The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage is an unfinished novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785 and published in 1904 after its manuscript was rediscovered. It describes the activities of four wealthy libertine Frenchmen who spend four months seeking the ultimate sexual gratification through orgies, sealing themselves in an inaccessible castle in the heart of the Black Forest with 12 accomplices, 20 designated victims and 10 servants. Four aging prostitutes relate stories of their most memorable clients whose sexual practices involved 600 "passions" including coprophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, rape, and child sexual abuse. The stories inspire the libertines to engage in acts of increasing violence leading to the torture and murder of their victims, most of whom are adolescents and young women.
Last Year at Marienbad, released in the United Kingdom as Last Year in Marienbad, is a 1961 French New Wave avant-garde psychological drama film directed by Alain Resnais and written by Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Quills is a 2000 period film directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted from the Obie award-winning 1995 play by Doug Wright, who also wrote the original screenplay. Inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade, Quills re-imagines the last years of the Marquis's incarceration in the insane asylum at Charenton. It stars Geoffrey Rush as de Sade, Kate Winslet as laundress Madeleine "Maddie" LeClerc, Joaquin Phoenix as the Abbé de Coulmier, and Michael Caine as Dr. Royer-Collard.
The role of sadism and masochism in fiction has attracted serious scholarly attention. Anthony Storr has commented that the volume of sadomasochist pornography shows that sadomasochistic interest is widespread in Western society; John Kucich has noted the importance of masochism in late-19th-century British colonial fiction. This article presents appearances of sadomasochism in literature and works of fiction in the various media.
Alain Robbe-Grillet was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the Nouveau Roman trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simon. Robbe-Grillet was elected a member of the Académie française on 25 March 2004, succeeding Maurice Rheims at seat No. 32. He married Catherine Robbe-Grillet.
Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue is a 1791 novel by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade. Justine is set just before the French Revolution in France and tells the story of a young girl who goes under the name of Thérèse. Her story is recounted to Madame de Lorsagne while defending herself for her crimes, en route to punishment and death. She explains the series of misfortunes that led to her present situation.
Philosophy in the Boudoir is a 1795 book by the Marquis de Sade written in the form of a dramatic dialogue. Set in a boudoir the two lead characters make the argument that the only moral system that reinforces the recent political revolution is libertinism, and that if the people of France fail to adopt the libertine philosophy, France will be destined to return to a monarchic state.
Catherine Robbe-Grillet is a French writer, dominatrix, photographer, theatre and film actress who has published sadomasochistic writings under the pseudonyms Jean de Berg and Jeanne de Berg.
Anicée Alvina, also known as Anicée Schahmaneche (born Anicée Shahmanesh or Anicee Schahmane was a French singer and actress.
There have been many and varied references to the Marquis de Sade in popular culture, including fictional works, biographies and more minor references. The namesake of the psychological and subcultural term sadism, his name is used variously to evoke sexual violence, licentiousness and freedom of speech. In modern culture his works are simultaneously viewed as masterful analyses of how power and economics work, and as erotica. Sade's sexually explicit works were a medium for the articulation of the corrupt and hypocritical values of the elite in his society, which caused him to become imprisoned. He thus became a symbol of the artist's struggle with the censor. Sade's use of pornographic devices to create provocative works that subvert the prevailing moral values of his time inspired many other artists in a variety of media. The cruelties depicted in his works gave rise to the concept of sadism. Sade's works have to this day been kept alive by artists and intellectuals because they espouse a philosophy of extreme individualism that became reality in the economic liberalism of the following centuries.
Djinn is a novel by French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet. It was written as a French textbook with California State University, Dominguez Hills professor Yvone Lenard using a process of grammatical progression. Each chapter covers a specific element of French grammar which becomes increasingly difficult over the course of the novel. The first five chapters are written in the present tense from the first person point of view. The sixth chapter is written partially in the third person past and partially in the first person present. The eighth chapter is written in the first person point of view, but the narrator has changed from the masculine Simon Lecoeur to an unknown female narrator.
Marquis de Sade: Justine is a 1969 erotic period drama film directed by Jesús Franco, written and produced by Harry Alan Towers, and based on the 1791 novel Justine by the Marquis de Sade. It stars Romina Power as the title character, with Maria Rohm, Klaus Kinski, Akim Tamiroff, Harald Leipnitz, Rosemary Dexter, Horst Frank, Sylva Koscina and Mercedes McCambridge.
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously.
Jacques Doniol-Valcroze was a French actor, critic, screenwriter, and director. In 1951, Doniol-Valcroze was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, along with André Bazin and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca. The magazine was initially edited by Doniol-Valcroze between 1951–1957. As critic, he championed numerous filmmakers including Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, and Nicholas Ray. In 1955, then 23-year-old François Truffaut made a short film in Doniol-Valcroze's apartment, Une Visite. Jacques's daughter Florence played a minor part in it.
Gradiva is a novel by Wilhelm Jensen, first published in instalments from June 1 to July 20, 1902 in the Viennese newspaper "Neue Freie Presse". It was inspired by a Roman bas-relief of the same name and became the basis for Sigmund Freud's famous 1907 study Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva. Freud owned a copy of this bas-relief, which he had joyfully beheld in the Vatican Museums in 1907; it can be found on the wall of his study in 20 Maresfield Gardens, London – now the Freud Museum.
L'Immortelle is a 1963 international co-produced drama film directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet, his first feature after the worldwide success of Last Year at Marienbad which he wrote. Entered into the 13th Berlin International Film Festival, it also won the Prix Louis Delluc.
Eden and After is a 1970 French–Czechoslovak drama art film directed by French novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet. It was entered into the main competition of the 20th Berlin International Film Festival.
Successive Slidings of Pleasure is a 1974 French art film directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet.
Maison Close is a French television series which premiered on Canal+ on October 4, 2010. The series was developed by Mabrouk El Mechri and is based on a concept created by Jacques Ouaniche. It is a drama set in a nineteenth-century Parisian brothel.
The prix Sade is a French literary prize created in 2001, sometimes called the Sade Prize in English, as an homage to the marquis de Sade.
