Swoon

Tom Kalin's 1992 American film recounts the case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who killed a boy in Chicago in 1924. The same events had been filmed twice before; Kalin's difference is telling the relationship between the two men without concealment and showing how the court used it. The film is among the founding works of the new queer cinema. Kalin uses the court records of the period: the prosecution explains the murder through homosexuality and psychiatrists support it. The black and white photography and deliberate anachronisms take the story out of being a history lesson. Its difficulty is defending nobody: the men really did kill a child. Who it's for: viewers interested in the history of queer cinema and true crime narrative. Who it's not for: anyone avoiding content involving the murder of a child, or wanting a clear moral frame.