Rating: 
Summary: Surprised to See It on DVD
Review: Patrick Magee is an aristocratic Marquis de Sade, Ian Richardson is an intense Marat, and Glenda Jackson is a winsome Charlotte Corday. The film is over 30 years old and looks every day of it, and - despite Maltin's statement above - is, visually, completely inoffensive. It's worth watching for the performances of the actors and to listen to the debate between two forms of illiberalism - the aristocratic and the political. I don't know if it was the playwright's intention, but the play makes the case that the madhouse is exactly where the practitioners of those philosophies belong. I'm glad to have it on DVD, especially when it's one of the last films I would've expected to make the transition to the new format. In such a case, complaining about the DVD may seem ungrateful, but the producers of this disc have taken no advantage of the capabilities of the DVD. It has no subtitles (not even closed-captioning); no commentary; no bios or other information; no languages other than English; nothing but the film itself and the scene selection menu.
Rating: 
Summary: Citizen Marat, the hero and the butcher:
Review: Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade as performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company under the direction of Peter Brook. (1966)
The cast and a history thereof:
The Marquis de Sade, as performed by Patrick Magee.
What needs to be known of de Sade involves, primarily, his second stay at the asylum at Charenton, although, it an idea of his philosophy should be displayed here. de Sade was a hedonist who had been to the Bastille and Charenton before, namely, for abuse towards prostitutes and various others of either gender. He was viewed as a dangerous sexual deviant and spent a good portion of his life imprisoned, until the start of the French Revolution of which, he supported (possibly to prevent his own death.) He was a nihilist, but also supported a certain Utopian socialism, and had effectively became one of the earliest existentialists, though he is rarely regarded with such a title.
At the start of the nineteenth century, Napoleon Bonaparte had him, again, imprisoned, residing in Charenton under the asylum's director
Abbe de Coulmier, as performed by Clifford Rose.
Monsieur Coulmier was very liberal in dealing with the treatment of patients, allowing de Sade to set up a series of plays that were available for public viewing, within the fictional content of Marat/Sade the play in question is The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. The play takes a novel approach to theater, allowing de Sade to interact and converse directly with the fifteen years deceased
Jean-Paul Marat, as performed by Ian Richardson.
Marat is, of course, the focus of this play and his role in the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror are vital facts. Marat was a member of the Jacobin Club, a group of radical republican thinkers, directly responsible for these events, with the help of Girondists, less a political party and more of a group of like-minded thinkers.
His body racked with a fever he threw himself into writing for the revolution, creating policy on dealing with enemies, declaring traitors and spurring the masses on in their bloodbath in the name of freedom. Much of Marat/Sade deals with the questions of de Sade concerning whether or not this bloodshed was worth it, or the right way to go about it. Many considered Marat a hero, though there were more than a few who considered him a butcher.
Following the Revolution, Jacobin's spurred on the Terror, claiming that the enemies of France were not eliminated and were, in fact, in hiding. In summary (or rather, not quite in his exact words,) Marat claims that they wear the cap of the people, but their underwear is embroidered with crowns and that the lot of them are the first to scream beggar, thief, or guttersnipe when a shop or two is looted. This is what leads him to the idea that the new aristocracy is any who owns more than any other. He points out that one will keep a horse, another his house in the country and another his army. This, he claims, is contrary to liberty and freedom. These, he goes on, are the new enemies of France and the bloodshed continued, numbering anywhere from eighteen thousand to forty thousand dead.
His writing would go on until he was visited three times by the assassin
Charlotte Corday, as performed by Glenda Jackson.
Who had decided to assassinate him due to the mass atrocities he and his faction had caused, though, the final decision would lie with the arrest of twenty-two Girondists and, later, the denouncing of their leader Jacques Pierre Brissot. She was successful in her endeavor, as might be anticipated by the full title of Marat/Sade.
Major themes throughout:
From the beginning, it becomes clear that this is no standard play, being a work of metafiction and delving into a play within a play. Through this medium, it allows Peter Weiss make light of the standard structure of theater and display a level of creativity, in the case of the film, that often goes unseen.
Additionally the (approximately) true history behind this work is intriguing, bring to the foreground a brutality that is generally ignored in French culture. Furthermore, French society becomes reflected within the asylum at Charenton, the down-trodden going through a similar metamorphosis as the upheaval of their very society not two decades earlier.
The real treat, the audience will find, is the rhetoric between de Sade and Marat throughout the play, each attacking the philosophy of the other, presenting questions each other and the audience. This inevitably leaves the audience to decide.
Marat/Sade is a rhapsody that should be made more available to a larger audience, creating within them worthwhile question and providing an interesting history at the same time: allowing the audience to see the brutal legacy of France, drowning the preconceived stereotypes of the country (at least within the United States.)
Rating:
Summary: Was it one gigantic take?????
Review: Presentation of stage play looks like a filmed stage play! You can't imagine how virtually impossible it is for sound to mesh with action in a musical; when the scene shifts during a musical number, its because the camera stops and repositions. That means the actors have to stop, reorient to the new camera position and start where they left off. The editor has the virtually impossible task of insuring the sound and the actions don't "jump" from scene to scene; one tough meticulous job. This work is ALL music and ALL scene shifts. AND YET ITS SEAMLESS. The only way that could work is non-stop performance with about 10 cameras out of the scene moving with the action! And in ONE TAKE. Brilliant work.
Rating:
Summary: The most brilliantly subversive film ever made!
Review: The film is a monster explosion of dramatic and cinematic genius! "Peter Weiss' harsh and bizarre play. . ." constitutes palid and wimpy understatement. Nothing would be hyperbole concerning this magnificent contribution to English language cinema! Bravo Jackson! Bravo Magee! Bravo Richardson! Kudos to Peter Brook! Above all, it is time to acknowledge the stupendous genius of Peter Weiss.
Rating: 
Summary: Filming a play has mixed results
Review: The legendary stage production of Marat/Sade was, I am sure, one of those great moments in theater history. I am somewhat grateful that an attempt was made to capture the moment on film for people who didn't witness it, but the film drags at times. I watched with interest at the directing choices, but was not fully involved with the action. I don't imagine there is any way to capture the sight of all the lunatics challenging the audience by their very presence. It doesn't communicate from a tv screen in quite the same way. This is a good record of theater history, but only an mediocre film.
Rating:
Summary: Almost as good as the audio recording.
Review: The only problem that I have with this production is that, for some inexplicable reason, they do the scene of "Marat's Nightmare" in pantomime, completely wasting one of the great portions of the play. The audio recording of this production, which used to be available on Caedmon, includes the scene with the dialogue intact. I would have given the movie version 5 stars but for this disappointing omission. Otherwise, it's an all time classic.
Rating:
Summary: Intense, intelligent film
Review: This 1966 film depicts the Marquis de Sade's imprisonment in a mental asylum and a play that he directs using the other inmates as actors. The story of Sade was recently related in "Quills," and that film is somewhat similar in tone, but not plot. Believe it or not, the film is also a musical! The "play" within the movie chronicles events from the French Revolution pertaining to Marat, and is put on for the asylum's leader and the local gentry. The local gentry are shocked at times, and the asylum leader interrupts the play several times with interjections concerning the play's radical ideas and how the gentry are depicted. As the play reaches its culmination, the inmates inevitably begin to stage their own revolution. The action is often confusing, but the emotions conveyed are so intense, that the film can be enjoyed on a visceral level. The direction of this film is quite brilliant, and it must have been pretty shocking when it was released 36 years ago. The acting is also very intense and realistic. Glenda Jackson has her starring debut here and is quite appealing, considering that she's playing a mental asylum inmate. The only quibble I have with the DVD is the poor sound quality. Even on DVD, the sound is muddled and the actor's dialogue is often unintelligible, especially during the songs. Unfortunately, the DVD does not include captions/subtitles, which would have helped immensely (there are no other extras either). A very worthwhile movie that could have been presented better on this DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Intense, intelligent film
Review: This 1966 film depicts the Marquis de Sade's imprisonment in a mental asylum and a play that he directs using the other inmates as actors. The story of Sade was recently related in "Quills," and that film is somewhat similar in tone, but not plot. Believe it or not, the film is also a musical! The "play" within the movie chronicles events from the French Revolution pertaining to Marat, and is put on for the asylum's leader and the local gentry. The local gentry are shocked at times, and the asylum leader interrupts the play several times with interjections concerning the play's radical ideas and how the gentry are depicted. As the play reaches its culmination, the inmates inevitably begin to stage their own revolution. The action is often confusing, but the emotions conveyed are so intense, that the film can be enjoyed on a visceral level. The direction of this film is quite brilliant, and it must have been pretty shocking when it was released 36 years ago. The acting is also very intense and realistic. Glenda Jackson has her starring debut here and is quite appealing, considering that she's playing a mental asylum inmate. The only quibble I have with the DVD is the poor sound quality. Even on DVD, the sound is muddled and the actor's dialogue is often unintelligible, especially during the songs. Unfortunately, the DVD does not include captions/subtitles, which would have helped immensely (there are no other extras either). A very worthwhile movie that could have been presented better on this DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Prophecies Of The Divine Marquis.
Review: This is certainly one of the great events of cinema history. Director Peter Brook wanted to re-create the play by Peter Weiss, The Persecution And Assassination Of Jean-Paul Marat, with the multiple-view possible only in cinema but without losing the immediacy of the stage. So, he used a stationary camera for long shots and hand-held camera for close-ups and the result, somewhere bewteen cinema and stage, is phenomenal. Everything in the production is first-rate. There are large exquisite performances by Patrick Magee as Sade, Ian Richardson as Marat, and Glenda Jackson as Corday and equally fine smaller performances down to the most anonymous lunatic. The script is very fine and well translated from the German. The music is wonderful.
This film was released in 1966, one year after Grove Press issued its handsome 750 page paperback volume The Marquis De Sade (...) which, along with this film, really began the popular American interest in Sade which has continued up to the present. But the picture of Sade in this 1966 film is much more interesting, deeper, and closer to the truth than anything that has come since then. Sade was not a pornographer or a smut peddler, he was a literary philosopher whose books were not intended to arouse sexual desire, but rather to overthrow conventional premises and assumptions about reality itself. The endless sadistic/masochistic sex scenes in his books are really not about sex at all, they are about breaking down the illusions in the human mind and seeing reality for what it is: an endless, bottomles process of creation and destruction that is utterly indifferent to any human desire or feeling. Sade's 'perverse criminals' are merely people attempting to identify with this transcendent force as individuals because that is the only real power and 'dignity' that they have. Sade believed that the world was destined to become one vast mad slaughterhouse and the film conveys this very well. But what Marat/Sade really captures is Sade's passionate and prophetic position in modern history. Who could deny that this film is at least as relevant now as it was in 1966 and that its relevance will probably continue to deepen? Where is the modern philosopher who can prove Sade wrong? Whether one likes it or not this is what makes this film still such an urgent work of art. Only in Bresson or Tarkovsky can the negative force of its revelation be countered by a different perspective. It remains a crucial masterpiece. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Challenging Film, Well Executed
Review: This movie is actually a filmed version of a play and this is obvious in the viewing; the director doesn't make use of all the potential of the medium, it's filmed all in one take (just as a play goes from start to finish in one go), and the scene transitions are abrupt and poor. That being said, this film deserves no other criticism; it is certainly the finest I've ever seen and, I would argue, a great movie in the English cinema. What makes it deserve such praise is that the acting is all very convincing and compelling, the costumes and staging are sublime and the script is, simply put, brilliant. The original title of the work fuctions as an apt summary: "The assasination and persecution of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the asylum at Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade." Set in the Napoleonic era eighteen years after the French Revolution, the Marquis (imprisoned for both political and sex crimes) directs the mentally ill inmates in a stylized recreation of the murder of Jean-Paul Marat (a rabid Jacobin, confined to his bathtub by a skin disease, who wrote the most sanguinary Revolutionary propaganda) by Charlotte Corday (from a noble background, but actually a partisan of the Girondin Revolutionaries who had been purged by Marat's party). This is a highly cerebral play and, although the scrip (a translation of Peter Wiess' play) takes a very few liberties with the historical facts, a knowledge of the Revolution greatly helps in understanding and appreciating this sometimes obscure movie. There are real intellectual pyrotechnics in the debates between Marat and de Sade, and the Marat's monologues are filled with fine revolutionary polemics. Corday is very well played, and her scenes are some of the most emotionally intense. The brilliant script, which doesn't shrink from tackiling great Ideas, combined with the great execution make this a superb movie. Or rather film.
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