The "God's Lonely Man" Cinema of Paul Schrader w/ Gordon Glasgow Goodman #081

Queen is Dead - A Film, TV and Culture Podcast

On the eve of Paul Schrader's latest film's release, Dhruv invites fellow cinema studies student and writer -- Gordon Glasgow Goodman -- to discuss thier obsession with writer-director Paul Schrader. Explicitly focusing on "First Reformed," the two talk about the unifying themes of his work that seems to begin at a point of hardboiled noir -- God's Lonely Man -- before transcending into another variant of it that's less to do with action and more to do with externalizing tormenting questions with no easy answers about faith vs. flesh and the (im)possibility of redemption.

Listen to the full episode to hear us talk in-depth about his religious attempts at balancing "hope and despair" in all his films, his slight variations on the "Lonely Man" character at the center of each of his films, and how all this keeps bringing him (and us via him) back to Robert Bresson's "Pickpocket" (1959).

Spoilers for "First Reformed," "The Card Counter," & "Pickpocket."

TIME CODES

Introduction to Gordon, His Writing, and His Love-Affair with Cinema: 00:00 - 22:04

The Cinema and Writings of Paul Schrader: 22:05 - 30:39

"First Reformed" and its Brethren: 30:40 - 01:16:30

FOLLOW GORDON'S WRITING HERE:

"Calendance": https://calendance.substack.com/

"Trajectories": https://gordonglasgow.substack.com/

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