Quills, Doug Wright's adaptation of his own play, has been directed as a bawdy pantomime by Philip Kaufman, rather than a serious study of the old rogue's predilections and peccadilloes, writes David Parkinson.
Thus it stands in stark contrast to Peter Brook's once-controversial The Marat/Sade (1966) and the recent straight-laced Sade. Giving a performance of manic glee similar to that in Shine, Geoffrey Rush dominates proceedings as the inveterate pornographer whose works so infuriate Napoleon that he dispatches the ruthless Dr Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) to stiffen the liberal resolve of the Abb Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix).
But so strong is De Sade's desire both to create and subvert that he resorts to blood and, finally, excrement to compose stories that are smuggled to the waiting world by Madeleine (Kate Winslet), a laundress who pities the prisoner without knowing too much of the socio-political threat his writings pose.
As a treatise on governmental paranoia, this has an amusing currency. But what it reflects most tellingly is how depressingly safe so much art has become.
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