A Certain Sacrifice Madonna
The Raleigh Group, Ltd.

A CERTAIN SACRIFICE

October 1, 1985

Directed by Stephen Jon Lewicki
Madonna as Bruna

On the Dark Side of New York…
When Paths Cross

Before she was the Queen of Pop, Madonna starred in A Certain Sacrifice (1979–81), a raw, underground experimental drama by Stephen Jon Lewicki. She landed the role after sending him a bold three-page handwritten letter and was paid just $100 for her performance, finishing her scenes in 1980. Filming wrapped the following year, but the movie stayed on the shelf until 1985—by which time Madonna had exploded into global mega-stardom. She tried to block its release, but the film was ultimately unleashed and marketed to cash in on her fame.

A CERTAIN SACRIFICE

20-year-old Madonna plays Bruna, a postpunk drifter, who meets a refugee from the suburbs in Washington Square’s fountain. The two become lovers and ultimately avengers of their own love’s desecration. Sleazy Raymond Hall rapes Bruna in a coffee shop toilet but is hunted down and kidnapped by the lovers and Bruna’s former “family” of sex-slaves. In one of the massive, cathedral-like arches under the Brooklyn Bridge, Hall is executed in an eerie human sacrifice.