Marat/Sade

Director: Peter Brook

1967 / 119min / 35mm

Adapting his own renowned and revolutionary London stage production of Peter Weiss’s play, Brook’s harrowing film plunges the viewer into the Charenton Asylum in the suburbs of Napoleonic-era Paris, to sit in on rehearsals for a performance of the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat being overseen by none other than the Marquis de Sade (Patrick Magee). Featuring Ian Richardson as the inmate playing the role of Marat, and Glenda Jackson—in her first major screen role—as the inmate portraying his Girondinist murderer, Charlotte Corday, Marat/Sade’s depiction of a play-acted “revolution” descending into actual anarchy is a troubling allegory about the abuse inherent in the wielding of political power.