With Paul Schrader’s must-read book Transcendental Style In Film – suggested by special guest Viktor van der Valk – as a stepping stone for the last Celebrating Cinema podcast of 2021, our hosts discuss the different varieties of transcendental filmmaking and the way it impacts us as viewers. They talk about their film club pick, Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), and mention essential filmmakers like Andrei Tarkovsky, Chantal Akerman, Yasujiro Ozu, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Terrence Malick. Where do you find yourself near the Tarkovsky Ring…?

Our guest

Viktor van der Valk (1987, Iceland) directed Wegloos/Vegleysa (2011) while studying at the School of the Arts Utrecht (HKU). The short was selected for the Debut Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival. After three years at the HKU, Van der Valk continued his film education at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam, where he made the short films Steen/Brick (2013) and Onno de Onwetende/Onno the Oblivious (2014). Nocturne is his first feature and has its world premiere at IFFR 2019. His brother, actor Vincent van der Valk, plays the lead role.

Next episode

Back for season 2 and here to grace you with a two hour special all about writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson! Licorice Pizza (2021) has finally hit screens, so it’s only right we take a look back at his career. PTA certainly has an obsession with co-dependent relationships, creating sympathy for unruly characters, and a true connoisseur of fuck boys but does it always pay off?

Films mentioned

• Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
• American Gigolo (Paul Schrader, 1980)
• Hardcore (Paul Schrader, 1979)
• The Comfort Of Strangers (Paul Schrader, 1990)
• Nocturne (Viktor van der Valk, 2021)
• Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966)
• 15 Hours (Wang Bing, 2017)
• A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson, 1956)
• Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959)
• Gunda (Viktor Kosakovskiy, 2020)
• Le Diable Probablement (Robert Bresson, 1977)
• L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)
• Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)
• Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
• The Tree Of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
• West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2021)
• Nick Of Time (John Badham, 1995)
• 24 (Robert Cochran, Joel Surnow, 2001-2014)
• Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
• First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2017)
• The Card Counter (Paul Schrader, 2021)
• Diary Of A Country Priest (Robert Bresson, 1951)
• Light Sleeper (Paul Schrader, 1992)

Our hosts