Works about Sade or his books
Works about Sade or his books
Appraisal and criticism
Numerous writers and artists, especially those concerned with sexuality, have been both repelled and fascinated by de Sade.
Simone de Beauvoir (in her essay Must we burn Sade?, published in Les Temps modernes, December 1951 and January 1952) and other writers have attempted to locate traces of a radical philosophy of freedom in Sade's writings, preceding that of existentialism by some 150 years. He has also been seen as a precursors of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis in his focus on sexuality as a motive force. The surrealists admired him as one of their forerunners, and Guillaume Apollinaire famously called him "the freest spirit that has yet existed".
Pierre Klossowski, in his 1947 book Sade Mon Prochain ("Sade My Neighbor"), analyzes Sade's philosophy as a precursor of Friedrich Nietzsche, negating both Christian values and French materialism of the Age of Enlightenment.
One of the essays in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) is titled "Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality" and interprets the ruthless and calculating behavior of L'Histoire de Juliette as the embodiment of the philosophy of enlightenment. Similarly, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan posited in his 1966 essay "Kant avec Sade" that de Sade's ethic was the complementary completion of the categorical imperative originally formulated by Immanuel Kant.
In The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography (1979), Angela Carter provides a feminist reading of Sade, seeing him as a "moral pornographer" who creates spaces for women. Similarly, Susan Sontag defended both De Sade and Georges Bataille's Histoire de l'oeil (Story of the Eye) within her essay, "The Pornographic Imagination" (1967) on the basis their works were transgressive texts, and argued that neither should be censored.
By contrast, Andrea Dworkin saw Sade as the exemplary woman-hating pornographer, supporting her theory that pornography inevitably leads to violence against women. One chapter of her book Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1979) is devoted to an analysis of Sade. Susie Bright claims that Dworkin's first novel Ice and Fire, which is rife with violence and abuse, can be seen as a modern re-telling of Sade's Juliette.
Nonfiction books
- Marquis de Sade: his life and works. (1899) by Iwan Bloch (download)
- The Marquis de Sade, a biography. (1961) by Gilbert Lély
- The life and ideas of the Marquis de Sade. (1963) by Geoffrey Gorer
- Sade, Fourier, Loyola. (1971) by Roland Barthes (life of Sade download)
- The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History. (1979) by Angela Carter
- "Writing and the Experience of Limits" (1982) by Philippe Sollers
- The Marquis de Sade: the man, his works, and his critics: an annotated bibliography. (1986) by Colette Verger Michael
- The Misfits: A Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988) by Colin Wilson
- Sade, his ethics and rhetoric. (1989) by Colette Verger Michael
- Marquis de Sade: A Biography (1991) by Maurice Lever
- Dark Eros: The Imagination of Sadism (1995) by Thomas Moore
- The philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. (1995) by Timo Airaksinen
- Sade contre l'Etre suprême (1996) by Philippe Sollers
- An Erotic Beyond: Sade. (1998) by Octavio Paz
- Sade: A Biographical Essay. (1998) by Laurence L. Bongie
- The Marquis de Sade: a life. (1999) by Neil Schaeffer
- At Home With the Marquis de Sade: A Life. (1999) by Francine du Plessix Gray
- Marquis de Sade: the genius of passion. (2003) by Ronald Hayman
- Sade: from materialism to pornography. (2002) by Caroline Warman
Plays
- The play by Peter Weiss titled 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, or Marat/Sade for short, is a fictional account of Sade directing a play in Charenton.
- The Japanese writer Yukio Mishima wrote a play titled Madame de Sade.
- The Canadian writer/actor Barry Yzereef wrote a play titled Sade, a one-man show set in Vincennes prison.
- Doug Wright wrote a play, Quills, a surreal account of the attempts of the Charenton governors to censor the Marquis' writing, which was adapted into the slightly less surreal film of the same name.
- La Fura Del Baus have toured worldwide their production, XXX, which is said to be based upon Sade's work and thoughts. The production has been met with criticism and controversy everywhere it has been shown.
Films
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sade's life and writings have proved irresistible to filmmakers. While there are numerous pornographic movies 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 Bunuel 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.
- Marat/Sade, a film of the Peter Weiss play (1966) (The full title being 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). 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-Aldonze-Donatien) in a cast that includes Lili Palmer, Senta Berger, Anna Massey, and John Huston.
- 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.
- 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 Francois 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 Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame directed, while horror icon Robert England 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 (1999), directed by Benoit Jacquot. Daniel Auteuil plays Sade, here imprisoned at Picpus, 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 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) a.k.a Sílení. Czech movie directed by Jan Svankmajer. Loosely based on E.A.Poe's short stories and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade.
NOTE: The Marquis de Sade also featured in episodes of two TV series. The original Fantasy Island featured Lloyd Bochner as Sade, anachronistically threatening a guest of Mr. Roarke in the 17th century. Friday the 13th: The Series had an episode in which a haunted painting transported people to the time of Sade (Neil Munro), who is seen improbably conducting lavish parties and orgies at the height of the French Revolution.
Other fiction
- In Harlan Ellison's science fiction anthology, Dangerous Visions (1967), Robert Bloch wrote a story entitled "A Toy For Juliette" whose title character was both named for and used techniques based on Sade's works.
- Bloch also wrote a short story called "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade", in which a collector becomes possessed by the violent spirit of the Marquis after stealing the titular item. The story was the basis for the film The Skull (1966), starring Peter Cushing and Patrick Wymark.
- In the comic book series The Invisibles, Sade is recruited by the anarchistic group the Invisibles, as part of the revolution. The portrayal of him is supported by his liberal views, anti-authority stance and unhegemonic lifestyle.
- The DC Comics character "Desaad", created by Jack Kirby in New Gods #2 (1971), is a play on "De Sade". Desaad's assistant Lady Justeen, created by Walt Simonson in Orion comics #1 (2000), is likewise a play on "Justine".
- See also
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