Jean Genet

[tavernier]

Film series at BAM, Brooklyn:

WRITTEN BY JEAN GENET, MAY 14-22
"To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance."--Jean Genet, The Thief's Journal

A writer, criminal, homosexual, political activist, and self-styled renegade, Jean Genet spent much of his early life in reformatories and prisons. Championed by Jean Cocteau and Jean-Paul Sartre (who lobbied for Genet's pardon), his incendiary work offers dreamlike evocations of moral ambiguity in a repressed society--featuring characters in various states of submission and rife with homosexuality, outlandish fantasies, and acts of violence by the oppressed. His work not only had a profound effect on contemporary gay culture, but also filmmakers like Truffaut (who began a correspondence and friendship with Genet while in military prison), Fassbinder, Jarman, and Haynes--this series offers a snapshot of Genet's spirit and influence.

FILMS INCLUDE: POISON (1991) Directed by Todd Haynes; UN CHANT D'AMOUR (1950) Directed by Jean Genet (in a new 35mm print); QUERELLE (1982 Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder; THE MAIDS (1974) Directed by Christopher Miles; MADEMOISELLE (1966) Directed by Tony Richardson.

[Matt]

What a shame that no one has ever made a real film of Our Lady of the Flowers, The Miracle of the Rose, or The Thief's Journal. Perhaps a Genet revival is in order.

[Matt]

Patrice Chereau's very fine l'Homme Blesse is a loose adaptation of the Thief's Journal. Not aware if there is any DVD.

There's a new 2-disc Studio Canal version, no subs but it's got a Jane Birkin music video directed by Chereau! I haven't seen that movie in 18 years.

[David Ehrenstein]

Plus a Jane Birkin music video directed by Chereau? FABULOUS!

L'Homme Blesse is a masterpiece but it isn't an adaptation of anything by Genet. It was written by Chereau and the late great Herve Guibert, and was inspired by Chereau's adventures in the West Village in the early 70's, where Bernard-Marie Koltes also hung out.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the link, this DVD is a must! L'Homme Blessé is a major masterpiece and extremely moving.

[Michael]

Netflix had L'Homme Blesse for a while but not any more. I rented it last year and walked away from it feeling very queasy because it scratched off the old emotional scabs of the "wounded boy" I once was. The film navigated through the intensely dark ocean of emotions of what it was like coming out especially long before the age of the Internet. The intense alienation and confusion that came with it. Chereau created such a brooding and eerie atmosphere to reflect the young guy's new sexual awakening. The young guy making friends with older gay guys struck very true because I did exactly the same thing. My first gay friends were at least 40 years old and I was about 17 years old. They guided me through the "new world", unlike the majority of todays gay generation with the Internet and everything that I didn't have back then. Back then, I discovered the people of "my kind" in the rest rooms of the main library and on the street outside the towns only gay bar. I was too scared to walk in the bar (especially with the disturbing visions of gay people my family painted in my mind) so I hung around in the parking lot..and that's where I made my first friends. My parents were very close to kicking me out of the house after I answered my mom's questions: "are you gay?". My family outside the house cut me off and I spent Thankgiving and Christmas alone at home while everyone else gathered at my grandmother's. Because of all this, I had to seek people who could understand me or at least be with me. Yes in the rest rooms of all places.

L'Blesse Homme captured all this brilliantly and poetically in every respect. Plus some really hot hot hot sex scenes.

[Lino]

Children, there is R1 DVD out. No extras whatsoever, though.

[Anonymous]

Children, there is R1 DVD out. No extras whatsoever, though.

But, my child, the American DVD is fucking bad.

[David Ehrenstein]

Your experience matches mine, Michael -- save for the fact that my parents never wanted to kick me out, because they never caught on to what I was up to.

I always say L'Homme Blesse is my favorite movie about High School.

[Anonymous]

I always say L'Homme Blesse is my favorite movie about High School.

And doesn't Proust-scholar Frank in Little Miss Sunshine say that High School is the prime time for suffering in one's life?

[David Ehrenstein]

Yep.

BTW, Chereau is the voice of Marcel Proust in Ruiz's Time Regained

[Peacock]

I’m not sorry to bump an almost 20 year thread on a great artist who can’t be getting enough attention clearly, nor to have the honour of posting after the late great David!

I just had the pleasure of finally watching the Kino Blu-ray for Christopher Miles’ version of Genet’s Les Bonnes / The Maids.

This was my first viewing of any of these American Film Theatre productions so I was expecting something more like a filmed version of a play than a full on film, nor was I aware that Ealing’s - and Spielberg’s! - fav DoP was behind the camera to keep things alive visually in what is essentially a single room production shot over a couple of weeks. It’s a little overlit at times but the camera movement and rapid pace dialogue washes all that away.

Amazing stuff. The adaptation from French to English is incredibly poetic. Glenda Jackson deserves all her flowers for her see-saw of emotions. But everyone is great. I’m not sure we need to cutaway to “Monsieur” so often but again the strength of the source, the dislike of the adaptation and the performances more than make up for it.

But what a play…

Can Genet do no wrong? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Growing up as a young criterionforum teen I found myself imprisoned in love with Un Chant d’Amour, it became my favourite film soon after.

Only recently I was able to see the BFI Blu of Mademoiselle, not somehow knowing when I went in that Genet had wrote the screenplay (along with Marguerite Duras! Jaw dropping).

Mademoiselle blew me away for a British production of that era. Watkins’ static uncomfortably strange camera work, the silence, the sexuality, the snake, the inner violence, the borderline pretentious imitation of mainland European filmmaking… but it somehow just gets away with it.

So where does one go next for their Genet fix on the silver screen?

[Peacock]

Oh and… does anyone know what happened to the Strand Blu-ray of Un Chant d’Amour that was announced last year or so?!

[Lowry_Sam]

I’ve enjoyed this one since the days of VHS & have revisited it with every format upgrade. While it may be more filmic than something like Come Back To The Five And Dime, it’s still very noticeably a filmed play from the dialogue.

So where does one go next for their Genet fix on the silver screen?

Have you tried any of the following?
Les Équilibristes (1991)
Poison (1991)
Querelle (1982)
Black Mirror (1981)
The Balcony (1963)

[colinr0380]

Not Genet, but if you want another take on the case of the Papin sisters who inspired The Maids, there is also the 1994 film Sister, My Sister. Which I cheekily would suggest would make a good double bill with Julie Walters' landlady from the much more twee Brooklyn!

[ianthemovie]

And (perhaps stating the obvious) Chabrol's La Ceremonie is very much in the same vein.

Going back, Strand had announced a Blu-ray of Un Chant d'Amour? I assumed the rights were still with Cult Epics.