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List Price: $9.98Amazon.com's Price: $5.49 You Save: $4.49 (45%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543016625
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 08, 2001
Running Time: 124 minutes
Sales Rank: 9022
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 2000
Editorial Review:
Description:
Rush gives a tour-de-force performance as history's most infamous sexual adventurer, the Marquis de Sade. A nobleman with a literary flair, the Marquis lives in a madhouse where a beautiful laundry maid (Winslet) smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, defying orders from the asylum's resident priest (Phoenix). The titillating passages whip all of France into a sexual frenzy, until a fiercely conservative doctor (Caine) tries to put an end to the fun, inadvertently stoking the excitement to a fever pitch.
Amazon.com:
With bedroom eyes and the mischievous smirk of an insatiable roué, Geoffrey Rush is a perfect choice to play the Marquis de Sade in Quills, directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted by Doug Wright from his own stage play. Imprisoned in France's Charenton asylum at the turn of the 18th century, de Sade is a stately court jester in disheveled finery, and Rush imbues the role with the fierce urgency of a writer whose sexual fantasies are his sole remaining defense against repression and hypocrisy. Deprived of quill and ink, he writes with wine, then blood, then his own feces--a descent into madness or an impassioned refusal to be silenced? Quills embraces freedom of expression ('such beauty, such abomination,' as one character notes) while affirming that all freedoms have a price.
De Sade smuggles manuscripts out of Charenton with help from Madeleine (Kate Winslet), a virginal laundress who relishes de Sade's scandalous prose--a divine irony since she was taught to read by asylum abbé Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), whose desire for Madeleine is suppressed by Catholic propriety. The delicate dynamic of this trio is shattered by the arrival of Royer-Collard (Michael Caine, appearing somewhat comatose), a righteous hypocrite appointed to silence de Sade once and for all. It's all very engrossing as a piece of theater (which it still is, despite Kaufman's elegant filming), and although Wright's literate dialogue limits de Sade to zesty ripostes and sneering perversity, Rush's intensity ensures that the marquis's plight is no laughing matter. Quills has a point, makes it without condescension, and knows the difference between madness and passion. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A good film, but should have been a lot better....spoilers....
This is a good, thought not great, movie. I was rather disappointed in its simplifying of the life of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, aka the Marquis de Sade, into a rather boring, staid debate on free speech and its limits (or whether it should have any limits). Contrary to popular belief, de Sade was a much more complex figure than people give him credit for. While he was an indulgent libertine for most of his life, when he decided to start writing (at a comparitively late age), he threw ... Read More
Rating: - Somewhat Disturbing but Impactful
The Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is locked in an insane asylum because of his casual treatment of erotic phrases. His books are popular with the public, although the Abbe (Joaquin Phoenix) is unaware that his writing is being released. In comes Madeleine LeClerc (Kate Winslet), a laundress with an appetite for dirty novels. In spite of her interests, she remains pure and attracts the eyes of many of the inmates. The town is in a fury over the Marquis' graphic descriptions of the forbidden and sometimes ... Read More
Rating:  - An erotic and emotional journey, never fails to overwhelm you!
To be frank I didn't know a lot about Geoffrey Rush neither did I keep much expectations from this film. Now, I cannot deny at all that he is indeed a true artist and an excellent actor, he potrayed 'Marquis de Sade' really well and, simply an amazing performence by him, keen enough to overwhelm the viewer totally. Kate Winslet at her sexiest, her charimsa is easily shown in screen, she was just plain gorgeous, probably one of her best performences ever. Billie Whitelaw, as most are familiar with her as a ... Read More
Rating: - A Very Good Film
This film was very good. I enjoyed it very much. Quills is fairly historically accurate in its depiction of the Marquis de Sade's personality (Geoffrey Rush did a superb performance as the Marquis de Sade). Several of the characters that play a major role in Sade's life in this film really did exist, and they really did play a major role in Sade's life. Of course, there is quite a bit of dramatization, and fictionalization in this film, as well as characters who did not really exist, so as to make an entertaining ... Read More
Rating:  - Quill Me
This was an interesting view, and I was fascinated by the story line, but it's a downer, so "warning."
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