And I liked this extreme character of de Sade.
But movies make a lot of money, and there are persons who want to get in and control the content of those things.
But you know, there's always a danger nowadays that films are gonna be brought up to Canada for budget reasons. And that's something that really concerns me.
Certainly it becomes clear after a while that happiness is not just having money.
Certainly since Freudian times, we all recognize that there is something called the libido, and that there are various ways of inspiring it.
I don't think we soft-pedal anything. These stories are pretty extreme, but the way we're telling them makes them somewhat more humorous.
I guess I'm attracted to extremes because I think they help you define the center.
I read, therefore I'm interested in writers.
I shot a lot of close-ups on this movie 'cause there's like a dual mystery, she's searching through her haunted past to find some truth and she's also following an external mystery where she comes to think she might be the killer.
Is there something to be said for the writings of the Marquis? Is there something to be said for pornography? And is there something to be said against both? I hope our film is balanced and rich enough to encourage debate and discussion.
It just seemed to me to be a great story, set back in its time but something that seemed to have relevance for our time. Now that the film is coming out, it looks like we're back in another time where repression of expression is all the rage.
Nowadays they either want to move the film to Canada or in some cases they go to Prague or Romania or they want to keep 'em down in L.A.
On the other hand, I think the ratings system needs some reworking. I don't think this is a movie parents should bring underage children to.
On the other hand, I think there's a good argument for not marketing certain things to children - a lot of that is valid.
Similarly, the Marquis is presented in this film as someone who would disturb the status quo and therefore must be kept imprisoned.
That's a little homage in a way to that and also to create that sort of creepy atmosphere that Hitchcock did. Vertigo was one of his great movies that was shot right here in The City and it's about a woman and the psychological twists and so forth.
The danger is not so much in the economic structure of a society but in its intellectual structure.
The truth is, I'm drawn to all kinds of things.
The very people who were railing against communism in a way want to create the same kind of bland society, but based on capitalism.
They are always very lax about putting restrictions on violence for children's movies, which I think is much more harrowing than sexuality for children.
This one, even though it called for San Francisco, I think they wanted to initially shoot part of the film up here, you know get the exteriors and then go back to L.A. We really fought to get it up here and I think Paramount was really pleased.
To me, thoughts are fun and art is fun. The strength of our society should not be idle entertainments but the joy of pursuing ideas.
We are discussing this, and hopefully it's within a context of love and beauty, as well as some of the other factors, even Sade's philosophical feelings about human nature, which was a part of his writing. He was a philosopher in a way, answering some of those things in the extreme.
What's really interesting about that is that a lot of these words that were incendiary in their time now seem almost harmless and laughable, because they have this archaic quality.
Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
Whereas European films have traditionally been able to go into adult relationships. I think there's a huge audience in America for those kinds of films.
You can have a lot of unhappiness by not having money, but the reverse is no guarantee of happiness.
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