Quills

INTERVIEWS

The Marquis de Sade biopic Quills opens in more cities this week. While interviews with artists are often as dull and unenlightening as interviews with athletes, director Philip Kaufman, writer Doug Wright and star Geoffrey Rush have engaged in some fascinating dialogues about sexual and artistic freedom in various publications. Andrea Meyer interviewed Kaufman about audience reactions, the ratings system and more. Michael Sragow interviewed Rush about his portrayal of Sade. Stephen Lemons talked with Kaufman about "sex, writers, repression and his movie's parallels to the Starr-Clinton fiasco." Eric Layton talked with Wright about collaborating on the adaptation of his play. Or you could go right to the source: this buff site features a page of quotations from Sade's writings. "Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change."
IndieWire | Salon | Entertainment Today

The Onion's Scott Tobias interviews Quills director Philip Kaufman. At one point, Tobias raises an issue that bothered me about the film: "The main criticism leveled against the film is that in order to advance an argument against censorship, you gloss over or soft-pedal the Marquis' own atrocities." The interview also touches on Starr and Clinton, the difficulty of making serious adult-themed movies today, Henry Miller and Kaufman's earlier film Rising Sun.
The Onion

REVIEWS

John Patterson, LA Weekly
J. Hoberman, Village Voice
Scott Heller, Boston Phoenix
Elvis Mitchell, New York Times
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon