Criminal Desires: Jean Genet & Cinema

Price: 44.95 AUD

Add to Shopping Cart

Jean Genet the French author notorious for his overt cele-bration of criminality and homosexuality was also fascinated with cinema. His only film Un Chant d'amour made in 1950 was a poetic and sexually explicit visual paean to homosexual desire the criminal impulse and the power of the imagination. Banned on the grounds of obscenity the film has since become a cause celebre of gay rights and freedom of expression as well as being recognized as a masterpiece of underground cinema. Criminal Desires contains complete documentation of the making of Un Chant d'amour including an illustrated shot-by-shot description thematic analysis and exhibition history. The book also documents: Genet's many other unfilmed screenplays. Film appearances by Genet himself. Screen adaptations of Genet's work made by other directors including Deathwatch The Maids Todd Haynes' 1 and Fassbinder's extraordinary and apocalyptic vision of Querelle. Illustrated throughout and featuring an introduction by acclaimed novelist and Genet biographer Edmund White Criminal Desires is a compelling induction into Jean Genet's underworld of prisons voyeurism and homosexual lust which starkly illuminates a fascinating zone of forbidden cinema. Jean Genet is a world-famous author and gay hero: This is the only book dealing specifically with his involvement with and relationship to cinema. Volume 2 in new quality Film Studies series: Persistence of Vision. Cover quotes from Edmund White Derek Jarman and Marc Almond. Cross-over between cinema and gay markets. National press coverage and full online promotion.