Phillip Kaufman’s 2001 film Quills represents the last year of the Marquis de Sade’s life in the Charendon Insane Asylum as a struggle between good versus evil. While this may be thematically correct in terms of the de Sade’s overall life, Kaufman takes many liberties with the actual historical record. The historian must ponder whether or this is a valid approach. Does Hollywood have an obligation an obligation to remain true to history? I contend the film is a historical fiction whose only charge is entertainment. The screenplay for Quills was adapted from the play of same name by American playwright Douglas Wright. In many ways the play, first performed in 1995, was a response to the encroachments on funding for the National Endowment for …show more content…
Royer Collard, was played admirably by legendary English stage and film actor Michael Caine. This character is one of two characters that are more Hollywood fiction than historical reality. Well Royer-Collard was a contemporary of de Sade and felt he should be imprisoned as opposed to confined to an asylum, there is little evidence of this contentious relationship. In fact, Royer-Collard acts as conduit to the conversation about censorship of arts and letters. As Andrew Stein stated in his review, “the film embodies the principle that morality-based censorship represses people’s true natures and makes them hypocrites”. As de Sade states in the film in reference Royer-Collard outrage over his work, “We merely held up a mirror. Apparently, he didn’t like what saw”. Kaufman draws very definite parallels between the protagonist antagonist relationship in the film and the White Water investigation of the 1990’s. What began as an inquiry into a crooked land deal, morphed into a tawdry and shameless inquisition of the President’s sex life. Kaufman states in an interview, “Certainly Royer-Collard bears some distant relationship to Ken Starr. What I love is at the very end Royer-Collard is publishing the Marquis de Sade’s works for immorality just as Starr’s compilation of all that stuff is available in every book …show more content…
Kaufman depicts Madeleine as a chamber maid who smuggles de Sade’s erotic manuscripts out of Charendon. She also gives the viewer a glimpse into female sexuality as watch her response to his literary outpoint. Strangely, Kaufman ignores that the historical truth that de Sade had a companion, Mme. Quesnet, who had a residence in Charendon, and was the agent who smuggled the transcripts to the publishers. Incidentally Madeleine’s relationship with de Sade, while flirtatious, is mostly asexual. She is also represented as being in her late teens, but according to de Sade’s journals, they began having an affair when she was around
In the piece “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean Luc-Comolli and Jean Narboni define the critic's job as the discernment of “which films, books and magazines allow the ideology a free, unhampered passage, transmit it with crystal clarity, serve as its chosen language” and which films “attempt to make it turn back and reflect itself, intercept it, make it visible by revealing its mechanisms, by blocking them” (753). Through their examination, seven film categories are outlined. Clue falls into the “E” category, which is defined as “films which seem at first sight to belong firmly within the ideology and to be completely under its sway, but which turn out to be so only in an ambiguous manner” (75...
Kleist begins his delineation of the Marquise with terms such as "widowed,", "a lady," and "the mother of several well-brought-up children" (Kleist 68). In this introduction the reader learns that the Marquise has experienced both marriage and childbirth. In respect to her deceased husband, the Marquise avoids remarriage and returns to her family's home with her parents, brother and children. The Marquise transforms her role as lover and wife to daughter and mother, therefore stifling an aspect of her womanhood. It is not until she is unknowingly sexually assaulted and made pregnant that her femininity is reborn.
I realized that sometimes it is fine for things to just be, and I don’t know why. Much of the film has to do with how we think, and what we do in private. Collectively, through these moral and ethical acts (or lack thereof) we can impact the public. Also, by sharing these thoughts and concepts with the public in the documentary, it can affect our thoughts and actions in our private lives; I know it has, at least for myself. One of the earliest topics in the film that I took note of was the ethics of certain matters, in a way that I had never considered before.
The purpose of any text is to convey the criticisms of society, with V for Vendetta and Animal Farm being chief examples of this statement. Through their use of allusion, symbolism and representation, they portray many of society's flaws and imperfections. Such an imperfection includes the illustration of how totalitarian governments abuse the power they have acquired for their own gain, harming the people they are sworn to serve and protect. Through this abusive self-gaining government, we all are liable to become victims of consumer culture caused by the blind obedience to advertising and propaganda, being unable to form or voice an opinion of our own. But this lack of opinion can be at fault because of our own apathy, the ignorance and slothfulness that is contributed to the role we play in our society and the importance of that role's ability to motivate and inspire change.
In American Beauty, Kevin Spacey’s desire for a better job and for the bodies of his daughter’s high school friends puts him on a path that leads to his death. Meanwhile, in Bridges of Madison County, Meryl Streep who is married to a dutiful husband but desires Clint Eastwood decided to suppress her desires for Eastwood and to stay with her husband until they both die. The fact that it is easy to invent a speculative explanation for how an entertainment film reflects Nazi ideology suggests that research should concentrate less on analyzing movies and more on uncovering material from the time period that might actually prove that Goebbels made movies like La Habanera and Romance in a Minor Key to warn against and feed unrestrained desire.
In the short story “An Adventure in Paris” by Guy De Maupassant an unnamed woman seeks for adventure, love, and excitement. An unnamed narrator starts to explain the inner nature and curiosity of a woman. The story transitions to the point of view of an unnamed lawyer’s wife which allows us to see her deepest desire to travel to Paris and be part of the lavishing life she has seen in the magazines. To escape her regular routine she makes a plan to go to Paris; however, her family members are only middle class and cannot help her fulfill her desire to live the life of a celebrity, fame, and fashion. Just when her trip seems to be monotonous she comes across the chance to live the life of an extravagant person. This chance happens when she meets Jean Varin, a wealthy author, in a store wanting to purchase a Japanese figurine. When Varin decides that the figurine is too expensive the lawyer’s wife steps up to buy the figurine which causes Varin to notice her. She flirtatiously invites herself into Varin’s daily activities which intrigue Varin. As the day closes she invites herself to Varin’s house and has an affair with Varin; however, she doesn’t feel she is satisfied because of his many needs. She anxiously waits till morning to come so that she can leave which only confuses Varin. When Varin asks her why she is leaving after all they have been through she states that she wanted to know what depravity felt like; however, it was not what she expected. The central idea of the story is about a woman’s psychological desire for romance, adventure, and an opulent lifestyle that leads to curiosity and the immoral act of adultery.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
...al events. Some events that happened in the film, didn't actually happen in history. Especially the whole romantic theme, though the scenes with romance helped develop the plot of the film, and to elaborate on the film's themes and message. Although the film seems to be mostly inaccurate, it still held some historical accuracy.
Unlike in out very desensitized day and age, people were sensitive to anything remotely graphic or inappropriate in nature. A controversial piece of literature like this in mainstream media would cause a predictable outrage and excessive backlash. Some things are better left unsaid; or unpublished, like this work should have been. The focus
Movies, as one of the greatest product of the 2nd Industrial Revolution, are a brand new form of media for entertainment. Directors, as the architects of movies, are the ones to blame when movies come out bad and the ones to praise when movies come out good. Not only do they need to design a fascinating story, use devices to push forward the plot, and make characters as vivid as possible to the audience, but they also need to consider the contemporary ideology and political correctness in order to film a movie that’s not too widely divergent to the thinking at the time. History movies are more or less different than the regular ones in that directors sometimes have to choose whether to sacrifice the authenticity of the history to
Fear that his masterpiece would be altered or yet still, rejected by the authorities, the director self-censored the contents of his film and it is for this reason
Since movies have a wider reach, questions arise about the veracity of the events narrated in a historical movie. There is also the conflict between profit making, artistic licence, aesthetic beauty of the film and the risks involved in portraying the events as it happened. Given that profit making is the primary
Estelle chose the duty of gaining high class by marrying “an old friend of my fathers who wanted to marry me and he had a good deal of money and was rather nice, so I accepted” (Sartre 14), instead of pursuing someone her own age. When Estelle had an imperfection in her life due to a child, a coverup was necessary where “there was a balcony out over the rocks. The hotel was on a cliff over the ocean. I brought in a huge stone. He was yelling “Estelle, please, please!” and crying.”
De Sade believed sex cannot be mutually pleasurable; the female protagonist is confined to a passionless existence – the narrator’s lack of passion for another, in her dismissal of her mother (‘I had in a way, ceased to be her child in becoming his wife’) and coldness toward the Marquis, causes her partial
Use of German and French dialect expressions highlights the novelty of European travel for the governess and her innocence and naivety .She is described as “quite white, with big round eyes”, “long lashes”, “soft beauty”, these descriptions again emphasize how childish and innocent she is. Use of foreshadowing is used to develop themes and is quite obvious regarding loss of sexual innocence. There is foreshadowing at the start “I always tell my girls that it’s better to mistrust people at first rather than trust them”, this sets up the atmosphere and giv... ... middle of paper ... ...