GERMANY: GEOFFREY RUSH AND KATE WINSLET ATTEND SCREENING OF FILM "QUILLS" AT THE BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 390936

  • Title: GERMANY: GEOFFREY RUSH AND KATE WINSLET ATTEND SCREENING OF FILM "QUILLS" AT THE BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 9th February 2001
  • Summary: (FOX SEARCHLIGHT - MUST COURTESY) (NOT FOR LIBRARY USE) "QUILLS" CLIP
  • Embargoed: 24th February 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA2SUOUM1N0WVMPEEFZ2A9H34AE
  • Story Text: The Marquis de Sade has brought his lusty tales to German audiences this weekend as "Quills" was screened at the Berlin Film Festival. Director Philip Kaufman, Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush and screen favourite Kate Winslet attended the screening.
    They're erotic tales of lust and pain that two hundred years ago were branded "pornographic literature of a very distasteful nature" by Napoleon and his administration.
    The real Marquis de Sade (nee Donatien-Alphonse-Francoise de Sade) was persecuted and imprisoned in an asylum at Charenton in France for publishing his novels.
    Today, the Marquis is best known for inspiring the creation of the English word - sadism - deriving sexual pleasure from pain.
    Throughout the years people have been fascinated by the Marquis, attempting over and over again to suss him out and understand just what kind of person he might have been.
    Whether more evil than good or simply a victim of his own urgency to write "erotic literature".
    The latest attempt to portray the Marquis comes from Award winning director Philip Kaufman. Together with screen writer Doug Wright, Kaufman directed "Quills": an exploration of the life of the Marquis at the asylum.
    It's clear there was much more to the Marquis' character than sexual obsession and depravity.
    "To this day, he`s the most extreme of writers, particularly as Geoffrey Rush plays him, filled with this kind of energy and egotism and kind of danger and yet inside of it all,...history has made him this monster and in some ways he is a monster, but there's also this human being that's there", says Kaufman.
    Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush plays the Marquis de Sade and stars opposite screen siren Kate Winslet who plays the young laundry girl who inspires both the affections of the Marquis de Sade and the man in charge of the asylum, Abbe Coulmier, played by Joaquin Phoenix.
    The free-spirited and wild-minded writer, the Marquis, is able to continue writing his 'filth' from within the walls of the asylum thanks to the help of the Abbe who provides the mad man with quills, ink and paper. Yet what the Abbe is not aware of is the strong friendship between Madeleine and the Marquis, nor does he know that Madeleine is in fact helping the Marquis to publish his erotic works by smuggling his novels out of the asylum in her laundry baskets.
    It's not until Napoleon himself gets word of the disgusting nature of the Marquis' novel "Justine" that the writer's habits are curtailed.
    By ordering Doctor Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) to the asylum, the Marquis' days are numbered.
    Week by week, the doctor's presence impacts more and more on the Marquis' lifestyle until eventually, his writing tools are confiscated by the priest along with all of his worldly possessions - including his clothes!! A fascinating story, and fun to play with someone like Geoffrey Rush who never failed to the darkness of the asylum come in between his sense of humour.
    "He's so naughty. He's like a naughty schoolboy who's been let out of school early every day. He was just so much fun. He would take great pride in making me laugh in the middle of takes, which is something I always try never to do.
    It was just a mess, a disaster you know constant fits of giggling and never being able to get to the end of a scene because he would always have me in stitches", says Winslet.
    And what would the Marquis have said about Rush`s portrayal of him.
    "Marvellous, not catty enough. He would have said, hmm...very slim", says Rush.
    "Quills" was screened at the Berlin Film Festival this weekend out of competition.
    ---ENDS---
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