EPISODE 36: Desensitized Urologist

PROMPTS: Hand, Monochrome, 291

This week, Lauren and Neal find themselves surrounded by haunting photographs, avant-garde rebels, seduction by switchblade, and the power of a well-composed shadow. It’s all about hands—on camera, in print, and tattooed across the knuckles of cinema’s creepiest preacher.

Lauren dives into the story of Alfred Stieglitz and the legendary Gallery 291, where modern art and photography staked a claim in the American imagination. From pictorialism to straight photography, and from Paul Strand to Picabia’s mechanical portraits, this gallery helped launch modernism in the U.S. and gave us iconic images of Georgia O’Keeffe, especially her hands—obsessively captured by Stieglitz in photos that were both intimate and era-defining. Affairs, artistic movements, and gallery drama—who says photography history can’t be juicy?

Then Neal revisits the criminally underrated 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton and starring a hauntingly seductive Robert Mitchum. With its German Expressionist style, Southern Gothic tone, and nightmare-level villain, it’s no surprise that this one-off film became a favorite of Spike Lee, Scorsese, the Coens, and more. Love and Hate, stitched across the knuckles, meet deep focus cinematography and false prophets.  

Lauren's Topic:

Alfred Stieglitz

Neal's Topic:

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Directed by Charles Laughton

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