Dec 2 1814

[datasuspect]

Death of the Marquis de Sade, in a lunatic asylum at Charenton. The good Marquis wrote, "There is a kind of pleasure which comes from sacrilege or the profanation of the objects offered us for worship."

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. Quills, a movie about de Sade's time in Charenton --

In a Napoleonic era insane asylum, an inmate, the irrepressible Marquis De Sade, fights a battle of wills against a tyrannically prudish doctor.

Quills is a delightfully unsettling account of the demise of the Marquis de Sade and those he brings down with him. The film presents viewers with all the evidence they need to identify the fallacies of society's separation of "good" from "evil" and "moralists" from "sinners." It subtly asserts that the values traditionally used to pass judgment are compromised by convention and religion, and that there is moral danger in accepting these values without question.

During the film, one form of sin is only replaced by another, which defeats its resistors and beguiles the rest by hiding behind a pretentious shroud of religion and convention.

Viewers are horrified to discover that they can actually identify with the marquis, whose name inspired the word "sadist" to describe those who derive sexual pleasure from violence. Most viewers' senses of morality are sullied by the realization that they are hanging on every twist of the plot, desperate to know what will next beset these wretched characters.

Based on historical fact, Quills catches up with the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) during the twilight of his life, when he has already been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Charenton Asylum. No longer able to pursue the perverse sexual escapades that had landed him in the madhouse after decades of unspeakable offenses, he now purges his demons by writing. At the urging of the saintly, ever-tolerant and even-tempered Abbe Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix), the marquis describes his imagination's disturbing scenes on paper.

more at link:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0180073/

[leeroysphitz]

2. I once read 120 Days of Soddom...

And all I have to say about de Sade is that he was "a vicious bastard and I'm glad he's dead."

[rug]

3. The masochist said to the sadist, "Beat me!"

The sadist said, "No."