(i) "Love Songs" (Un chant d'amour, 1950)
In René's only film, Love Songs, the characters are all prisoners locked up in a dark, claustrophobic cell. It's a condensed, congregated space that showcases the fascination of sex in a 25-minute long condensation. Even if there are no over-written walls, it does not prevent sexual adventures from entanglement with love, and it is possible to resist or eliminate the social punitive forces from prison. The film was long banned for overexpressing homosexuality. In 2003, the situation of "Love Song Love Song" was improved, and a DVD was released, so that the audience could freely reconstruct and reject the DVD of "Love Song Love Song". In 1950, René carved his own image on the walls of those prisons, and as shown at the end of the film, some of the film's information or details, painted on the cell or prison wall, reiterated the desire to carve an indelible image of sex and struggle, and to eliminate the image of power and punishment.
(ii) The Gang of Evil Dogs (Scum, 1979)
Although the 1979 prison protest film Scum (1979) is far from the theme of Heather's Love Song, the sexual oppression and despair between men, and their resistance to power, are undoubtedly partly similar to "Love Song Love Song". In 1977, the BBC had a TV movie, which set the stage for the 1979 movie that made people's blood boil. The hero eventually gains a foothold in the order of power in a brutal prison and reaps the sexual object and the pleasure of sex. But a boy committed suicide because he was sexually assaulted by the same sex, which eventually led to a collective rebellion under the call of the male protagonist.
Midnight Express (1978)
The male protagonist of 1978's Midnight Express (1978), Brad Davis, a young man from a middle-class family on Long Island, is held in a Turkish prison. Unlike Gang of Bad Dogs, he does not establish a power order here, nor does he enjoy the pleasures of sex, but he tastes another kind of love in confinement, imagination and sublimation, although he rejects the sexual temptation of his friends and always tries to escape from here.
The Shawshank Redemption (1997)
Undoubtedly, 1997's "The Shawshank Redemption" combines the material use of "The Evil Dog Gang" and "Midnight Express", in the closed space of the prison, the male protagonist in "The Shawshank Redemption" can neither sit in the top seat in the power order, nor can he enjoy the pleasure of sex, his only purpose is the same as "Midnight Express", is to escape from here, but the escape technique makes the modern technologists deeply surprised and admired. It can be said that "The Shawshank Redemption" completely deviates from Rene's "Love Song" in terms of thematic meaning, and becomes the microphone of the middle class's "restraint is the greatest virtue".
King of Devil's Island (2010)
2010's "King of Alcatraz" is a copy of "The Gang of Dogs," except that the prison is placed on a deserted, deserted island with nowhere to escape, and the closed prisoners have become juveniles. The cruelty of the order of power is slightly reduced, but the friendship between the male protagonists carries a strong gay metaphor. Also because of the rebellion against power brought about by homosexual sexual assault, the hero eventually flees the island, but his beloved friend dies in the escape.