THERE ARE NO BAD WORDS… ONLY BAD DEEDS.
The infamous Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) is locked up in the Charenton asylum, but still manages to get his pornographic books printed by way of a laundress (Kate Winslet) who smuggles his manuscripts out of Charenton. Seven years after making a humdrum thriller called Rising Sun, director Philip Kaufman returned with a much more interesting film that portrays people getting more than a kick out of unsavory sex and bloodthirsty sadism. The film artfully shows how indecency and sadism lie in the eyes of the beholder; who should really be locked up, the marquis or his tormentor (Michael Caine)? Brilliant acting by Rush and Winslet.
2000-U.S. 123 min. Color. Produced by Julia Chasman, Peter Kaufman, Nick Wechsler. Directed by Philip Kaufman. Screenplay, Play: Doug Wright. Cast: Geoffrey Rush (The Marquis de Sade), Kate Winslet (Madeleine LeClerc), Joaquin Phoenix (Du Coulmier), Michael Caine, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Malahide… Stephen Moyer.
Trivia: De Sade’s wife is played by Jane Menelaus, Rush’s real-life wife.
Quote: “Why should I love God? He strung up his only son like a side of veal. I shudder to think what he’d do to me.” (Rush)
Last word: “By the end, the actual boring biopic approach has been forsaken, and in a way it’s as though the Marquis has been brought to his end by a character who has risen out of his own literature, the perfect Sadean hero, the hypocrite who acts like he is doing good but will behave in the most abominable way. I wanted the film to have certain Grand Guignol qualities because he was a writer, he was a director, his life was about storytelling, about myths.” (Kaufman, The Guardian)
