But Darling, I'm a Mess: De Sade Fact-let #4

24th January 2012

Link reblogged from But Darling, I'm a Mess with 23 notes

But Darling, I'm a Mess: De Sade Fact-let #4 →

As much as I love me some Quills, reading about the Marquis’s actual life is far more interesting…though lacking in Geoffrey Rush.

I definitely agree, and I’m rather fond of Quills as a film, but history is often more interesting. I think it was Roger Ebert who criticized the movie for not having enough of the notorious Marquis that is often wrongly assumed as historical — when really most of what he wanted came from either his fictions or rumors and not fact. The film itself is actually kind of a microcosm of the slow degradation he went through, mentally, whilst imprisoned (a lot of times for no good reason), by showing how much crazier he gets the more his freedoms are taken away. His wife was in the play and the movie despite that they were legally separated years before his final stint in Charenton, and he actually had another companion who stayed with him the rest of his life, other than Madeleine with whom he’d actually had an affair. I didn’t mind the change, honestly? Because as a story I thought the characters were compelling, and I appreciated Doug Wright feeling the desire to take a minute to look at how screwed up the Marquis’ relationship with his wife really was. He was hysterical and emotionally abusive but she was so attached to him that she never really even tried to stop him or get him to change. Even as she’s being removed from his cell for her own safety she’s reaching for him. This was really the way they were when their relationship was at its worst, during his final years in the Bastille. So I appreciate that, and I appreciate the nods toward the Marquis’ mental state which just aren’t often addressed, historically or otherwise. TVTropes said he was a sane man in an insane asylum, akin to Jack Nicholson’s character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but he wasn’t sane. They showed the scene set during the Terror to establish that he wasn’t; he’s traumatized, something even the true Marquis confirmed in later correspondence. The events that unfold in the film naturally do not conform with history, but the character is there, in some form. If they had changed the names the character of the Marquis still would have been a faithful homage to De Sade.

Tagged: marquis de sade quills

Source: impuretale

Impure Tale

But Darling, I'm a Mess: De Sade Fact-let #4 →