Daily Inspiration Quote by Philip Kaufman

Kaufman’s line reads like a production note that accidentally spills the movie’s politics. The Marquis isn’t imprisoned because he’s uniquely dangerous in any literal, criminal sense; he’s dangerous because he threatens the social arrangement that claims to be natural. “Similarly” does a lot of work here, quietly slotting the Marquis into a pattern: institutions don’t just punish harm, they pre-empt disruption. The target isn’t a man so much as a possibility.

As a director, Kaufman is flagging intent: the film’s Marquis functions as a pressure test for “order.” If he can be labeled a destabilizer, the machinery of confinement gets to look like public safety rather than self-preservation. That’s the subtext of “status quo” - not merely the current rules, but the comfortable fiction that those rules are neutral. “Therefore must be kept imprisoned” exposes the coercive logic at the heart of respectability: once you define dissent as disturbance, containment becomes a moral duty.

Contextually, this sits squarely in Kaufman’s wheelhouse: historical settings used to talk about modern control. Films that engage censorship, sexuality, religion, or state power often stage the same drama - the boundary-pusher becomes a convenient monster, so the establishment can avoid admitting what it fears. The Marquis isn’t only a character; he’s a narrative instrument that forces the audience to notice who gets called “unfit,” who gets locked away, and how quickly “keeping order” turns into keeping people quiet.