The movie “Quills” directed by Philip Kaufman was released in 2000 in the USA. “Quills” is a fictional story about the last days of Marquis De Sade who has been exiled to Charenton Asylum in France. The movie is imbued with an erotic atmosphere; it opens by showing a woman who, as the voice-over explains, has a sexual appetite for various kinds of torture. The movie is aimed at finding out the role of sexuality in determining the emotional, physical, and spiritual essence of a human. The cast is brilliant with Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet in the leading roles; the actors’ performance is irreproachable and quite convincing. However, cinematography, just like art or any other kind of human activity involving creativity, evokes different emotions in the audience. There exist numerous criteria according to which a movie can be judged by viewers, and these criteria are determined by viewers themselves. It is impossible to find two people who would like or dislike a movie to the same extent, and what seems good for one person, is often unacceptable for another. The movie “Quills” brought about different opinions and comments of the audience. Some of the viewers disliked the movie for its containing too many scenes depicting sadism, while the others stated that the depiction of these very scenes was verisimilar and deserved praise for the well-selected cast. Numerous newspaper and magazine articles discussed the movie, its plot, direction, and the playoff actors expressing the most various opinions about it. Among those articles which criticized the movie, the article Quills’ Has De Sade in a Cuckoo’s Nest by Arnold Gary deserves special attention. Arnold Gary unfairly criticizes the movie “Quills” for depicting sexual candor, violence, and debauchery without getting into the essence of the movie and without comprehending the meaning of these scenes for the audience.
What should be mentioned above all is that sexual scenes depicted in the movie do not evoke a desire to censor them but attract attention to the notion of sexuality and sexual abuse. Male and female nudity which can be found in modern movies does not seem to be concerning these days. The audience has already got used to the movies’ depicting sexuality. “Sexual content is present in a sizeable portion of trailers” (Reichert and Lambiase 5), though the rate of the sexual scenes may differ depending on the genre of the movie. The purpose of sexual scenes in the movies goes far beyond the simple attraction of a bigger number of viewers. Sexual scenes in the movie let people understand the notion of sexuality and learn how not to be abused from the experience of movie characters. In most cases, the films show not how to behave but how to avoid acting in a certain way. “Quills” contains three rape scenes but it is hard to imagine that the directors inserted these scenes as an example for people to follow. On the contrary, by provoking negative emotions of the viewers regarding sexual abuse, the movies depicting such scenes point out the reality of life and call for fighting with it. After watching such a movie, a viewer may resent men treating women in a violent way, which will impel him/her to take urgent measures in order to prevent crimes based on sexual abuse in real life. Thus, “Quills” cannot be blamed for depicting “systematic sexual candor and vulgarity” (Gary 2), as stated by Arnold Gary in Quills’ Has De Sade in a Cuckoo’s Nest, since sexual scenes presented in it portray the reality of human life, rather than lechery or dissipation.
Secondly, the movie can indeed be criticized for depicting scenes of violence, but only when the movie is judged by what lies on the surface without analyzing the events as such. The movie portrays the events which took place during the French Revolution; a person knowing at least something about this period in world history will name violence as the first association with the phrase “French Revolution”. “What is striking about the Revolution is that the French consistently referred to their acts of violence in sacrificial terms and used sacrificial themes to imagine different relationships between bloodshed and political beginnings” (Goldhammer 1). Any film dealing with historical events aims at depicting them in the closest possible way to the original events; the purpose of this is to impress the reader and to let him/her know what exactly was happening in a definite period of world history. It is impossible to portray French Revolution without the scenes of violence for it will not have any sense and will not evoke any emotions in the audience. The presence of scenes of violence is vital for “Quills” because they are an integral part of the movie’s plot. This movie gives a perfect idea of what the French Revolution was all about; it educates the viewers and saves them time and effort they would have to spend searching and reading numerous books which sometimes distort information. Therefore, it would be fair to disagree with Gary’s sarcastic beginning of the article, “Quills” begins with a playful evocation of the French Revolution: the beheading of a young woman” (Gary 2) and his asserting that the movie contains “violence, with gruesome or obscene illustrative details” (Gary2), because namely, these details help the audience to grasp the overall idea of the movie.
Finally, debauchery depicted in “Quills” is also a part of the history and life of Marquis De Sade. The movie would not be such a success if it colored the truth and embellished the reality of his life. Marquis De Sade’s main principle of life was getting personal pleasure disregarding any laws, religions, and moral values. Censoring his desire for extreme freedom would be a distortion of historical events; if the directors of the movie have chosen to depict his life, they had to disclose all the truth about him. In his article, Arnold Gary describes De Sade as “a brute and a menace” (Gary2) emphasizing that “(w)allowing in a vice – vintage or contemporary – probably is more fun for the participants in front of the camera than customers obliged to pay for being wallflowers at a smug and risk-free cinematic debauchery” (Gary2). Nevertheless, De Sade’s life consisted in “wallowing in vice” and he liked it. There could hardly be another depiction of a person who spent 32 years of his life in prison and insane asylums. Scandals, blasphemy, violence, and sexual abuse were present in his life and namely, this is why all these notions are present in the movie about him. He had “a wife whose social origins he despised and a mother-in-law who he would learn to fear and hate” (Sade and Coward viii); he deserved the right to be brutal since life treated him unfairly (perhaps, this was because he treated life in the very same way). Hence, the representation of Marquis De Sade as a menace in “Quills” is a simple desire of the director to reveal the sense of his life, while the movie’s depicting debauchery is a means of creating the feeling that the whole truth is disclosed to the audience.
Taking into consideration everything mentioned above, it can be concluded that Arnold Gary’s criticism of “Quills” expressed in his article Quills’ Has De Sade in a Cuckoo’s Nest is totally unfair because he failed to realize the essence of the movie. He criticized it for depicting sexual candor, violence, and debauchery, the scenes of which turned out to be absolutely justified. Thereby, sexual candor is present in the movie to attract the viewers’ attention to the notions of sexuality and sexual abuse. Using the scenes with sexual abuse in the movie can evoke in the audience the desire to fight with it for they are able to see with their own eyes what it may lead to. Violence in the movie helps to realize what the French Revolution was all about and allows readers to learn from the movie instead of reading books on this topic. Eventually, debauchery depicted in “Quills” can be justified by the fact that the movie was aimed at disclosing the truth about the life of Marquis De Sade who disregarded law and morality and spent his life in pursuit of personal pleasure. The movie “Quills” is indeed worth watching for it gives a perfect idea of the events which took place during the French Revolution and reveals the truth about the life of Marquis De Sade.
Works Cited
Arnold, Gary. “Quills’ Has De Sade in a Cuckoo’s Nest”. The Washington Times. 2000.
Goldhammer, Jesse. The Headless Republic: Sacrificial Violence in Modern French Thought. Cornell University Press, 2005.
Reichert, Tom and Lambiase, Jacqueline. Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing. Routledge, 2006.
Sade and Coward, David. The Marquis de Sade, The Crimes of Love: Heroic and Tragic Tales ; Preceded by an Essay on Novels : a Selection. Oxford University Press, 2005.