The 'humane' killing machine that beheaded 17,000 people and still haunts French nightmares.
Forty years after the abolition of the death penalty in France, voted on September 18, 1981, the guillotine remains in the collective imagination as the instrument of the death sentence. This machine, developed during the Revolution to render justice more equal, was presented as progress. Over time, opinion has been divided on the subject of the death penalty, the guillotine becoming the object of man's cruelty, a remnant of an archaic way of dispensing justice and fuelling the many debates around the death penalty and its abolition.
Production
Chilling archival footage of actual guillotine demonstrations.
Writing
Sharp irony: 'humane' invention, inhumane legacy.
Director
Jean-Charles Deniau
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin didn't invent the device; he just proposed it, and the name stuck like the ultimate bad Yelp review.
The guillotine remained France's official execution method until 1977 — the same year Star Wars premiered. Let that timeline sink in.
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