The play absolutely deserves every award it has received. It's a serious but blackly humorous -- or humorously black -- discussion of politics, philosophy, and just what constitutes sanity, with enough madness to hold our attention and enough roots in the real world that we can't easily dismiss the points it makes.
In the film there are few directorial choice that I might quibble with, and there is one (not very important) change I definitely disagree with... but overall it's a surprisingly good job of translating the first Broadway production to the screen.
(I have both the Caedmon complete recording of the Broadway production and a copy of the film, and I've played de Sade, so I'm a bit more aware of the details than most viewers would be. Alas, I can't read German so I can't compare any of these to the "real" original.) If you can find a good live production of Marat/Sade, see it. If you can't, or if you want to revisit it, the film isn't too far behind.
In the film there are few directorial choice that I might quibble with, and there is one (not very important) change I definitely disagree with... but overall it's a surprisingly good job of translating the first Broadway production to the screen.
(I have both the Caedmon complete recording of the Broadway production and a copy of the film, and I've played de Sade, so I'm a bit more aware of the details than most viewers would be. Alas, I can't read German so I can't compare any of these to the "real" original.) If you can find a good live production of Marat/Sade, see it. If you can't, or if you want to revisit it, the film isn't too far behind.