Summary
Filmmaker - Interview
Arthur Dong believes in examining the pathology of individuals who kill gays because of their contempt for homosexuals. His film, 'License to Kill,' examined the crimes, personal motives and popular culture of persons who hate and kill gays. He feels strongly that his film gives the individuals the forum to narrate their stories and experiences.See the full content of this document
Extract
Licensed to kill: an interview with Arthur Dong.
In 1957, when a black teenager named Emmet Till was murdered by two white men in the Mississippi Delta, William Faulkner reflected upon the circumstances under which "two adults, armed, in the dark, kidnap a fourteen-year-old boy and take him away to frighten him. Instead of which, the fourteen-year-old boy not only refused to be frightened, but, unarmed, alone, in the dark, so frightens the two armed adults that they must destroy him." "What," Faulkner wondered, "are we Mississippians so afraid of?"
That kind of fear animates Licensed to Kill, Arthur Dong's documentary investigation into the minds - confused, twisted, and quite sane - of seven killers of gay men. Inspired by an attack Dong fell victim to at the hands of four teenagers in 1977, the director seeks to discover what propels a pathology, "to actually meet the men whose contempt for homosexuals leads them to kill people like me." His exploration crosses personal motives and popular culture, individual gripes with a national ethos that nourishes a hate that can prove fatal. Weaving together the crimes and the comments of the six killers, Licensed to Kill is skillfu...See the full content of this document
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