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Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
Oscar winner Geoffrey 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 (Kate Winslet) smuggles his erotic stories to a printer, defying orders from the asylum's resident priest (Joaquin Phoenix). The titilating passages whip all of France into a sexual frenzy, until a fiercely conservative doctor (Michael Caine) tries to put an end to the fun, inadvertently stoking the excitement to a fever pitch.
"...Uniformly robust acting puts still more feathers in the caps of Rush, Winslet and Caine..." Mike Clark, USA Today
"Two thumbs up!" Ebert & Roeper And The Movies
"The role is an actor's dream, and Rush makes it all come true." Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle
"Erotic." Rolling Stone
"Wickedly funny and very sexy..." The New York Times
Editor's Note
Based on the award-winning play by Doug Wright, this erotic and fantastical drama reconstructs the unknown fate of the Marquis de Sade, the writer and sexual deviant who was imprisoned in Charenton Asylum for the last 10 years of his life. QUILLS is a Gothic period piece from director Philip Kaufman that details the fall of the French Revolution and the subsequent imprisonment of the fallen aristocrat, a notorious free thinker who lived to write with an outstanding creative spirit and provocative sexual appetite. In the film, the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) befriends the liberal director of the asylum, Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), and both share affections with the asylum laundress, Madeleine (Kate Winslet). Madeleine is a nubile but virginal young woman profoundly attracted to the mental prowess of the clever and wickedly defiant inmate who willingly smuggles his banished texts out of the asylum. But, when Napoleon reads JUSTINE, one of Sade's anonymous texts, he sends in Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), a cruel and moralistic man, to "cure" the Marquis of his supposed madness. However, the battle between the moralistic doctor and Sade only provokes the prisoner's rebellious spirit, resulting in a horrifying tragedy. QUILLS is a deliriously beautiful film that captures the free spirit of the imagination and the powers of undaunted artistic expression. Geoffrey Rush is a marvel as the profane and ingenious writer, strutting and flourishing about his erotically charged cell with awe-inspiring passion and greatness.
| Features | Scene Access | | Interactive Menus | | Original Theatrical Trailer | | Spanish Theatrical Trailer | | TV Spots | | "Creating Charenton" Featurette | | "Dressing For The Part" Featurette | | Photo Gallery | | French Dolby Surround | | Writer Doug Wright Audio Commentary | | "Marquis On The Marquee" Featurette | | Widescreen Version | | English 5.1 Surround Dolby Digital | | English Dolby Surround |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Foxvideo |
| Release Date: 12/17/2002 |
| Running Time: 124 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2000 | | Catalog ID: 2001662 | | UPC: 00024543016625 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, French Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (2001) | | | Geoffrey Rush, Nominee, Best Actor | | | Martin Childs, Jill Quertier, Nominee, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration | | | Jacqueline West, Nominee, Best Costume Design | |
Golden Globe (2001) | | | Geoffrey Rush, Nominee, Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture-Drama | | | Doug Wright, Nominee, Best Motion Picture Screenplay | |
British Academy Awards (2001) | | | Geoffrey Rush, Nominee, Best Performance By An Actor In A Leading Role | | | Jacqueline West, Nominee, Best Costune Design | | | Nuala Conway, Peter King, Nominee, Best Makeup/Hair | | | Martin Childs, Nominee, Best Production Design |
| Memorable Quotes| "If I wasn't such a bad woman on the page, I couldn't be such a good woman in life."----Madeleine (Kate Winslet) to Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix) |
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| | Professional Reviews | Movieline's Hollywood Life
"...Funny, engrossing and unpredictable....Rush gives a towering portrayal of one of the most infamous men in history..." 11/01/2000 pp.28-30New York Times
"...Geoffrey Rush [plays] Sade as a gleeful voluptuary unfettered by either morality [or] sentimentality....Mr. Kaufman revels in the chaos....Ms. Winslet's shrewdness as an actress has never been better displayed than it is here..." 11/22/2000 pp.E1-8 Box Office
"...Rush relishes his role....Winslet captures both the beauty and the spirit of the character..." 11/01/2000 p.152 Hollywood Reporter
"...[Rush] runs with it. It's a brave, take-no-prisoners performance....Winslet manages to instill nice complexity...as does Phoenix..." 10/31/2000 p.24 Chicago Sun-Times
"...Entertaining....Absorbing..." 12/15/2000 p.33 Premiere
"[T]he film raises strong questions about literary freedom and the suppression of ideas." 03/01/2004 p.96 Uncut
"Kaufman rewards our seduction by sauce and wit with a final act of nightmare farce." 02/01/2004 p.103 James Berardinelli's ReelViews 9 of 10
...Employing the talents of a top-flight cast and working from a screenplay that uses the historical backdrop as a means to deal with issues of contemporary import, Quills offers a thoroughly compelling two hours... There isn't a weak performance to be found.
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