Jean Genet based Un Chant d'amour on his first novel Our Lady of the Flowers, written from his prison cell during the war. The film refines that material into a cinematic poem of an imprisoned homosexual's love and longing. Images of elusive beauty link together a series of erotic fantasies that occur in the surrounding cells. These meticulously composed, silent episodes are haunting. A landmark in erotic cinema, Un Chant d'amour, though shot in 35mm, was not intended for general audiences. But a film by the celebrated author could not be ignored for long. In the early sixties, community activist Saul Landau became a West Coast distributor for Un Chant d'amour, and saw the film, "banned in Berkeley," go all the way from the Alameda County Superior Court, where it was deemed obscene, to the Supreme Court which, in 1967, concurred.