many which he didn't complete and many which have never been published or produced. However, this film depicts the Marquis in the final 20 years of his life where he finds ways and means to get his writings into the public eye and out of the prison. After publications ...

woof45 08.12.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

A couple of friends had harped onto me about the film Quills, and seeing it on sale for a relatively low price on DVD, I reckoned I may as well buy it to see what all the fuss was about. The film is about the Marquis De Sade who is locked away in a mental institution warded over by a priest played by Joaquin Phoenix. The priest indulges the Marquis and even encourages him to write down his explicit sexual thoughts as a means of therapy. However, ...
...getting them published causing outrage. Napoleon is advised to send a Doctor to the asylum to sort out the Marquis. The Doctor is not as indulgent as the priest, but the Marquis refuses to stop writing, instead making do with whatever is available to write with including his own blood and clothes. The story is more complicated, though, as it is clear that the Marquis is interested in Madeline, as is the priest. Madeline (played by Kate Winslet), ...

Guru-On-A-Mountain 03.09.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

I watched this film purely because I could find nothing better to do with my time that evening. The film has some big names - Micheal Caine (who manages to break his usual type a little), Kate Winslet, and River Phoneix's gorgeous brother (whose name currently escapes me, I'm sorry). The plot is relatively obvious but not without it's moments of drama. The Marquis de Sade has been imprisonned following the Revolution. He is residing in an insane ...
...gentle, young priest who believes in the best in everyone and is the forerunner of occupational therapy! The Marquis is housed in a particularly splendid cell and is allowed to write his perverse stories to help him remain sane. Trouble is that Kate's character is smuggling the stories out to a dashing young man on a horse (who never learns her name, and she never learns his, but the sexual tension is clearly (and predictably) there) who canters ...

fam6 01.10.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

Quills did not have the high box expectation, it was relatively small scale although and yet managed to get the best actors(Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Cane, Kate Winslet, and Geoffrey Rush) we have around to star in it, so surely this must tell us something?!!!! The story is a compelling one centred around love(for a human being, but also the teqnigue of writing) and lust.Geoffry Rush plays the Marquis De Sarde a well known writer of pornography.He ...
...and be silenced but with the help of a cleaning maide(Winslet)his stories are still heard.This however all changes when Caine takes over from Phoenix in being in charge of the instsite favouring much more serious violent deterants. Just as Phoenix is realising his love for Winslet Rush goes about writing the best story he has ever written through a chinese whisper, but the consequences are fatal, there is a fire and fellow inmate of Rush kills Winslet ...

siany 31.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

'Quills' is an exceptional film in many ways. It is very well performed (well done Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslett and Joaquin Phoenix), sumptuously shot and well scripted. Based around the final months in the life of the notorious Marquis de Sade, it is an effective analysis of the hypocrisy prevalent in society of the time regarding both sexuality and madness. Picture the scene. Here we are presented with the figure of the Marquis himself, a privileged ...
...well-intentioned, if somewhat naive padre (played by Joaquin Phoenix). A laundry girl (played admirably by kate Winslett) is the object of the Marquis' frustrated sexual fantasies and the channel through which he smuggles out of the asylum his pornographic tales. This, of course, is done without the knowledge of the priest who, ironically, is responsible for the laundry girl being able to read the materials produced by the Marquis. All begins to ...

Medusa 08.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

...own blood, his Ink and Quills taken from him. We also see the struggle of Phoenix and Winslet as they each try and fight their forbidden desire. The priest’s adoration clear when he seeks to take her punishment for the help she has given the Marquis. The innocent and sweet love between these two really adds to the story development, and offers an injection of purity as a foil for the Marquis often deprived lusts. Even though the story is excellent, ...
...Marquis is brilliant, on the face of it a man of no more than sexual desire, expression and levity, and at first the watcher feels that he does not deserve to be locked up. Yet as more of the surface is scratch, Rush brilliantly starts to reveal the man behind. A selfish, cold man, whose only real driving force is an obsessive need to write, regardless on the consequences for himself and those around him. Winslet is also great as the truly likeable ...

xtra 17.08.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

What can I say except this film is just so steamy, sexy and dark. A great cast lead this tale, now out on video. Geoffrey Rush stars as the infamous Marquis De Sade, a man whose writing s about different areas of sex and sexual practices caused outrage in pre and post Revolution France. Of course, the man himself's ideas and opinions have been toned down slightly for the film since much of the Marquis' writings are still considered horrific today. ...
...out the Marquis' writings from his cell in a mental asylum to secret printers on the outside, who publish his work to a secret fan base - to the anger of the King. Joaquin Phoenix, and at this point my thoughts are turning to sex for some reason, stars as the Abbe De Coulmier, a gentle priest who looks after the asylum . The directors chose to ignore the fact that the real Abbe De Coulmier was a 4 ft dwarf with a hunched back. Mr Phoenix is far ...

MissT 10.09.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

Quills is a powerful dramatic film set in the era of the french revolution. Marquis de sade(born in 1740) is played by geoffrey rush. He is a person that has sexual natured thoughts of every means. He is also a writer of erotic type script. The film tells of his life and is set along the streets of france. The filming was in fact done alot on the streets of oxford and some college places, and surrounding area in town were used.The streets were transformed ...
...The film is quite fast pace in places and strong language, alot of shouting, special effects blood and more. I hope you will enjoy this film (maybe I have made it to hollywood now?look out for me (ha.ha) UPDATED 26/01/01 THE QUILLS WEBSITE NOW AVAILABLE. HTTP://FOXSEARCHLIGHT.COM/QUILLS/QUILLS-FLASH.HTM ...

linda01865 11.01.2001 (26.01.2001) · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

The story for Quills is set around a myriad of characters in the Charenton Asylum, a mental institution during the newly established Napoleonic regime of the early nineteenth century. Chiefly, the film is about the controversial French writer, the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) and his writings of the time. While the film could have taken the route of many period films by tracing his life as a child through to an adult, Quills presents the final ...
...the Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), Quills spins a superbly constructed narrative around the Marquis, mutual love interest Madeleine (Kate Winslet), his many inmates and the Doctor Royer Collard (Michael Cain). Beyond the immediate conflicts and hypocrisies that run rampant throughout the film’s immediate characters, various sub-plots move the movie along at a mild pace that never leaves the viewer bored. With its superb French-gothic setting, ...

Cheerfulchap 01.06.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

When i went to see this film i wasn't expecting much.But, i was pleasently suprised! The actors made their charactors come to life, Rush made the fim compelling to watch and made is intrigued and sorry for him whilst Phoenix performance was so touching it was unbelievable. The story is about the Marquis De Sard, a person who was put in a type of loony house as he wouldn't stop writing pornography.Kate Winslet helps him to get his stories to the ...

Supajan 30.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

...1993. Film review: Quills is based at the turn of the 18th Century in France. Geoffrey Rush plays The Marquis De Sade who lives out his last days inside a mental asylum called Charenton. At Charenton he writes with quills in a frenzied manner, his books of graphic sexual perversity. The second major character is played by Kate Winslet, and is a chaste linen girl named Madeleine who smuggles the Marquis' writings out of the institution, to be sold ...
...country’s authorities discover what is happening they send the sanctimonious Dr Royer-Collard, played by Michael Caine to Charenton to treat the Marquis for this 'mental disorder'. Despite Royer-Collard’s sadistic treatments and the confiscation of the Marquis’ prized quills, Sade persists with his writings, using anything he can use as ink, including wine, blood and faeces. However, it all comes to a rather sticky (for want of ...

Cari 19.09.2001 (21.09.2001) · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)

Quills is an interesting experiment, but one which, I feel, ultimately fails. The problem is that it can't quite decide what it wants to be. There are times when it is absolutely serious and compelling and other moments of pure silliness which make you wonder whether it's supposed to be a spoof. Whatever the intention, it seems to fall between two stalls, making it ultimately unsatisfying. However, there are many good points. The performances are ...
...of God all too believably slips further and further away from his convictions. Rush is a good Marquis, and Michael Caine and Kate Winslet are also superb. Some of the artistic choices are clever as well, particularly the use of the laundry vat, which appears time and again and is twice stained red by the Maruis' stories in a clever repetition of imagery. Thankfully, the film is actually quite tasteful, considering the character of its 'protagonist' ...

DavidBedford 30.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Quills (DVD)