“Kate brings all this to life with an extraordinary believability,” says Kaufman. “To think she is just 23 is amazing, because she has such worldliness, such articulateness, such an astounding ability to express the depths of feelings and ideas. And the word ‘beautiful’ isn’t nearly strong enough to describe what she brings to the screen.”

But the abbé Coulmier’s relationship with Sade similarly lies at the heart of the film. “In a sense, I’m trying to extract the soul from the Marquis and he’s trying to extract the man from me,” says Phoenix. “That’s the core of our relationship. Madeleine brings forth a desire that is foreign to Coulmier. He doesn’t understand it, but the Marquis does because, of course, that’s his speciality.”

“Coulmier has to represent us all,” adds Wright. “He’s trapped between the grinding, ferocious powers of government as exemplified by Dr Royer-Collard, and the very real threat of chaos as embodied in the Marquis. He’s the good soul in all of us, crushed by forces we are not large enough to control.”

If the film has one outright unsympathetic character, it is Caine’s Royer-Collard. But, as one would expect from the director of such probing and nuanced films as The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Henry and June, Kaufman’s film doesn’t deal in black and white.

“I remember Michael saying that the great thing about the story is the way it wrong-foots you,” says Peter Kaufman. “You think you’re going in to see a film about the evil Marquis de Sade but it turns out that it’s surprisingly funny. Of course, there is a dark side to the story, but the film never loses its fun or wicked sense of humor.”

All the same, Royer-Collard - whose (ultimately unsuccessful) methods of attempting to ‘cure’ Sade are every bit as repugnant as the darker pages of The 120 Days of Sodom - seemed so unsympathetic that Caine was initially reluctant to take the role.

Michael Caine, as the ruthless Dr Royer-Collard, who is determined to do whatever it takes to ‘cure’ Sade.

“I was attracted to the project because it had a great script, a great director and a great cast,” says Caine. “But when I first read through my part, I thought, ‘This man is so evil, there is nowhere to go with it’. Then I read it again, and I began to find the way. Fifty percent of him is made up in the spaces between the words. I like playing characters who are sinister, but I look for a way to give them some kind of redeeming qualities. I play villains on the principle that no man is a villain to himself. All villains think they are nice people.”