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Video Exhibit: Jean Genet / Un Chant d’Amour Un Chant d’Amour is French writer Jean Genet’s only film, which he directed in 1950. Because of its explicit homosexual content, the 26-minute movie was long banned and was also disowned by Genet later in his life. Jean Genet (1910-1986) was born as the son of a prostitute and was put up for adoption early in his life. He already had a history of running away and petty thefts at a very young age. At age 15 he was sent to a Penal Colony; Mettray and at age 18 he joined the French Foreign Legion, where he was given a dishonorable discharge for engaging in homosexual activities. Although the young Genet lived the life of a thief and a prostitute, by 1949 he had completed five novels, three plays and numerous poems. His explicit and often deliberately provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality was such that by the early 1950s, his work was banned in the United States. Un Chant d’Amour is a beautiful portrait of homosexual love made within a frame that must have been painfully autobiographical looking at the author’s youth. For more information on Jean Genet, please visit: |
