Quills is a 2000 period film directed by
Philip KaufmanPhilip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
and adapted from the
Obie awardThe Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
-winning play by
Doug WrightDoug Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play, I Am My Own Wife.-Early years:Wright was born in Dallas, Texas...
, who also wrote the original screenplay. Inspired by the life and work of the
Marquis de SadeDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
,
Quills re-imagines the last years of the Marquis' incarceration in the insane asylum at
CharentonCharenton was a lunatic asylum, founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France....
. It stars
Geoffrey RushGeoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
as the
Marquis de SadeDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
,
Joaquin PhoenixJoaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
as the
Abbé du CoulmierFrançois Simonet de Coulmier was a French Catholic priest and abbot, and the director of the Charenton insane asylum in France in the early 19th century...
,
Michael CaineSir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
as Dr. Royer-Collard, and
Kate WinsletKate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
as laundress Madeleine "Maddie" LeClerc.
Well received by critics,
Quills garnered numerous accolades for star Geoffrey Rush, including nominations for an Oscar and a
Golden GlobeThe Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture - Drama was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...
. The film was a modest art house success, averaging $27,709 per screen its debut weekend, and eventually grossing $17,989,277 internationally. Cited by historians as factually inaccurate,
Quills filmmakers and writers said they were not making a biography of de Sade, but exploring issues such as
censorshipthumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
,
pornographyPornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
,
sexIn biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
,
artArt is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
,
mental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, and
religionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. It was released with an
R rating due to some violence, horrific images, language, and nudity.
Plot
Quills begins during the
Reign of TerrorThe Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
, with the incarcerated Marquis de Sade (
Geoffrey RushGeoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
) penning a story about the libidinous Mademoiselle Renard, an aristocrat who meets the preeminent sadist in her executioner.
Several years later, the Marquis is confined to the asylum at
CharentonCharenton was a lunatic asylum, founded in 1645 by the Frères de la Charité in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, now Saint-Maurice, Val-de-Marne, France....
, overseen by the enlightened
Abbé du CoulmierFrançois Simonet de Coulmier was a French Catholic priest and abbot, and the director of the Charenton insane asylum in France in the early 19th century...
(
Joaquin PhoenixJoaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
). The Marquis has been publishing his work through laundress Madeleine "Maddy" LeClerc (
Kate WinsletKate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
), who smuggles manuscripts through an anonymous horseman (
Tom WardTom Ward is a British film, stage and television actor.-Early life:Tom Ward was born in Swansea, to the poet and academic John Powell Ward and Sarah Ward OBE, a farmer. His brother Tristan became a partner at Macfarlanes LLP, a firm of solicitors in the City of London.Ward was sent to the Dragon...
) to a publisher. The Marquis' latest work,
JustineJustine is a classic novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade. There is no standard edition of this text in hardcover, having passed into the public domain...
, is published on the black market to great success. Napoleon (
Ron CookRon Cook is an English actor who has been active in the theatre, film and television since the 1970s. He is from South Shields, Co Durham, England and is a graduate of Rose Bruford College.- Stage appearances :...
) orders all copies of the book burned and the author shot, but his advisor, Delbené (
Patrick MalahidePatrick Malahide is a British actor, who has played many major film and television roles.-Personal life:Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father...
), tempers this contentious idea with one of his own: send traditionalist Doctor Royer-Collard (
Michael CaineSir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
) to look in at Charenton and silence the Marquis. Meanwhile the Abbé teaches Madeleine to read and write and resists his growing attraction to her.
Dr. Royer-Collard arrives, informing the Abbé that the Marquis' "therapeutic writings" have been distributed for public consumption. Horrified, the Abbé rejects Royer-Collard's offers of several archaic "treatments" and asks to speak with the Marquis himself, who promptly swears obedience (winking at Madeleine through a peephole). Royer-Collard takes his leave for the time being and travels to the Panthemont Convent in Paris to retrieve his promised bride, the underage Simone (
Amelia WarnerAmelia Warner is an English actress and songwriter. As of October 2011, Warner is a signed musician to Island Records and works under the name, 'Slow Moving Millie'.-Early life:...
). They are given a run-down chateau by the Emperor, with a handsome young architect, Prouix (
Stephen MoyerStephen Moyer is an English actor who has starred as vampire Bill Compton in the HBO series True Blood since 2008.-Early life and career:Moyer was born in Brentwood, Essex...
) on hand for its renovation.
The hasty marriage incites much gossip at the asylum, prompting the Marquis to write a farce to be performed at a public exhibition. The audacious play, titled "The Crimes of Love", is interrupted when the inmate Bouchon (British
character actorA character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
Stephen MarcusStephen Marcus is a British actor, best known for his role as Nick the Greek in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels....
) molests Madeleine off-stage, prompting her to hit him in the face with an iron. Royer-Collard shuts down the public theater and demands that the Abbé do more to control the Marquis. Infuriated, the Abbé confiscates the Marquis' quills and ink, prompting more subversive behavior, including a story written in wine on bedsheets and in blood on clothing. This results in further deprivation, eventually leaving the Marquis naked in an empty cell. One of the maids told on Madeleine and she is whipped on the order of Dr. Royer-Collard until the Abbé stops him by offering himself instead and deciding to send Madeleine away. That night she visits his chamber to beg him to reconsider sending her away and confessing her love for him in the process, prompting him to kiss her passionately and then abruptly breaking away at realization of what he is doing. Madeleine is angry with him the next day and the Abbé is shown to become sexually frustrated.
While this is occurring at the asylum, Simone has been violently introduced to the adult world by her husband. She unrepentantly purchases a copy of the Marquis de Sade's
Justine, seduces Prioux, and the young lovers run off together. She leaves behind a letter explaining her actions and her copy of
Justine. Upon finding this, Dr. Royer-Collard seizes on the Marquis as the source of his troubles and embarks upon a quest for revenge.
About to be sent away from Charenton for her role in assisting the Marquis, Madeleine begs a last story from him, which is to be relayed to her through the asylum patients. Bouchon, the inmate at the end of the relay, is excited by the story, breaks out of his cell, and kills Madeleine. The asylum is set afire by the
pyromaniaPyromania in more extreme circumstances can be an impulse control disorder to deliberately start fires to relieve tension or for gratification or relief. The term pyromania comes from the Greek word πῦρ . Pyromania and pyromaniacs are distinct from arson, the pursuit of personal, monetary or...
c Dauphin (George Yiasoumi) and the inmates break out of their cells.
Madeleine's body is found by her blind mother and the Abbé in the laundry vat. The Abbé is completely devastated by Madeleine's death and Bouchon is captured and imprisoned inside an iron dummy. The Abbé blames the Marquis for Madeleine's death and prods him into a fury. The Marquis claims he had been with Madeleine in every way imaginable, only to be told she had died a virgin. The Abbé cuts out the Marquis'
tongueThe tongue is a muscular hydrostat on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates which manipulates food for mastication. It is the primary organ of taste , as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva, and is richly...
as punishment for his involvement. In a later scene, the Abbé has sex with the corpse of Madeline in a dream. The Marquis' health declines severely, though perverse as ever, he decorates his oubliette with a story, using feces as ink. As the Abbé finishes reading the last rites, he offers the Marquis a crucifix to kiss, which he swallows and chokes on, thus committing suicide.
A year later, the new Abbé du Maupas (
Alex AveryAlex Avery is an English actor who played SC Terry Knowles in The Bill in 2001, and played Carl in Holby City in 1999. He has also guest starred in Shameless and EastEnders.He has also appeared in the movie Quills and will be appearing in a Neil Jordan film in the future.- External links :...
) arrives at Charenton and is given the grand tour. The asylum has been converted into a printing press, with the inmates as its staff. The books being printed are the works of the Marquis de Sade. At the end of the tour, the new Abbé meets his predecessor, who resides in the Marquis' old cell. Yearning to write, he begs paper and a quill from the Abbé, who is herded off by Royer-Collard, now overseer of the asylum. However, the peephole opens, and Madeleine's mother thrusts paper, quill, and ink through. The Abbé begins to scribble furiously, with the Marquis providing the narration.
Production
Filming began in England on August 5, 1999, with
OxfordshireOxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
,
BedfordshireBedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
, and
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
standing in for early nineteenth century France. Oscar-winning
production designerIn film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Martin Childs (
Shakespeare in LoveShakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....
) imagined the primary location of Charenton as an airy, though circuitous place, darkening as Royer-Collard takes over operations. The screenplay specifies the way the inmates' rooms link together, which plays a key role in the relay of the Marquis' climactic story to Madeleine. Screenwriter/playwright
Doug WrightDoug Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play, I Am My Own Wife.-Early years:Wright was born in Dallas, Texas...
was a constant presence on set, assisting the actors and producers in interpreting the script and bringing his vision to life. Oscar-nominated
costume designCostume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
er Jacqueline West created the intricate period costumes, using each character as inspiration. West previously worked with director Philip Kaufman on his crime drama
Rising SunRising Sun is a [1993 film directed by Philip Kaufman, starring Sean Connery , Wesley Snipes, Harvey Keitel, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa...
. For Joaquin Phoenix's Abbé, costumers designed special "pleather" clogs to accommodate the actor's veganism. In one scene, Geoffrey Rush's Marquis de Sade wears a suit decorated in bloody script, which West described as "challenging" to make. It features actual writings of de Sade and costumers planned exactly where each sentence should go on the fabric. Before production began, West gave Winslet a copy of French painter
Léopold BoillyLouis-Léopold Boilly was a French painter and draftsman. A gifted creator of popular portrait paintings, he also produced a vast number of genre paintings vividly documenting French middle-class social life...
's "Woman Ironing" to give her a feel for the character, which Winslet said greatly influenced her performance. Casting directors Donna Isaacson and Priscilla John recruited a number of actors from a disabled actor's company to play the parts of many of the inmates at Charenton.
Cast
- Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
as the Marquis de SadeDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
: The flamboyantly outrageous Marquis refuses to conform to the moral standards of the day, making an enemy of Napoleon with his scandalous pornography and political commentary. Director Philip KaufmanPhilip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
encouraged Rush to portray the Marquis as something of a dissolute rock star holed up in the Ritz Carlton. Rush used Francine du Plessix Gray-Biography:She was born September 25, 1930 in Warsaw, Poland where her father, Vicomte Bertrand Jochaud du Plessix, was a French diplomat - the commercial attaché. She spent her early years in Paris, where a milieu of mixed cultures and a multilingual family influenced her...
's 1998 biography At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life as a reference and had previously acted in a production of Marat/SadeThe Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade , almost invariably shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss...
.
- Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
as Madeleine “Maddy” LeClerc: Feisty laundress Madeleine is the romantic interest for both the Abbé and the Marquis. In love with the Abbé, who is extremely in love with her but feels restricted, she is fascinated by the Marquis and his intelligence and experience. Screenwriter Doug WrightDoug Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play, I Am My Own Wife.-Early years:Wright was born in Dallas, Texas...
called Winslet the “patron saint” of the movie for being the first big name to back it, expressing interest as early as April 1999.
- Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
as the Abbé du CoulmierFrançois Simonet de Coulmier was a French Catholic priest and abbot, and the director of the Charenton insane asylum in France in the early 19th century...
: The Abbé du Coulmier is the well-loved administrator at Charenton asylum. A profoundly religious man, he treats his wards with kindness and allows them to express themselves artistically. He is intensely in love with Maddy though he does not entirely admit it to her or himself, he becomes devastated by her death and eventually this led to his madness. Before settling on Joaquin Phoenix, casting directors considered Jude LawDavid Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
, Guy PearceGuy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
, and Billy CrudupWilliam Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...
for the role.
- Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
as Doctor Royer-Collard: Sent by Napoleon to silence the Marquis, Royer-Collard is the traditionalist foil for the Abbé, though he proves as sadistic as the Marquis himself. Kaufman drew comparisons between Royer-Collard and Kenneth Starr, particularly the publication of de Sade's works at the Charenton Printing Press and the release of Starr's report online.
- Billie Whitelaw
Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...
as Madame LeClerc: Madame LeClerc is Madeleine's blind mother, a long-time employee of the asylum, whose blindness resulted from long-time exposure to the lye of the laundry vats.
- Stephen Marcus
Stephen Marcus is a British actor, best known for his role as Nick the Greek in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels....
as Bouchon: Bouchon is the inmate who attempts to rape Madeleine backstage during “The Crimes of Love” and ultimately kills her during the climax of the film.
- Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner is an English actress and songwriter. As of October 2011, Warner is a signed musician to Island Records and works under the name, 'Slow Moving Millie'.-Early life:...
as Simone: Simone is Dr. Royer-Collard's child bride who elopes with architect Prioux.
- Stephen Moyer
Stephen Moyer is an English actor who has starred as vampire Bill Compton in the HBO series True Blood since 2008.-Early life and career:Moyer was born in Brentwood, Essex...
as Prioux: A promising architect sent by Napoleon to renovate the Royer-Collard chateau, Prioux falls in love with Simone and runs away with her.
- Jane Menelaus
Jane Menelaus is an Australian actress who trained at the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England.-Stage:Jane Menelaus has worked a lot with both the South Australian and Melbourne Theatre Companies...
as Renee Pelagie: Menelaus, Geoffrey Rush's real-life spouse, is Renee Pelagie, the Marquis de Sade's long-suffering wife.
- Ron Cook
Ron Cook is an English actor who has been active in the theatre, film and television since the 1970s. He is from South Shields, Co Durham, England and is a graduate of Rose Bruford College.- Stage appearances :...
as Napoleon BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
: The Emperor of the French, who ordered the anonymous author of Justine (the Marquis) arrested in 1801. This was Cook's second appearance as Napoleon, the first being in the Sharpe seriesSharpe is a British series of television dramas starring Sean Bean about Richard Sharpe, a fictional British soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. Sharpe is the hero of a number of novels by Bernard Cornwell; most, though not all, of the episodes are based on the books...
in 1994.
- Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide is a British actor, who has played many major film and television roles.-Personal life:Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father...
as Delbené: Napoleon's most trusted advisor, Delbené is responsible for sending Dr. Royer-Collard to Charenton.
- Elizabeth Berrington as Charlotte: A meddlesome chambermaid, Charlotte betrays Madeleine to Royer-Collard and eventually becomes his lover and assistant at the Charenton Printing Press.
- Tony Pritchard
Tony Pritchard is a British actor. He appeared in the 2000 film Quills as Valcour. He also starred in the British short film A Girl and a Gun as well as making appearances on EastEnders as Isaacs, The Bill as David Ellis, and he also played a minor role in Coronation Street as a businessman that...
as Valcour: Charenton's prefect, Valcour performs much of the physical work necessary at the asylum.
- Michael Jenn as Cleante: Cleante is a madman who thinks he is a bird. He stars in "The Crimes of Love" in the Royer-Collard-inspired role of The Libertine and helps pass the Marquis' story to Madeleine later in the film.
Music
The
Quills soundtrack was released by RCA Victor on November 21, 2000 featuring the music of
OscarThe 71st Academy Awards ceremony, Sunday, March 21, 1999, was the last to take place at Los Angeles County Music Center, and was Whoopi Goldberg's third time hosting the Awards. It was the first time the ceremony took place on a Sunday....
-winning composer
Stephen WarbeckStephen Warbeck is an English composer, best known for his film and television scores.Warbeck was born in Southampton. He first became known for the music for Prime Suspect and won an Academy Award for his score for Shakespeare in Love...
(
Shakespeare in LoveShakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....
). Featuring experimental instrumentation by The Quills Specialist Band on such instruments as the
serpentA serpent is a bass wind instrument, descended from the cornett, and a distant ancestor of the tuba, with a mouthpiece like a brass instrument but side holes like a woodwind. It is usually a long cone bent into a snakelike shape, hence the name. The serpent is closely related to the cornett,...
,
shawmThe shawm was a medieval and Renaissance musical instrument of the woodwind family made in Europe from the 12th century until the 17th century. It was developed from the oriental zurna and is the predecessor of the modern oboe. The body of the shawm was usually turned from a single piece of wood,...
, and bucket, most reviewers were intrigued by the unconventional and thematic score. Cinemusic.net reviewer Ryan Keaveney called the album a “macabre masterpiece,” with an “addicting and mesmerizing” sound. Urban Cinephile contributor Brad Green described the album as a “hedonistic pleasure” that “captures the spirit of an incorrigible, perverse genius.” Soundtrack.net's Glenn McClanan disliked the “lack of unifying unified themes and motifs” that may have served each individual scene, but made the film feel “incoherent.”
Au Clair de la Lune
Though not included on the soundtrack, the opening notes of "
Au Clair de la Lune", a traditional French children's song, recur throughout the film, usually hummed by the Marquis. The song is originally sung by John Hamway during the opening scene of a beheading which was filmed in
OxfordThe city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. The English translation provides some illumination as to its selection as a theme for the Marquis:
Track listing
- "The Marquis and the Scaffold" – 3:08
- "The Abbe and Madeleine" – 2:19
- "The Convent" – 2:22
- "Plans for a Burial" – 1:18
- "Dream of Madeleine” – 4:42
- "Royer-Collard and Bouchon" – 4:15
- "Aphrodisiac" – 2:59
- "The Last Story" – 7:35
- "The Marquis' Cell at Charenton" – 4:38
- "The End: A New Manuscript" – 7:32
- "The Printing Press" – 2:22
Box office performance
Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures in 2000,
Quills premiered in the United States at the
Telluride Film FestivalThe Telluride Film Festival was started in 1974 by Bill and Stella Pence, Tom Luddy and Jim Card in the town of Telluride, Colorado, United States. It is operated by the National Film Preserve....
on September 2, 2000. It was given a
limited releaseLimited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
on November 22, 2000, with a wider release following on December 15, 2000. The film earned $249,383 its opening weekend in nine theaters, totaling $7,065,332 domestically and $10,923,895 internationally, for a total of $17,989,227.
DVD and other releases
Quills was released on
NTSCNTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
VHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and
Region 1DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
on May 8, 2001, with
PALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
VHS and
Region 2DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVD to follow on October 29, 2001. The DVD contains a feature-long commentary track by screenwriter/playwright
Doug WrightDoug Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play, I Am My Own Wife.-Early years:Wright was born in Dallas, Texas...
and three featurettes: “Marquis on Marquee,” “Creating Charenton,” and “Dressing the Part.” Also included are the theatrical trailer, a television spot, a photo gallery, a music promotional spot, and a feature called “Fact & Film: Historical and Production Information.”
Critical reception
Reviews were generally positive, with a 75% favorable rating at the review aggregate site
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
and an average score of 70/100 at
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
.
Elvis MitchellElvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...
of
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
complimented the "euphoric stylishness" of Kaufman's direction and Geoffrey Rush's "gleeful...flamboyant" performance.
Peter TraversPeter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
for
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
wrote about the "exceptional" actors, particularly Geoffrey Rush's "scandalously good" performance as the Marquis, populating a film that is "literate, erotic, and spoiling to be heard." Stephanie Zacharek of
Salon.comSalon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
enthused over the "delectable and ultimately terrifying fantasy" of
Quills, with Rush as "sun king," enriched by a "luminous" supporting cast.
The film was not without its detractors, including
Richard SchickelRichard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
of
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, who decried director Philip Kaufman's approach as "brutally horrific, vulgarly unamusing," creating a film that succeeds only as "soft-gore porn." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution concurred, finding
Quills "shrill, pretentious, sophomoric and often just plain dumb."
Kenneth TuranKenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
of the
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
dismissed the film as an "overripe contrivance masquerading as high art", while de Sade biographer Neil Schaeffer in
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
criticized the film for historical inaccuracies and for simplifying de Sade's complex life (see below).
Awards
Quills received three Oscar nominations at the
73rd Annual Academy AwardsThe 73rd Academy Awards honored the best films of 2000 and was held on March 25, 2001. It was the last Academy Awards to take place at the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium...
for
Actor in a Leading RolePerformance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(
Geoffrey RushGeoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
, previous winner for the 1996 movie Shine),
Art DirectionThe Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
(Art: Martin Childs, Sets: Jill Quertier), and
Costume DesignThe Academy Award for Best Costume Design is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievement in film costume design....
(Jacqueline West). The film was also nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press, organizers of the Golden Globes, for
Best Actor in a DramaThe Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture - Drama was first awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association as a separate category in 1951...
(
Geoffrey RushGeoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
) and
Best ScreenplayThe Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay - Motion Picture is one of the annual awards given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association."†" indicates the winner of the Academy Award for Best Writing "‡" indicates the winner of the Academy Award for Best Writing "§" indicates a Golden Globe Award...
(
Douglas WrightDoug Wright is an American playwright, librettist, and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2004 for his play, I Am My Own Wife.-Early years:Wright was born in Dallas, Texas...
). The National Board of Review selected
Quills as its
Best FilmThe National Board of Review Award for Best Film is one of the awards given to either the director or producer of a film by the American National Board of Review.-1930s:-1940s:-1950s:-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
of 2000.
Historical inaccuracy
Neil Schaeffer, whose
The Marquis de Sade: A Life was used by Director Philip Kaufman as reference, in a review published in
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, he criticized the film for historical inaccuracies and for simplifying de Sade's complex life.
Schaeffer especially criticized the depiction of the de Sade as a "martyr to the oppression and censorship of church and state" and the films' sacrificing facts "to a surreal and didactic conclusion that has no connection with the truth, and is probably overwrought even as a twist of a fictional plot", namely that "the seemingly good people are all bad underneath, are all hypocrites, while the seemingly bad person, de Sade, probably has some redeeming qualities".
Schaeffer detailed a number of disparities between fact and film:
Schaeffer relates that de Sade's initial incarceration "had nothing to do with his writing" but with sexual scandals involving servants, prostitutes and his sister-in-law. He also criticized the opening scene's implication that the reign of terror caused the "sanguinary streak" of de Sade's writing, when "his bloodiest and best work,
120 Days of SodomThe 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism is a novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785...
, was written in the Bastille - obviously before the revolution" and not at Charenton, as suggested by the film. In contrast to the film, the historical de Sade was "not at the height of his literary career nor of his literary powers" while at Charenton, nor did he cut the "tall, trim figure of the Australian actor Geoffrey Rush" but was of middling height and, at the time, of a "considerable, even a grotesque, obesity".
The manuscripts smuggled out of the asylum were not the novel
JustineJustine is a classic novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade. There is no standard edition of this text in hardcover, having passed into the public domain...
, which features prominently in the film but was published thirteen years before de Sade's incarceration at the asylum. De Sade's smuggled works were not particularly outrageous, mostly consisting of conventional novels and a number of plays he worked on throughout his life in hopes of having them performed. Most of these were soundly rejected by publishers. De Sade was, in fact, involved in the theater productions at Charenton, though none like the play featured in
Quills. The plays performed were popular, conventional Parisian dramas. The government shut the Charenton theater down on May 6, 1813, years before the
real Dr. Royer-CollardAntoine-Athanase Royer-Collard was a French physician who was born in the village of Sompuis, département Marne. He was a younger brother to philosopher Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard ....
had any influence at Charenton.
Schaeffer criticized also the film's treatment of de Sade's personal relations regarding his wife (who had formally separated from him after the revolution), the chambermaid (which did not serve as a liaison to a publisher but with whom he had a sexual relationship from her early teens until shortly before his death) and his "companion of many years", who had a room at Charenton (and actually smuggled out the manuscripts) but is ignored by the film. Furthermore, "De Sade's hideous death in the movie is nothing like the truth, for he died in his sleep, in his 74th year, as peacefully as any good Christian".
Schaeffer argues that the main point of de Sade's life and writing was not, "as movie-makers and reviewers alike seem to think [...] to oppose censorship" but "to push the limits - sexual, spiritual, and political - as a means of feeling out the limits of his times and of his own mind." Schaeffer criticized that the film "simplifies de Sade into a modern "victim" and over-emphasises his potential as a focus for liberal-political meanings when, in fact, his life and perhaps his literary intentions - if you think of him as a satirist - can be seen as an object lesson, warning against the excesses of cultural relativism and nihilism; a very modern lesson, it would seem."
Schaeffer advised the viewer to distinguish between de Sade and the protagonist of the film: "To see if
Quills is valid in its own terms, let the viewer imagine it is about someone else, let us say the Marquis de Newcastle, and that the scene is Bedlam and then see if the movie makes any sense."
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