Marquis de Sade in Popular Culture - Films

Films

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sade's life and writings have proved irresistible to filmmakers. Visual representations of Sade in film first began to appear during the surrealist period. While there are numerous pornographic films based on his themes, here are some of the more mainstream films based on his history or his works of fiction:

• L'Age d'Or (1930), the collaboration between filmmaker Luis Buñuel and surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. The final segment of the film provides a coda to Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom, with the four debauched noblemen emerging from their mountain retreat.
• The Skull (1966), British horror film based on Robert Bloch's short story "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade." Peter Cushing plays a collector who becomes possessed by the evil spirit of the Marquis when he adds Sade's stolen skull to his collection. The Marquis appears in a prologue as a decomposing corpse dug up by a 19th-century graverobber. In another scene, a character gives a brief, fictionalized account of Sade's life, emphasizing his "boogeyman" reputation.
• The 1966 film of Marat/Sade directed by Peter Brook, who also directed the first English-language stage production. Patrick Magee plays the Marquis.
• Marquis de Sade: Justine, directed by Jesus Franco (1968). Klaus Kinski appears as Sade, writing the tale in his prison cell.
• Eugenie…The Story of Her Journey into Perversion also known as Philosophy in the Boudoir (1969). Another Franco film, this one featuring Christopher Lee as Dolmance.
• De Sade (1969), romanticized biography scripted by Richard Matheson and directed by Cy Endfield. The film more or less presents the major incidents of Sade's life as we know them, though in a very hallucinatory fashion. The film's nudity and sexual content was notorious at the time of release, and Playboy ran a spread based around it. Keir Dullea plays the Marquis (here named Louis Alphonse Donatien) in a cast that includes Lili Palmer, Senta Berger, Anna Massey, and John Huston.
• Eugenie de Sade, another of Jesus Franco's adaptations (1970). Adapts Sade's story "Eugenie de Franval", accurately, though set in the 20th century.
• Beyond Love and Evil, original title La philosophie dans le boudoir (1971), French film loosely adapted from de Sade's play "Philosophy in the Bedroom". Set in the present day, a cult of depraved hedonists cavort at a remote, elegant mansion.
• Justine de Sade, directed by Claude Pierson (1972). An accurate rendition of Sade's tale, though lacking Franco's panache.
• Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom Italian: Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1975). Sade's novel updated to Fascist Italy.
• Cruel Passion (1977), a toned-down re-release of De Sade's Justine, starring Koo Stark as the long-suffering heroine.
• House of De Sade (1977), X-rated film combines sex and S&M in a house haunted by de Sade's spirit. Vanessa del Rio stars.
• Waxwork (1988), another horror film. In this one, people are drawn through the tableaux in a chamber of horrors into the lives of the evil men they represent. Two of the characters are transported to the world of the Marquis, where they are tormented by Sade (J. Kenneth Campbell) and a visiting Prince, played by director Anthony Hickox.
• Marquis (1989), a French/Belgian co-production that combines puppetry and animation to tell a whimsical tale of the Marquis (portrayed, literally, as a jackass, voiced by François Marthouret) imprisoned in the pre-Revolution Bastille.
• Night Terrors (1994), another horror film playing on Sade's boogeyman image. A depiction of the Marquis's final days is intercut with the story of his modern day descendant, a serial killer. Tobe Hooper of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre fame directed, while horror icon Robert Englund of A Nightmare on Elm Street (and its many sequels and spin-offs) played both the Marquis and his descendant.
• Dark Prince (1996). The Marquis (Nick Mancuso) seduces a young maiden from his jail cell.
• Sade (2000), directed by Benoit Jacquot. Daniel Auteuil plays Sade, here imprisoned on a country estate with several other noble families, sexually educating a young girl in the shadow of the guillotine.
• Quills (2000), an adaptation of Doug Wright's play by director Philip Kaufman. A romanticized version of Sade's final days which raises questions of pornography and societal responsibility. Geoffrey Rush plays Sade in a cast that also includes Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, and Michael Caine. The film portrays de Sade as a literary freedom fighter who is a martyr to the cause of free expression. The film's defense of de Sade is in essence a defense of cinematic freedom. The film was inspired by de Sade's imprisonment and battles with the censorship in his society. The film shows the strong influence of Hammer horror films, particularly in a key scene where asylum administrator Caine locks Winslet in a cell with a homicidal inmate, mirroring exactly a scene from The Curse of Frankenstein.
• Lunacy (2005, Czech title Šílení): Czech film directed by Jan Švankmajer. Loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. Sade figures as a character.