Reel Politik: Nathan Gelgud presents Putney Swope at Cinema Moderne

Name: Reel Politik: Nathan Gelgud presents Putney Swope at Cinema Moderne
Start: 2025-11-15T18:45:00-05:00
Location: Cinéma Moderne

Schedule

Sat, 15 Nov, 2025 at 06:45 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Cinéma Moderne | Montreal, QC

Join Reel Politik author Nathan Gelgud at Cinema Moderne on Saturday November 15th at 7 pm for a special screening of Putney Swope (1969), directed by Robert Downey Sr. After the screening the author will talk movies and sign books! Copies of Reel Politik will be available to purchase at the cinema.
Buy tickets here: https://www.cinemamoderne.com/en/films/details/putney-swope/
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Gelgud’s comic strip Reel Politik is about a contrarian crew of small town theatre employees who trade quips about directors, film criticism, and contemporary moviegoing, but underneath their banter and clashes with customers, an ideology begins to take shape. With the help of a dissatisfied cinephile and some witchy magic, the employees radicalize, take over the theatre, and seize the means of projection.
What starts out as a workplace comedy simmers and then explodes into an absurdist Marxist-Leninist cinema-focused tract. The Reel Politik revolutionaries demand that we ditch the small screens in our pockets for the big ones in the theater as they take on streaming services, phone addiction, algorithms, phony democracy, and the conventions of moviegoing etiquette. Does that mean they hijack the Criterion Closet van? You bet it does.
Cartoonist Nathan Gelgud both champions and lampoons the aspirations and failures of cinema and not a single sacred cinematic cow goes un-punched in this manifesto for revolution through film.
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About the film: Putney Swope, the only African-American exec at his firm, is unexpectedly elected its president and turns the industry on its ear through a series of outrageous, taboo-busting TV commercials (strewn throughout the film like comedic landmines.) As Swope becomes the Generalissimo of Madison Avenue, Downey takes no prisoners and skewers the entire political spectrum. Essential viewing.