Cinéclub Podcast number 25 is a conversation with Nathan Gelgud. Nathan is the cartoonist behind the comic strip Reel Politik, which he posts on his Instagram page before the publisher Drawn and Quarterly collects them into beautiful books. The first eponymous collection was released last year and the second, entitled No Concessions is, as this podcast is released, hot off the presses: it came out yesterday.
I asked Nathan to explain the strip in his own words at the beginning of the conversation, but for me it is an affectionate and very funny send-up of of radical leftist politics and rabid cinephilia, loaded with plenty of well-deserved jibes at the likes of Letterboxd, the Criterion Closet and mainstream film critics.
For this episode we discuss the strip first, before moving into a discussion of Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin’s 1972 film Tout va bien, an example of their radical work under the name the ‘Dziga Vertov Group’, referenced frequently in Reel Politik.
You can also find this episode on…
* Apple Podcasts
* Pocket Casts
* I will no longer be uploading podcasts to Spotify and have removed all previous episodes of the podcast from that platform. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for ages, because Spotify is a transparently evil company that delights in ripping off musicians, promoting AI slop, and enabling genocide in Palestine.
Show notes
* Nathan’s website
* Nathan’s Instagram page
* Publisher’s info on Nathan’s books (both are also widely available in the UK)
* No Concessions
* Reel Politik
* Other books mentioned in the podcast
* A Short History of Cahiers du Cinéma by Emilie Bickerton
* The Red Years of Cahiers du Cinémaby Daniel Fairfax (open access PDF)
* Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godardby Richard Brody
* Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at Seventy by Colin MacCabe appears to be out of print, but widely available second-hand
* We Want Everything: A Novelby Nanni Balestrini
* Buy issue 2 of the Cinéclub fanzine
* 44 pages w/ articles on Conrad Rooks’ bizarre, star-studded countercultural artifact Chappaqua, some shorter pieces on punk and film, and an essay linking Bertrand Tavernier’s 1974 film The Watchmaker of St. Paul (also known as The Clockmaker of St. Paul) to Paul Vecchiali’s La Machine from 1977. DIY and sold on a not-for-profit basis at a cost that just covers the cost of printing: £2.50 plus postage. Shipping internationally.
* Issue 1 is also still available, and you can buy both as a bundle.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cineclub.substack.com
