One of the most powerful voices in the BDSM concept would have to be the Marquis de Sade. I haven't spent much time learning about him, besides an absolutely marvelous movie romp I took, called QUILLS. Marvelous! If you haven't seen it, go for it. It will be shocking in some parts for those who are not used to things ribald, but I found it tantalyzing and extremely provocative around all the topics being discussed---Pleasure and Pain in Transformation. 

       Warning on the Videos. Some nudity and some shock-factor stuff.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u--PYnIYewE

At the opening of the movie, the Marquis is presented as being so totally outrageous that he has to be incarcerated in the deepest belly of one of the most famous Mad Houses in all of France. Even as the abbay (Priest-Overseer) continues to work with him on personal reform, the Marquis spends all his waking moments writing some of the most outrageous pornography imaginable (for his day). God bless 'em. They didn't have the Internet back then. :-)

Kate's character is a skullery maid, who comes and picks up the laundry regularly. As she does, she takes De Sade's "pages" and hands them through the Gate to a rider, who rushes off to town to publish them and distribute them in the streets of Paris. Needless to say, they are a BIG HIT!

The loveliness and frivolity of Kate, placed strategically between the Marquis (Geoffrey Rush) and the Priest (Joaquin Phoenix) stimulates love and desire in BOTH MEN, who handle those emotions quite differently. The Marquis is busy trying to establish what a wild and wicked scoundrel he is, and the Priest is busy trying to keep his vows and prevent himself from jumping the girl whenever she
is around. Kate's character loves the Abbay, but she is also quite fond of De Sade. This sets the two men at odds in their intentions on her.

When it is discovered that De Sade is publishing this pornography from the bowels of a Mental Hospital, the authorities seize all his pens (hence the name "Quills" for the movie) and they try their damnedest to prevent him from writing any more. But the Marquis is determined........and half mad with creativity in his own deplorably wonderful way. Soon, he begins writing on bed sheets, with chicken bones and wine. When those are taken away, he writes on his clothes in blood. Finally, naked and forsaken..........he is cast into solitary confinement, where he manages to continue his writings with feces on the wall of the cell.  (I told you it was wild)

           YouTube - Quills - Click Here: Marquis on the Marquee

It's an amazing story........VERY DRIVEN!!!!, in several directions..........a morality/mortality tale..........which has a very surprise ending, especially where the Abbay is concerned!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63wSNCI1gNI&mode=related&search=


All in all, it is an amazing kaleidoscope of emotion.  Frivolity, Tragedy, Excitement, Bawdiness, and a POWERFUL sense of Moral Irony at the end.  This is not just another exploration of what society calls perversion.  There are huge lessons here.  Enjoy.  

DJ.  6/8/2007

          HOME | DREAMS OF THE MASS MIND | ALL COMMENTARIES