Cockfighter + A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Episode Notes

The rough and tumble birds of existential cinema. Cockfighter as the rare Corman underdog. The drifter and the road film. Holding strong onto the extended bird metaphor. Don’t call Pigeons sky-rats. The composition of A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. An easy look at obtuse arthouse that you can try at home. Using a logline to figure out what a film is about (when the film itself isn’t a lot of help). What it’s like to see The Pigeon with people and the strange ambivalence to cruelty when watching in isolation. On the ground reporting: New York City has something hopeful to offer.

Trailers

Covers

Cockfighter

Released: August 1, 1974
Runtime: 83 min | IMDB | Wikipedia

Director: Monte Hellman
Writer: Charles Willeford
Starring: Warren Oates, Richard B. Shull, Harry Dean Stanton

A man who trains fighting cocks vows to remain silent until one of his birds wins a championship.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

Released: October 24, 2014
Runtime: 101 min | IMDB | Wikipedia

Director: Roy Andersson
Writer: Roy Andersson
Starring: Holger Andersson, Nisse Vestblom, Viktor Gyllenberg

An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.