In a Napoleonic era insane asylum, an inmate, the irrepressible Marquis De Sade, fights a battle of wills against a tyrannically prudish doctor. This historical drama examines how much controversy he could cause even under repressive circumstances.
Quills, about the marquis de Sade, is a voluptuous impasto. Everything in it -- the colors, the locations, the people -- seems swirled with a mixture of decadence and grace.
TheMovieReport.com
December 08, 2002
Kaufman and writer Doug Wright (adapting his own play) infuse the film with a decadent playfulness befitting a film about the Marquis.
Kaufman's biopic of the notorious Marquis de Sade is sharply uneven, serious, poignant, trashy, sleazy and sensationslist, marred by over-the-top turn from Geoffrey Rush.
It pokes at sexual taboos - it's pretty subversive, considering - but sexuality and creativity are indelibly linked, and its true subject is expression, repression and catharsis.
