Marat/Sade (1967)

People are voting emotionally.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is one of a number of films that came out in the late 60s early 70s that challenged society at the time. Others I can think of include A Clockwork Orange, Women in Love and The Devils (the latter, almost impossible to get on DVD these days, but I have a copy!).I had not seen Marat/Sade for decades until my daughter (doing a degree in drama production) found her university making a production of it with she cast in the Glenda Jackson role. I managed to find a copy of the DVD and we watched it several times together. She was so blown away she nearly quit the part because of the perceived difficulty.This is not an easy production to watch and its intensity profound, its finale frightening. The acting, particularly Patrick Magee, is spell binding.Others have commented on plot and substance but in my mind they are secondary to the sheer brilliance of concept, screenplay, and execution. This is a production for theatre people. The casual viewer will be bored. But IMHO one of the great works of all time.

i don't read Sade. i couldn't handle Pasolini's 'Salo'. in fact i hated 'Salo' and was repelled by it. i like this film though. it's not as gross or as shocking (although it is shocking), so it's a lot easier to take. it also has more edge and is much better cinema then the overrated 'Quills'.i love everything in this film. it's superlative acting, it's superior photography and set design, and not to forget it's outrageously weird musical score of patter songs.this movie is so ahead of it's time in terms of concept and technical achievement. the film intercuts long shots with extreme close-ups filmed with a hand-held camera. a technique that was revolutionary at the time this film was made in 1966.this film was intense and disturbing. especially the overthrow of the asylum by the inmates. this film is also incredibly funny. aside from the dark moments, this is one of the funniest films i've ever seen. it also makes being crazy seem cool. when it's all over i still keep on wanting to sing the catchy little song tunes. REVOLUTION FOREVER!! YEAH!!

This film and play were especially popular in the 60s, because at that time you could get an audience by promising lots of violence and sex on stage (although this movie is mild compared to the current crop). Marat/Sade became one of those things that the "in crowd" had to claim to have seen. The actors in the original production (look for Glenda Jackson's comments) hated the play because it was so harrowing and demanding; it grates upon the audience, too. If you enjoy lots of pretentious posing, shouting, and gratuitous rudeness, then submit yourself to this agonizing bit of cinema.One good thing: watching this film finally clarified for me where the Bonzo Dog Band got the song line: "We are normal and we want our freedom!" Which is what I began to shout about 20 minutes in...

MARAT/SADE is the film version of a play that arose from an actor's workshop exploring various theatrical theories expressed by French actor-director-writer Antoine Artard, who extolled a style of performance he described as "theatre of cruelty"--which, broadly speaking, consists of an assault upon the audience's senses by every means possible. Ultimately, and although it makes effective use of its setting and the cinematography mirrors the chaos expected of such a situation, the film version of MARAT/SADE is less a motion picture than a record of a justly famous stage play that offers a complex statement re man's savagery.The story of MARAT/SADE concerns the performance of a play by inmates of an early 1800s insane asylum, with script and direction by the infamous Marquis de Sade. (While this may sound a bit far-fetched, it is based on fact: de Sade was known to have written plays for performance by inmates during his own incarceration in an asylum.) The story of the play concerns the assassination of the revolutionary Marat by Charotte Corday, but the play itself becomes a debate between various characters, all of which may be read as in some way intrinsically destructive and evil. Since all the characters are played by mentally-ill inmates of the asylum (the actor playing Marat, for example, is described as a paranoid, and the actress playing Corday suffers from sleeping sickness and melancholia), the debate is further fueled by their insanity, unpredictability as performers, and the staff's reactions to both their behavior and the often subversive nature of the script they play out.Patrick Magee as de Sade, Glenda Jackson as the inmate playing Corday (it was her breakout performance), and Ian Richardson as the inmate playing Marat offering impressive performances; indeed, the ensemble cast as a whole is incredibly impressive, and they keep the extremely wordy script moving along with considerable interest. Even so, it will be obvious that the material works better as a live performance than as a film, and I do not recommend it to a casual viewer; its appeal will be largely limited to the literary and theatrical intelligentsia. The DVD includes the original theatrical trailer, but beyond this there are no extras of any kind.Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer