Marat / Sade | Patrick Magee, Ian Richardson | Citizen Marat, the hero and the butcher:

Marat / Sade | Patrick Magee, Ian Richardson | The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction

DVDs:

Marat / Sade

	Marat / Sade Patrick Magee, Ian Richardson MGM (Video & DVD), 2001 average customer review:based on 23 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Directed by Peter Brook and based on the TonyÂ(r) Award-winning play by Peter Weiss, this spellbinding tale of 'slashing power and disturbance (The Film Daily) bristles with the riveting energy and excellent (Variety) performances by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company, including Ian Richardson and Patrick Magee. Brimming with raving lunatics, crackling whips, catatonicseizuresand even musical interludesMarat/Sade is an exciting, overwhelming [and] stunning tour de force (Boxoffice)! When notorious social criticand inmate of Charenton's asylum for the insanethe Marquis de Sade (Magee), stages a play about the murder of the French Revolution's Jean-Paul Marat, the production takes on an alarming life of its own. And as tempers flare,arguments rage and chaos engulfs both the sane and the mad, the inmates finally turn against their keepersin a brilliant, breathtaking and completely bizarre conclusion'that will leave you raving for more!

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Citizen Marat, the hero and the butcher:

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.)

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The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction

This is an amazing film along with being an amazing play. Peter Brook, who is one of the world's most renowned theater directors, has made an excellent adaptation of 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 gloriously long official title). I saw this film in college, and love the intensity of the whole thing. Now that I am older and have read de Sade and a touch of Marat (which I didn't read in college, imagine that), things actually make more sense now, and the film/play resonates more deeply. Patrick Magee and Ian Richardson are phenomenal in this film, and Brook's direction manages somehow to incorporate the best of the film aesthetic and theater aesthetic. It is an amazingly intense experience, one that will sear itself in your memory.

A note on the transfer. The current edition is by MGM/UA, and while it isn't great (the film elements are a little worn out), it is letterboxed and the audio is decent. There was a haphazard, sloppy DVD put out by Image in the early days of DVD. That version was pan and scan and looked wretched. The Image DVD is thankfully out of print. So go ahead and partake of the MGM/UA DVD of Marat/Sade.

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Brillaint and intense

Marat / Sade is an incredible theatrical production that was captured well in this film. Complaints that has been made about the sound quality of the DVD though is well founded but unfortunately this was a problem with the movie when it first appeared in theatres.
The movie takes place on a stage behind bars in asylum of Charenton. Behind the bars as well sit confident arrogant and ignorant asylum's director and his family. Performed is a play written and directed by the Marquis de Sade (Patrick Magee).
In point of fact plays written by de Sade and performed by the inmates of Charenton actually took place. But Peter Brooks takes things to another level as he through the character of Sade poses many questions to the viewer while at the same time shocking the sense. Cleverly the actors are given parts that have something in common with their mental disorder.
This is a musical but probably like no other musical you have ever seen. It is somewhat like some of the Mystery plays of the Middle Ages. There are plays with in plays, clever references made and word play, as like are found in the Mystery plays, to and regarding the actors themselves and the surroundings where they are performing.
The play is about the death of Marat but it is within it is a larger play about the French Revolution. But the play is more than a history lesson. All through it the character playing Marat sits in a bathtub as Sade taunts him. Much of his taunts take the form of long philosophical soliloquies belittling Marat, the Revolution and society in general. Through out the play the inmates fall in and out of character to the symptoms of their various mental illnesses.
The songs are incredibly well integrated into the play and are quite witty and enjoyable -some of them almost joyous.
Comically the director of the asylum, a condescending buffoon, interrupts the play time and again when statements are made that go against the current ideology.
As the play about a revolution concludes a real revolution starts behind the bars and the film ends in chaos.
The final scene is a pan back showing the audience at the bars in which the stage is enclosed. Are they clamoring to get in? Do they too want to be inmates? Do they want to become part of the free for all?
Peter Brooks offers up a beautiful but disturbing movie and vision of the world.

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WHY -for Pete's sakes- IS THIS NOR AVAILABLE ON A DVD FOR REGION 2 ???????

An excellent movie, which is no more or less than stunning, stark and bleak filmed version of Peter Weiss' haunting, diturbing and magnificent play. It is very well cast, with the same actors who first perfromed the play in London under Peter Brook's direction.
Great perfomances all round by some very great actors, some of whom are well known, some of whom are not.
Among the well known names: Glenda Jackson MP, who is a memorabla Corday, although one bitten by a Tse-Tse fly, the late Ian Richardson, yes the snide and sneaky Francis Urquhart, who is a brooding and glowering Marat, he even looks like the real Jean-Paul Marat and Richardson is spot on as Marat, who was a raving idealist, his body and mind hollowed out by illness and paranoia, excactly as depicted in the play.

Among the not so well-known: Freddie Jones, good as ever, as one of the four man musical troupe, and Patrick Magee as the marquis de Sade.
Patrick Magee should of course not be confused with the debonnaire, brolly-wielding John Steed, Patrick MacNee, who later often co-starred in the vomitingly godawful "Murder She ****ing Wrote", no that 's a different bloke altogether. Magee was also in "Clockwork Organge" and in lots of other proper artie movies, not al that camp telly crap which John Steed was in.

My only trouble with this is: why can't we get this on DVD in Europe?
I've been to the play several times, and have several times seen the movie in retro-season in my friendly neighbourhood indie cinema, but I want a copy of me own!!! Please bring it out on DVD for region 2 as well, amazon!

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Great for Theatre Students

I have to say I enjoyed this one more when I was a theatre student and obsessed with theatre of the absurd. Its still a fun one, but not for just anybody....

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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