Film: Quills
Genre: History, Drama
Year: 2000
The Marquis de Sade is one of history's blackest of celebrities, a man whose memory endures simply because he wrote the most violent and graphic of pornographic tales. And yet, as much as we know we should abhor such qualities, he remains a popular and sometimes even celebrated figure in certain quarters! Geoffrey manages to seduce the audience into a similar love/hate relationship with his Marquis on film as he dons the wig and suit and delivers an incredibly likable, and yet at the same time repellant, perfomance. Quills is a dark, twisted, but frankly brilliant movie which, besides re-telling (and re-imagining) the tale of France's infamous Marquis, also poses some powerful questions about religion, the influence of art on peoples's psyches, and the freedom of speech and thought.
When the film begins, the Marquis is imprisoned inside a madhouse, but continues to write his sexual fantasies with the help of one of the asylum's chambermaids, the beautiful Madeleine. They have a certain partnership in play, by which she smuggles out his manuscripts to be published and he reaps the rewards. However, this little coup of theirs is soon uncovered, and both of their lives begin to unravel because of it. The Marquis finds his quills conviscated, and he thus endeavours to find any other possible means by which he can write, using wine, blood, and ultimately his own faeces. Madeleine in turn finds herself punished for her crimes, and eventually pays with her life for her taste in literature, something which undoubtedly affects the Marquis since he was, despite everything, very much in love with her ("My beloved reader" he calls her as he recites his final story).
Though Geoffrey didn't win the Oscar for Best Actor for his part as the Marquis, it is, in my opinion, the greatest performance he has ever put to celluloid. He is wholly convincing, and so engaging that one cannot tear their eyes away from the screen lest they miss something. Rush is treacherously likable and, as the Rolling Stone put it, "scandalously good". His rapport with the likes of both Winslet and Phoenix is also superb as his Marquis attempts to seduce both of them at various points through the course of the film, and one cannot help but feeling an ounce of regret at the end as we witness the death of de Sade. Geoffrey's performance is sheer gold and I bow down at his feet for his unparalleled skill as an actor.
Screen Caps:
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