One scene that stood out to me in Swoon (1992) was during the courtroom scene, where the psychologist starts to describe Nathan and Dick’s sexual encounters in front of a homophobic audience. Suddenly, Nathan and Dick are shown in bed, and it appears as though they are about to have sex in front of the entire courtroom. The scene really illuminated the differences between Rope (1948) and Swoon. I found it impressive that Swoon was able to communicate how despite their hideous criminality, both Nathan and Dick were demonized for their sexuality. In contrast to Rope, which implicitly used their homosexuality as a reason for murder, Swoon showed two murderers who just happened to be gay.

There are a lot of parallels between The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and the film, especially with the emphasis on aesthetics, and how young men twist the ideology of the ones who came before. The emphasis on how Rupert Cadell would react to the aesthetic of the murder seemed to me to appeal to the stereotype of the “artistic” gay man, which plays into stereotypes surrounding gay men appearing more feminine. Even though Brandon and Phillip were not explicitly shown to be romantically involved, the fact that there was clear homoerotic subtext is enough for the audience to connect the dots. Whereas Phillip, who’s shown to be less experienced in murder, is more focused on whether the two will get caught, Brandon is more worried about Cadell’s opinion on the aesthetic of the murder, linking Brandon’s obsession with aesthetics to a type of psychopathy. As a result, Brandon’s relaxed nature and Phillip’s intense worry leads to a climactic conclusion where the two are revealed to be criminals by Cadell.

On the other hand, Nathan and Dick from Swoon are shown to be gay men before they are shown to be criminals. The first scene of them as a couple is them running around before kissing in an abandoned warehouse, and while intimate scenes are intercut with them committing crimes, it is clear that it is their sexual encounters that are the crime, and not their queerness. This makes it all the more invasive when an imagining of them together in bed is shown as the psychologist recounts their sexual encounters, as if their agency over their sexuality has been taken out of their hands. Before, their sexual encounters were a private moment, shared between Nathan, Dick, and the audience. But now that there is an audience within the film that is also watching, this makes the scene uncomfortable, and the audience feels like a private moment has been intruded upon. Even though the homophobic sentiment in the jury ironically helped them avoid the death penalty, there is a sense of tragedy at the end of the film. Despite the fact that the couple were criminals, they still had a loving relationship that was salaciously dissected by the media.

This article was originally written for LIT135 CM-01 Alfred Hitchcock, taught at Claremont McKenna College by Prof. James Morrison.