Quills (Philip Kaufman, 2000) Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine
Michael Sragow:
Kaufman's time may come with "Quills," partly because no movie could be more immediate, despite its 18th- and 19th-century trappings. The search for extremes that Sade waged in outri sexuality we see all around us -- not just in the most severe self-exposure and exhibitionism, but in the brutal pursuit of the biggest financial score or the farthest-out "sport." And the way this movie views him, the marquis was nobler than all this contemporary swill.
In Quills, the heroic side of Sade inspires a ravenous hunger -- not for perversion, but for iconoclastic and imaginative thought. Kaufman the filmmaker, who hadn't made a movie for seven years, must have identified with Sade's drive to create. Yet "Quills" bears no whiff of desperation -- only the brimming confidence of a director whose appetite for filmmaking is once again fulfilled. Salon.
Garry Gillard | reviews | New: 28 June, 2023 | Now: 28 June, 2023