Product Details

• Directors: Jean Genet
• Format: Color, DVD, Limited Edition, NTSC
• Language: French (Unknown)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Cult Epics
• DVD Release Date: February 27, 2007
• Run Time: 123 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000LC3IVA
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #35,228 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Un chant d'amour" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Jean Genet's Un Chant d'Amour (or A Song of Love--the only film directed by this notorious novelist, playwright, and gadfly--is just barely pornographic by contemporary standards, but contemporary porn hasn't got a shred of the seedy, languid eroticism of this 25-minute short from 1950. The plot concerns two prisoners communicating through a crack in a wall while a sadistic guard spies on them, but what matters is the light filtering through the smoke blown through a straw, or gleaming off the glistening saliva on a man's fingers. There's no dialogue or soundtrack; the silence compounds the movie's claustrophobic, pent-up atmosphere. This two-disc dvd also includes two excellent interviews with Genet, conducted when he was in his 70s. By turns charming, pugnacious, inflammatory, and melancholy, Genet discusses the nature of god, the human capacity for prophecy, the Black Panthers, life in a juvenile penal colony, being bored by Sartre, and some very volatile political views. Also included are an introduction to the film by director Jonas Mekas (who smuggled the movie through U.S. customs by cutting it into pieces and carrying them in his pocket) and a halting commentary by director/historian Kenneth Anger, who get so hypnotized by the film's images that he forgets to talk. Fans of Genet will find this movie essential; anyone interested in this seminal gay writer will find these interviews an excellent place to begin. --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 02/27/2007

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The first "gay" classic?, February 24, 2007

By	Jerry "Jerry" (Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

I first became aware of this film back in 1991 when the British Film Institute published The Cinema of Jean Genet by Jane Giles, a book which included many gorgeous stills from this legendary short film. After reading a review of one of my favorite 80's films Mala Noche in which Pauline Kael compared the visual style of that film to Un Chant D'Amour I knew I just had to see it. So I made a special trek to the UCLA Film Archives in Los Angeles just to watch a terribly muddy, washed out VHS copy on a little 12 inch monitor.

Un Chant D'amour was filmed in 1949 under somewhat secretive conditions with actors who would not allow their full names to be used. Once you see it you will understand why immediately...it's far and away the most sexually explicit film of its kind that would be seen until the new explicitness ushered in during the end of the 1960's with the Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey films. The younger convict was played by Lucien Senemaud (Genet's lover at the time) and he is a remarkable camera subject and a testament to Genet's good taste.

The British Film Institute released a restored version of this film on DVD a few years ago with a modern instrumental soundtrack. The score is fine but I've had mixed feelings about it because the crisp, clean modernistic sound is somewhat at odds with the 50 year old black and white images one sees flickering before one. For that reason, and perhaps because I'm a believer in films being seen in as close to their original form as possible, I'm not bothered by the fact that this new release appears to leave the score off.

It's interesting that Kenneth Anger is doing a commentary for the new set. Much as I like most of Anger's work, I do consider Un Chant D'Amour to be superior to any other short film I've ever seen...from any director. Anger's work was extremely innovative in its use of image, sound and montage but it's also emotionally cool and drenched in irony. Un Chant D'Amour on the other hand is earnestly heartfelt and completely lacking in cynicism and contains some of the most romantic and erotic images you will ever see in any film. Pauline Kael put it best when she described the style as having an "authentic grungy beauty". The photography is blatantly fetishistic and the many close-ups of armpits, feet and faces should not be surprising to anyone familiar with Genet's visceral writing style. His visual style is a close approximation of it.

I think one of the reasons I find Un Chant D'amour so effective (apart from the images) is that despite its short length it remains committed to the tradition of narrative storytelling. I've never been overly enamoured of purely abstract filmmaking and Genet's film is more in keeping with something like Zero For Conduct (Jean Vigo) than more experimental, abstract works such as Meshes in the Afternoon (Maya Deren) or Blood of a Poet (Jean Cocteau).

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Viewing for That Certain Film Fan...., May 10, 2007

By	Randy Buck (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nice to have a really decent transfer of the Genet classic made available to a wide audience. The print I struggled to discern decades ago at Manhattan's Thalia was barely watchable; while hardly pristine, this DVD looks just fine. And the film itself is still remarkable, certainly one of the most influential of gay artworks. (Todd Haynes, Pierre et Gilles, Warhol -- the list of those who've aped Genet's imagery here is endless.) Suffice it to say, for most sophisticated audiences, many of the visuals here will seem familiar even the first time around. The commentary from Kenneth Anger's disappointing (when the guard brandishes his gun in the most obvious manner imaginable, Anger helpfully tells us the image is meant to be erotic -- thanks, Ken!) But the introduction from Jonas Mekas, where he tells how the picture was smuggled into New York in the 60's, is fascinating. Also included are two French interviews with Genet, which come guaranteed to cure the strongest case of insomnia -- he drones on with all the assurance of a figure whose every utterance has been hung upon by decades of Parisian intellectuals. Seeing him is interesting, but a little of these documentaries goes a very, very, veeerrryyyyy long way. All in all, though, a must see for Experimental Cinema 101.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars French Surrealism, February 1, 2007

By	Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

"Un Chant d'Amour"


French Surrealism

Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride

"Un chant d'amour" is a remarkable short film which is brutal and provocative while being poetic and lyrical at the same time. I have often also heard the word "sordid" to describe it as well. Made by the infamous Jean Genet in 1950, it was kept under wraps until its cinema release in 1970. There is no sound in this movie--no dialog, no music, no words--just silence. Set in prison in a cell in solitary, the film deals with the role of power in society. In this case the power or authority is the prison warden. He has no voice and he has been reduces to an onlooker, thereby becoming our representative. Genet often used the theme of criminal versus authority and in this film, the middle class, those who are the audience for this sort of film, are represented by the warden who is their eyes and looks into the underworld.
We, the people, are like the prisoners. We try to communicate. We are like the prisoners in the film using outlandish ways to get our ideas across. We try to escape our private hells into some kind of paradise. Through the warden's eyes we see the prisoners trying to communicate in some of the strangest of ways--passing flowers through barred windows, smoking one cigarette through a hole in the wall, tapping on the cell walls. Prisoners escape their doldrums through masturbation and through dance. The warden's gaze is not a true gaze--he sees through fetishes. When he can no longer contain his arousal from what he has seen, he strikes the prisoners and the term climax assumes a new meaning.
Considered to be one of the most controversial films ever made, "Chant" feature uncensored homosexual scenes which may be a little too strong for the average film- goer. On the other hand, the film is beautiful in cinemacality. It is only twenty-five minutes long but it is steamy and poetic and some of the photography is achingly beautiful. The sexuality is extremely strong. The film is also considered to be experimental. As the activities between the two prisoners becomes more sexual and romantic, what appears to be dream sequences heighten the overall sexuality of the plot. It is not pornography but rather extremely erotic and is pure cinema. The movie is a vehicle for Genet's art and whereas he spent so much time in French prisons himself; he obviously drew from his real life experiences to make this film. If I had to be concise, I would simply say that the film explores homosexual paralysis in a world that is homophobic. The prison wall which represents the homophobia of society blocks the consummation of love between the two male prisoners.
"Chant" is more than just a film--it is an overall experience that we have not had the opportunity to see in many years. Now we are able to and watching the 25 minutes of "pure art", we all should be able to come to our own conclusion of what the film has to say. We will unquestionably agree that it is political and erotic and that s a good thing.