Quills: Difference between revisions

A 2000 biographical film, directed by Philip Kaufman and written by Pulitzer PrizerPrize-winning playwright Doug Wright (adapting from his own play of the same name). The film follows the (highly fictionalized) last years of the [[Marquis de Sade]] (Geoffrey Rush, in an [[Academy Award]]-nominated role), the notorious French nobleman, author, philosopher, and libertine. The film is set at Charenton, a lunatic asylum where Sade has been sent for his continued publication of pornographic novels that double as nihilist philosophy tracts.

Charenton is run by the Abbé du Coulmier ([[Joaquin Phoenix]]), a rather progressive adminsitratoradministrator who allows the Marquis to continue writing, on the theory that it will "purge" the evil from his mind. UnbenknownstUnbeknownst to the Abbé, however, Madeleine ([[Kate Winslet]]), his protégé and one of the asylum's chambermaids, has been secretly smuggling the works to the outside world, where they are published anonymously. This turns out to be a mistake, however, as the Emperor Napoleon (Ron Cook), realizing who the author is, orders the renowned "alienist" Dr. Royer-Collard ([[Michael Caine]]) to go to the asylum, where he is tasked with curing the infamous Marquis...by any means necessary.

* [[Cold-Blooded Torture]]: {{spoiler|After Madeleine's murder, the grieving Abbé orders the Marquis' tongue cut out. Without an anaestheticanesthetic.}}

* [[Despair Event Horizon]]: {{spoiler|See "[[Big No]].".}}

* [[Drop-Dead Gorgeous]]: {{spoiler|Madeleine.}}

* [[Homoerotic Subtext]]: And how. Marquis is constantly trying to seduce the Abbe, which is most apparent in the scene where the Abbe orders him to strip. (Makesmakes sense in context).)

* [[Single-Issue Psychology]]: Dr. Royer-Collard practices this, believing that there are no mental illnesses that cannot be cured through application of negative reinforcement (for example, repeated dunkingsdunking in water). [[Truth in Television|It works about as well as you'd expect.]]