Quills

One of my favorite people gave me the movie Quills to watch, simply saying “I know you will love it.” He was right, I loved it to the marrow of my bones.

The movie revolves around the Marquis de Sade, an aristocratic French writer whose name and philosophy gave birth to the term sadism:

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Marquis de Sade (June 2, 1740 – December 2, 1814) was a French aristocrat, revolutionary and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography. He was a philosopher of extreme freedom (or at least licentiousness), unrestrained by morality, religion or law, with the pursuit of personal pleasure being the highest principle. Sade was incarcerated in various prisons and in an insane asylum for about 32 years of his life; eleven years in Paris (10 of which were spent in the Bastille) a month in Conciergerie, 2 years in a fortress, a year in Madelonnettes, 3 years in Bicêtre, a year in Sainte-Pélagie, and 13 years in the Charenton insane asylum. Much of his writing was done during his imprisonment. The term “sadism” is derived from his name.

Joaquin Phoenix, Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, and Michael Caine star in the movie with such stellar performances which are matched only by the carefully-crafted plot and the intoxicating screenplay, to make for a sublimely engaging story.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u--PYnIYewE&hl=en&fs=1]

Quills is now easily one of my favorite movies of all time. Watch it, I dare you.