MARQUIS DE SADE: JUSTINE. Kinski as the Infamous Libertine

Marquis de Sade: Justine does not capture the spirit of de Sade, but has its merits.

Paris, the late 18th century. The Marquis de Sade is imprisoned in the Bastille, where he conceives the story of two sisters: the naive and innocent Justine and the cynical and ruthless Juliette, who are left destitute after their father’s death. Juliette takes Justine to the brothel madam Madame de Buisson, who demands that the women work as prostitutes in exchange for food and shelter. Juliette agrees to these conditions, while Justine takes a position with a certain du Harpin, who soon frames her for stealing gold. She is imprisoned but, by a twist of fate, manages to escape and finds refuge with the painter Raymond.

The young couple fall in love, yet Justine, pursued by the police, must flee again, eventually ending up in the residence of the de Bressac couple and later in a sect of sexual fanatics occupying an abandoned monastery. After numerous trials and humiliations, Justine unexpectedly meets Juliette, whose life has seemingly turned out better.

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740–1814) came from a distinguished noble family. As a young man, he received a thorough education and later served in the royal guard; he distinguished himself for bravery during the Seven Years’ War. However, his reputation quickly declined due to Donatien’s tendencies toward gambling, extravagance, and, above all, debauchery. He was repeatedly imprisoned—for poisoning, sodomy, or assaulting a maid during an orgy. In 1772, he was sentenced to death, but the Marquis escaped to Italy.

Upon returning to France, his sentence was overturned, though his troubles did not end: from the Bastille, he was sent straight to the Charenton asylum for the insane, where he died of an unidentified infectious disease. His fascination with violence led to the term “sadism,” used to describe a sexual disorder involving the infliction of physical pain and humiliation on a partner.

Amidst all these scandals, orgies, and prison terms, de Sade found time for creative work: he wrote novels, short stories, novellas, plays, dialogues, diaries, essays, letters, political treatises, and philosophical works exploring pleasure and absolute freedom unconstrained by morality, law, or religion. Many of his writings are lost or destroyed, but those that survive have had a significant impact on authors such as Stendhal, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Bataille, Freud, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, and Barthes (not to mention psychiatrists and sexologists).

Among de Sade’s most important works are The 120 Days of Sodom or the School of Libertinism, Philosophy in the Bedroom, Crimes of Love, Juliette: The Prosperity of Vice, Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man, and Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue. He wrote the latter in 1787 while serving his sentence in the Bastille; ten years later, he published an expanded version titled New Justine.

Justine touches on nearly all of the French libertine’s favorite themes, presenting them through the figure of an innocent girl who undergoes a sexual transformation under the influence of society. De Sade was far from condemning this path; on the contrary, he seemed to both celebrate and promote it, showing no sympathy for the oppressed heroine.

The creators of the film adaptation, Marquis de Sade: Justine—director Jesús Franco and producer/screenwriter Harry Alan Towers—took a somewhat different approach. Their work is more of a picaresque tale and costume drama than a perverse erotic story. In this regard, it only partially conveys the cruelty of the source material, so viewers expecting a faithful adaptation may be disappointed, as there is surprisingly little depravity—nothing comparable to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).

This does not mean that Marquis de Sade: Justine is a film for audiences other than adults, but the de Sadean perversity has been significantly softened—which is ironic, as Franco had envisioned a version closer to the spirit of the original but had to yield to Towers’ pressures (he could only fully realize his vision in De Sade 70 (1970), an adaptation of Philosophy in the Bedroom).

The director was also forced to adjust the script for the lead actress, the popular singer Romina Power, imposed by the film’s financiers (Franco had preferred Rosemary Dexter). According to the Spanish filmmaker, Power lacked both the acting experience and sensuality required for the role of Justine. These adjustments further diluted the message of the literary original, resulting in a Justine that appears as a censored, toned-down, and sanitized version of both de Sade and Franco.

The film does, however, have its merits. By the standards of Franco’s often low-budget, borderline tacky productions, Marquis… is remarkably lavish, thanks in large part to the largest budget of the director’s career to date (just over one million dollars). The investment paid off: cinematography, lighting, costumes, and music (by Bruno Nicolai!) are impressive.

Power is not the best actress in the world, but the supporting cast compensates for her somewhat wooden performance: Jack Palance as Brother Antonin delivers one of the oddest characters in a filmography full of eccentrics (Franco noted that the actor was often drunk—and it shows), Mercedes McCambridge as Madame Dusbois overacts gloriously, reminiscent of a female Vincent Price, and Klaus Kinski appears as de Sade, his role largely symbolic but enriching this imperfect yet intriguing film.