Quills

Written By Gaz

In this episode film expert Gaz and history expert Mel compare Philip Kaufman's Quills to the infamous and controversial real life figure it's based on, The Marquis De Sade. Quills wants to be sexy and salacious, but how historically accurate is it? We pull the movie apart to understand how it handles gender representation, sexual expression during the French Revolution, and ask, above all, was Napoleon really short?

Real Movies Fake History is hosted by two friends, Gaz (the film nerd) and Mel (the history expert), who each episode discuss, debate and laugh about the real history behind diverse and important cinema.

We seek to discover the true story behind films apparently based on a true story. With a particular interest in gender and cultural representation, we love nothing more than to speak on how a particular film represents the world around us.

Join us as we talk about movies, history, and the truth in between. New episodes launch every month.

Featured
The Brutalist review
The Brutalist review

This immigrant drama about the fictitious Hungarian architect László Tóth has the impression of real history burnt into its bones. Tóth’s story feels like a comes from a biographical tome by someone like Robert Caro, such is the richness of this type of seldom seen literary-cinema.

No Other Land review
No Other Land review

No Other Land proves the emotional power of visual evidence – of shaking phones running from gunfire, of cameras filming the discriminate destruction of small farming communities. It’s one thing to fight against the forces that mean you harm, but filmmakers Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor show us the heartless consequences of occupation upon those least equipped to fight against it.

Lee review
Lee review

The story of Lee Miller’s unbridled need to seek the truth through photography may be conventional in the spectrum of other biographies, but the substantive weight of its truth-seeking convictions provide it an importance we seem to have lost sight of, one that stares toward the specter of death.

Gladiator ll review
Gladiator ll review

It’s another occasion to celebrate 86 year-old Ridley Scott’s world building prowess. Again he builds us a very masculine, very brawny Rome with a bigger budget, better technology and a script that’s more summertime trash than awards prestige.

Ghostlight review
Ghostlight review

In a time of hopelessness, a film providing hope proves very important indeed.

The Apprentice review
The Apprentice review

Your interest in this scrappy biopic of a transactional friendship rests solely on how much interest you still hold in uncovering the faint character building moments of Donald Trump.

Joker: Folie à Deux review
Joker: Folie à Deux review

For anyone hellbent on defending Joker (2019)’s acclaimed existence, I propose a thought experiment: why does Todd Phillips feel the need to spend $200 million on a movie refuting the morality of the first movie if the first movie did nothing wrong?

Megalopolis review
Megalopolis review

It’s about corruptible power, the building of a city, about supernaturally controlling time. If that sounds fascinating, I can assure you the film works very hard to extinguish all excitement.

The Substance review
The Substance review

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance is the type of viewing experience you need to recover from. It’s a ruthless, intense, pummelling journey into the body-fluid ridden depths of image based beauty standards and their effect on women.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice review

Tim Burton’s fine career has two consistent themes: he’s a visionary and he’s often a poor judge of storytelling.

Gaz
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