Reel Politik: PUTNEY SWOPE (1969) in 35mm with cartoonist Nathan Gelgud

(Robert Downey Sr., 1969, 84 min, 35mm)

In September 2024–a time of deep uncertainty for both American democracy and traditional cinema exhibition–cartoonist and ardent cinephile Nathan Gelgud introduced REEL POLITIK, a daily web comic following the exploits of a band of disgruntled theatre employees and filmgoers who “seize the means of projection” and introduce a program of revolutionary, anti-bourgeois cinematic reforms. Taking inspiration from the films of Godard and Gorin, Straub-Huillet, and underground firebrands like Robert Kramer and Robert Downey, Gelgud’s endlessly inventive comics forge a blend of agitprop, magical realism, and trenchant insight into the shortcomings–and emancipatory possibilities–of film art. 

Now collected in paperback form by Drawn and Quarterly, REEL POLITIK is staging a coup at Block Cinema, with Gelgud appearing in person for a rare 35mm screening of one of his most important source texts: Robert Downey’s uproarious 1969 satire PUTNEY SWOPE. One of the most notorious films of the dawn of “midnight movies,” SWOPE offers a gleefully anarchic vision of a New York advertising agency taken over by the company’s only Black employee. With its breakneck, punchline-per-second pace, SWOPE shatters the illusion of cinematic realism (and the boundaries of “good taste”), but the film also possesses a lucidity and grace befitting the credit Downey famously gave himself–“a prince.” 

Following the screening, Gelgud will appear for a discussion and audience Q&A.

Host or Publisher The Block Museum of Art