Instead, they are the words of the infamous Marquis de Sade whose last days in an insane asylum are imagined in Philip Kaufman's brilliant film Quills. Hopkins is completely disarming with his greasy charm, and Moore works well as the matured, toughened Clarice, but Scott loses his way early in the film, allowing it to become a lurid comic book adventure featuring Verger and his henchmen as the bad guys.
Any suspense is drowned out by the oddly giddy blood antics.
For the most part, we end up being mildly entertained by the lovely art direction and camera work. Any discourse about the nature of evil is lost in the spectacle. Quills , on the other hand, attempting to explore many complex themes, including the consequences of evil and the urge toward art, is remarkable for its very lightness. And it is so deftly told that we are swept through the film and its dense content with relatively little effort. Royer-Collard's presence is met with resistance which is, in turn, met with more cruelty and control measures, and the conflict spirals into an ultimately tragic end.