A Certain Sacrifice
USA July 1985
NEW YORK “A Certain Sacrifice,” the now notorious experimental art film co-starring Madonna, has been released to home video. The hourlong $20,000 production is available at $49.95, through mail order only, from New York based Cine Cine Productions.
Stephen Jon Lewicki, the film’s producer and director, says that he’s on the verge of signing a U.S distribution deal, and that he already has one in Japan with people who “don’t want their name involved at this point.”
“A Certain Sacrifice” is described by Lewicki as a “new wave, Lower East Side post-punk film” along the lines of Scott and Beth B’s “Vortex” and Susan Seidelman’s “smithereens.” It was shot in Super 8 from September 1979 through June 1981 and finally completed in August 1984. It was written by Lewicki and actor Jeremy Pattnosh, who is top-billed over Madonna.
Madonna was 19 and a brunette when she won the female lead role of Bruna, having answered an ad in an acting trade publication with a handwritten letter detailing her life’s woes and goals.
A self-proclaimed “dodo girl” searching for her “dodo boy,” Bruna is a street urchin character living with a bizarre “family of lovers.” But the Madonna persona, while formative, is readily discernible, especially in her first scene, where she and Pattnosh meet and dance around a sprinkler in Greenwhich Village’s Wasington Square Park.
Other key Madonna scenes include a dance orgy with her lovers, her rape in a coffee shop rest room, and the ritual sacrifice of the rapist. There are few brief instances of partial nudity in the film, which, while crudely made, is not without humor and quality acting.
Lewicki says that “A Certain Sacrifice” was originally intended as an art film with cult appeal, “definitely not porn as some of the press is making it out to be, but sexy, maybe with a PG-13 or mild R rating because of abusive language.” He expects sales of at least 50,000 copies within the next year, and is advertising the product in major rock publications. Besides the film iteself, T-shirts and posters are available, as is an additional “Collector’s Special” tape containing outtakes and interview footage.
As for Madonna’s reaction to the film, Lewicki says that she enjoyed a private screening, objecting only to the use of her full name in the end credits.