Kate Wolf is joined by writer and film critic Nick Pinkerton to discuss his book-length essay on Tsai Ming-liang’s film Goodbye, Dragon Inn, which revolves around the final screening at a cinema in Taiwan — on the very day that 300 movie theaters were shuttered across Southern California. The book is both a eulogy and a call to arms for cinema. Kate and Nick share a defiant sadness, revel in memories of the power and meaning they found in a communal space of shared dreams, and wonder how it might be preserved amidst the tyranny of tiny screens and the banality of the bottom line.
Also, Sam Cohen, author of the collection of stories Sarahland, drops by to recommend Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions.