Interview: Josh & Benny Safdie (Archive)

0:00Adam Wednesday is when we like to drop something from the vast FilmSpotting Archive. and we'll get to this week's treat. But first off, if you want access, if a listener wants access to that vast archive, listen to everything in there, 20 plus years now of content, you could join the Film Spotting family and you should join the Film Spotting family this month because it is 20 % off through January. Give me the details. Give me the promo code and how they can do that again. Well, we're talking about Marty Supreme this week. So we thought, why not make that promo code Supreme and you'll get a Supreme discount, 20 % off all subscriptions.

0:40So it could be the monthly approach to the film spotting family. Or if you pay annually where you really get the biggest discount, you can get 20 % off that as well. Just use promo code Supreme film spotting family.com. There you go. So jump on that this week out of our gracious hearts. We're going to give you for free. Adam, it's your interview with Josh and Benny Safdie about uncut gems. Yeah, and it's funny, Josh. I haven't listened to this yet, re-listened to it, and I just went back and looked at my notes for the interview and the questions that I had jotted down. You'll never believe some of the words and phrases that are littering the page in front of me as we just recorded our review of Marty Supreme that's coming later in the week.

1:26I've got things like single-mindedly focused on their objective and spiraling out of control and larger purpose. So there are some themes that do reoccur. I'm talking there about Connie in Good Time, played by Robert Pattinson. I'm talking about Howard, played by Adam Sandler in Undercut Gems. And yes, that is true as well of Timothee Chalamet as Marty in Marty's Supreme. So we thought, why not set the table, set the table tennis, set the ping pong table, Josh. The tennis table. Is that close to a pun? Sure. The tennis table for our conversation. And we have a lengthy one about Marty Supreme coming with this conversation with Josh and Benny Safdie about Uncut Gems.

2:14And this comes to you from the year 2019.

2:22I made a crazy risk. We gambled. It's about to pay off.

2:34So I want the Celtics to cover. I want the Celtics halftime. I want Garnett points and rebounds. What do you know? I don't know. I just know. Well, I'll tell you what I know. It's the dumbest f***ing bet I ever heard of. I disagree. I disagree, Gary. We last spoke for Good Time back in 2017, and I think it's fair to say there's a lot of Connie in Howard here in this film. They're both kind of single-mindedly focused on whatever their objective is, though their objectives are very different. We'll definitely get into that, but there's that sense of the urgency of the moment always bringing out kind of the best in them or the worst in them, which is something we talked about.

3:17And I was wondering if you guys are aware or how aware are you of a character's lineage, if you will, when you're creating that character? Are you thinking about how similar Howard may be to Connie? Well, it's kind of. No. The short answer is no. But the longer answer is what happens when you spend 10 years working on a project. That's how long we've been working on Uncut Gems. So Connie and his creation was the whole film Good Time came about because Pattinson wanted to work with us and he wasn't right for any role in Uncut Gems and it led to the creation of Good Time. And actually Benny's character in Good Time was originally in Uncut Gems.

3:58And then we used it for that one. But I do think that the single-mindedness and the determination to see a dream realized and prove your worth in the world or maybe to the universe stems from a decade-long pursuit of a single entity, which is Uncut Gems. Yeah, and I think it also makes sense to just kind of see a character who you might not at first see the beauty in or the understanding in and kind of trying to see the love in them or understanding. And that's what Uncut Gems is. It's the rough on the outside but beautiful on the inside. The difference for me between Gems and Good Time, you know, is that the Connie character was slightly more anthropological in the sense that I can I've seen that person before.

4:51I know people like that. There are tiny little pieces of me in it, but it's for more or less study. Whereas Gems, there's a lot of me in Howard. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of personal stuff in that movie that maybe wasn't in good time, not to denigrate good time in any way. Well, I want to stay on this path for a second, because, as you said, they're both kind of con men at their core, right? Self-destructive, always the sense of things kind of spiraling out of control around them. But Connie is sympathetic in that we can definitely appreciate his larger purpose, which is to keep his brother, played by you, Benny, out of jail.

5:28We know he needs to be protected. We're on board with that. So I feel like for most viewers getting to a place where the end justifies whatever insane means we're watching unfold, it's easier to get to probably. I think it's a tougher proposition with Howard. And so I'm curious. That's the first time I've heard that. Yeah, I don't see that. So that's where I was going. I feel like he's more irredeemable. And I wondered if that was part of the challenge and fun for you with this project or if you discard that completely and you see him as redeemable. I see Howard as the ultimate provider. I think that he's a, you know, Connie's kind of does a lot of, you know, really.

6:03He's also the reason that the brother's in jail in the first place. So true. So it's like kind of a, I mean, Howard is such a, this character Sandler plays and also Sandler in general is a notoriously lovable person. And I think that Howard is, is, I think that he's ultimately a righteous person. And I don't, I don't see him as a con man. I don't think that he has any con that he's pulling, he's trying to pull off in this film. I think that he's actually he's just trying. The con might be to prove that he belongs in a society that actually might say you don't belong. Maybe your place is to be somewhat towards the bottom and not some guy at the top.

6:38And he's trying to cheat God. And I think that the patriarchal part of Howard is, you know, that he has all these people who depend on him, that all these people that he has to support, which makes him, I think. Like, I mean, look, they're both same sides. They're different parts of our voice. But it's funny, though, because I remember when Scott Rudin, who's one of the producers of this film, when he read it, he said the opposite when he read the script. He was like, you know, the difference here is that, you know, Howard's a guy you can love, whereas Connie, you can't love him. Yeah, and I think Howard does bring the best out of the people around him.

7:17You know, he creates this environment where everybody has a say in some ways. And I think with him, he also knows when he does know when he's going to do something, how it will affect other people. And I think he knows that and then does it anyway. He does it anyway. But the thing is, is at least he is aware of that. And like when he checks in with his daughter, he knows he's affected the family in a deep, deep way. Right. And I think that's part of what we were talking about with Sandler, too, was here's a guy who does some things that you might not be able to get behind. But it's very important that we root him in real emotions and feelings because you do need to love this guy.

7:54You do need to root for him. And when people are yelling at the screen, oh, don't do that, don't do this, you don't want him to do it. If you didn't like somebody or didn't love somebody, you wouldn't really be yelling at the screen to get them to stop. The film is called Uncut Gems by design, obviously. We don't just pick random words out of a hat. But, you know, the concept of something being considered or deemed unvaluable on the outside because of rough impressions. And when you scope down underneath it and get to something, you get to the insides of this gem, there's actually deep value there that you can take in the sense that, you know, certain people are, you know, they might appear rough on the outside.

8:39But deep down inside, there's something kind of great about them. And that's, you know, the perseverance, the fact that he's a very egalitarian person. Everyone is equal in their regards. Someone like Connie, not everybody was equal at all. He was actually very, very condescending of a person. So there are these elements to the character that I disagree with you on, but it's your experience. And I want to be clear, it's nuanced, right? We could dissect these two characters, talk about their similarities and differences, I think, for a long time. And I think that's - I love them both. I love all of our characters.

9:09Yeah. And that comes through. And I think that was one of the surprises for me of the film, not knowing really anything about it. I try to go in with as much of a blank slate, not even watching trailers if I can avoid it. And I sort of expected, even after the first few minutes, that I was going to watch kind of a standard movie tale of a gambler who is a loser. Right. Because that's what we usually see. Guys, they're so they owe so much money to someone. They're just trying to get out of this hole that they're in and they're willing to do anything to get out of it. But that's not really the character you guys have created.

9:37He's he's not just trying to get himself out of a hole. He's he's willing to dig whatever size hole he has to to achieve some kind of higher calling. Exactly. Yeah, for sure. What's funny is, and I don't want to spoil the movie in any way, but for a guy who's a degenerate gambler, there's some pretty big bets in this movie that he takes that he maybe makes. So, you know, it is I think the higher calling element to it is he's also don't forget he's a guy who was the man in the 90s, late 90s and early aughts. He was the guy. and he's starting to now see that fall away and that life is full of cycles and that he's actually trying to kind of go against the grain of natural tides.

10:22Yeah, and I think just like we... You just cut him off, man. Well, yeah, but because it's like... I would rather hear from you. Okay, so would our listeners. He's not, it's, yes, he has lost, but he goes through life as a winner, you know? Yeah, you touched on the casting of Adam Sandler. So how important was it? whether you love him or not or I'm being too harsh on Howard he certainly does a lot of hurtful things to other people how important was it to have a character like Sandler who brings just an affability and an amiability to anything he does paramount there was yeah it wouldn't work there's no other person the only other person who I could ever see this movie uh functioning with is Rodney Dangerfield and but that was that would have to be 10 years before Easy Money but then again Easy Money came at a time in his life when you know he had a certain age that made him lovable Yeah.

11:08Sandler has an uncanny ability to root the most absurd scenarios in a weird form of his own brand of realism. Yeah. You look at those early. And he's lovable. Yeah. People love him. And I love him. I deeply love him. We grew up on his records before we even saw the movies. Sure. You look at his early, all of his comedies really, those early comedies which are so crazy and so absurd. And you really are looking at the screen and saying, I want that guy to win and I want him to succeed. and it's just something inside of him. You know, it's part of his soul that we knew that that needed to be brought to the character in a way that the film wouldn't work without that.

11:47Yeah, and I wanted to ask about one element of the performance and I'm totally prepared for you guys to tell me I'm wrong about this part too, but the frenetic pace of the film, right? I don't want to tell you you're wrong about anything. That's what's great about movies is that they're your own, the viewer's experience. For sure, but this is, I know this word, talk about cliches, you've heard it 4 ,000 times. It's intense, right? Just like good times. And it struck me, though, fairly early on and throughout the film that Howard is never really overwhelmed by it, right? Never. He kind of thrives on it.

12:15Obviously, he's usually the one causing it. But I think you actually see that in Sandler's performance a little bit in how relatively slowly he speaks. Right? He's always in motion and he's always talking, that's for sure. But it seemed to me almost like he's always slowing down the pace a little bit like a point guard. Yeah. You know, who's like, I'm going to bring it up. It's a little bit too chaotic. I'm going to bring it up deliberately and consider my options. He's always listening and feeling the conversations around him. And, yeah, that's the truth is there is like there's a moment where it does kind of catch up with him and he does feel the weight of it all.

12:47But for the most part, he is trying. He's trying his hardest. You know, he's thinking. I guess what makes it so stressful is so many decisions happening right away and they're all like, oh, my God, I wish you did that. But he is trying to make the best decision in that exact second. And keep going from there. The thing that I'm most kind of moved by and encouraged by is in the screening process of this movie since Telluride, Toronto, New York, et cetera, even last night in Chicago, is seeing how entertained people are by the stressful scenarios. And that's taking a concept of, hey, we're going to make this comedic thriller or thriller comedic drama, however you want to peg this movie.

13:26But it's thrilling in its soul. and we're going to include in the thrill attention that is so lived in and real and personal and then we're going to have someone like Adam Sandler come and add humor to it at moments. It's creating this new form of entertainment, if you want to call it that, but the experience is so immersive and I think seeing it like we saw last night in the theater, you can, you know, if you see a sad movie with an audience, hearing someone cry might actually be distracting. I'm not taking anything away from sad movies, but that is the truth. If you see a scary movie with a bunch of people, the collective fright is a huge part of the experience.

14:08Seeing a thriller like this with a bunch of people, I'm telling you, I've seen it in every theater, you can feel the entire audience lean towards the screen as if they want to reach out to the screen and grab Howard, Adam Sandler, and just shake some sense into him. For sure. It's popping in my head right now. There's a very funny scene in the Buster Keaton movie, Steamboat Bill. Yeah, and his whole boat is sinking, and he's holding all of the holes. The water's pouring in. He doesn't know what to do, so he realizes, okay, I got it. He then picks up a hammer. He's in the bottom of the boat, picks up a hammer and some nails, and he goes to nail in over the hole inside the boat.

14:47And in the moment, you're thinking, that's a great idea. Cover up the hole. The moment the hammer hits the nail, more water. So, of course. But that's the essence that you're trying to kind of create here. When we were here last time, we talked about Pattinson's performance. And I asked you guys to talk about a moment or a scene in the film where he really surprised you with something, where it wasn't how you envisioned it at all when it was on the page. And Benny, you had a great moment, which was a moment between the two of you, the hug and I love you scene in the elevator. And Josh, you talked about that great line he has when he says to the younger girl, you know, don't be confused.

15:23It'll just make it harder for me. And also that kind of that story he tells Jennifer Jason Leigh in the taxi cab. So I'm wondering if there's a similar story with Sandler. Is there an example for each of you? Oh, my God, it was so many. Or he really surprised you with something? I think that there's a big scene between him and Kevin Garnett towards the end of the film. It's about a six-page scene. And it's the scene we spent the most time writing and the most time editing and the least time shooting. but that's largely because of the testament to the two performers Garnett blew us away but Sandler, the way that he was able to give the moral compass and the meaning of the movie essentially in one scene without it feeling like naked exposition and just like it's from his soul and you kind of feel bad for him in that moment and that was unbelievable another moment that, you know, is like a tiny scene there's a scene with the sports radio show host personality Mike French has a, where Sandler delivers this line.

16:23They use it in the trailers. I disagree. The way that he said it, you know, first of all, he has this motor mouth quality throughout the whole scene. And then he pauses at the end and he just looks at me and goes, I disagree. I disagree, Gary. The way that he said it, as a Sandler fan, too, is just like, oh, there's the iconic Sandler moment. Yeah, and there's so many moments. It's hard to justify one because. I know which one you want to do, though. You don't have to do it either. Oh, yeah. When he's with Idina in that conversation. Idina Menzel. Idina Menzel. That's a big scene. Sandler starts doing this kind of thing where he's like exhaling.

16:58There's a lot of mouth movement. He's like you can feel the uncomfort. He's really trying to get it out, but he's not saying it. But yeah, in general, it was just watching him make these micro decisions as Howard. It's like I wasn't watching Adam perform it. I was watching Howard in these scenes doing it. And there's like a very little one where it's like when Garnett says to his manager, just wait right here. We'll be right back. Howard just instinctively owns that idea and looks at the manager and does the same exact hand motion that Garnett does like a half a second later just to be like, oh, yeah, that was my idea.

17:33This is good. I also really love the – he would add improvised jokes all the time, like little things that he felt like Howard could do. In particular, like tiny weird borscht belty things. Like when he goes and is going to pawn a ring to these two real jewelers, he goes, I'd shake your hand, but I know where it's been. Right. Just like it's such a bad joke, but it's such a how it's such a jeweler joke that he did. And it was really great. For sure. And the movie is filled with stuff like that. Yeah. You talked about the immersive quality. The film sound obviously has a big part in that. And I know Altman is a big touchstone for you guys.

18:11And there's that element to it. I think anyone watching it will get a little bit of a sense of whether it's The Long Goodbye or McCabe and Mrs. Miller. But when I think about those films in particular, which I love, there's that sense of kind of hanging out in the space with all those multiple voices. You're just kind of it's very laid back and you kind of eavesdrop on the conversations and decide which one you're going to poke your head in. Yes. There's nothing really laid back at all about how you guys are doing. Well, California Split, another Altman film, about gambling, all the gambling dens are filled with all of these kind of, again, more down and out players.

18:43But you're right. There's a great story about Warren Beatty at the premiere of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. He's sitting next to Robert Altman. And 20 minutes into the movie, Warren Beatty turns to Altman and he goes, does the whole movie sound like this? And Altman turned to him with a smile. He goes, yeah. How cool is that? And Altman and Beatty's just like, oh, I can't handle this because it was he was so ahead of his time. And you're pointing out something interesting, which is, yes, if you let it exist and kind of a more laid back feeling, it's one thing. What we're trying to do here is we're trying to kind of really capture the points of view of everybody in the scene at almost exactly the same time.

19:21And we're very, very like the shot, reverse shot is so important. And to get a shot, reverse shot within that environment from a production standpoint is almost physically impossible. But we're so, so tuned in to kind of making that impossibility a reality. And what it does for the actors, I think, is something kind of incredible because if you give people the ability to speak over one another and not have to wait, you're going to create a performance that's a lot freer. And it's like, yes, it's like we're going to make that work afterwards, no matter how hard it's going to be. But, yeah, what Altman did there, which I found a little so, so important, was the realism of the performances in these situations that aren't real.

20:05And then I guess what we're trying to do now is just take that and then create the appearance of a two-camera cutting, even though it's not – we're not doing that. But to create this kind of single-camera point-of-view shift at any moment in time. I'm surprised that Benny was able to actually get that all across because to prove a point right now, I'm messing with the volume modulation on his headphones. He's a pro. And it's going from blasting to complete silence. And that's something that life is all about. Sometimes you have these cacophony noises that you have to ignore. And as an actor, I think it's very freeing.

20:39I think for a lot of the actors it was – I wanted to – yeah, I wanted to touch on that because you talk about maybe how they felt in that space. My first reaction was as an actor, I would find it so distracting and so chaotic that maybe I couldn't fully get into the character. But I imagine it is just the opposite. It's kind of freeing. It lends itself to an authenticity. You're not performing as much. You're not thinking about the construct of the scene. You know, you're thinking about, OK, this is all really happening. So just go with it. I think that as somebody who's acted briefly in a couple of things, I think a big thing that sometimes is that suspension disbelief and being able to basically disappear into the character.

21:21In a specific scene, in a scene between Sandler and Lakeith Stanfield, there's a scene early on in the movie where they have a conversation about fake Rolexes. And, you know, that conversation is supposed to be a private one amongst a group of people in a small showroom on 7th floor on 47th Street in New York City. Now, I hate it in movies and TV when you see people have a private conversation that's clearly can be heard. So we encourage all the extras to actually speak and have their own experience. And I think for Lakeith and Sandler, that was really informing and it allowed them to actually feel like they were having a private conversation that felt like it had high stakes.

22:02Because you have, you know, and also don't forget that if the general din of the audio of people speaking arose a certain amount, they could increase the volume of their voice. So there was no pretending in a certain way. And then on our end, it's a matter of like you're working with somebody like Skip Livesey who was mixing it. he has to kind of keep it in a relative reality. You know, we were working with the confines of that as our basis. So when you have that audio, it's a matter of working it in and working like we would actually be listening to certain parts. And when there was a break in the dialogue, like, oh, let's bring in that ADR that we recorded in the background.

22:40Let's raise it up so you can hear that person there. And it is kind of a woven fabric of sound there. I want to close, though, there's so much more to get to with this movie, with our kind of rapid fire film spotting five. You guys were nice enough to play last time. The first two questions, same as last time. What's the last movie you saw in a theater other than your own? Last movie I saw in a theater was, I mean, we've been having to promote so much. Might have been Parasite. Yeah. For me, it might have been. Oh, no. What are we talking about? I just went to go see Lost Highway two days ago in L.A.

23:10Yeah. At Tarantino as a theater. Yeah. And then before that, I did every break that I had in L.A., I would go to Tarantino Theater. I saw Murder by Contract. And the one before that was Dolomite is King. Yeah, Dolomite. And then I did, but the most recent new release I saw, I guess, was Dolomite. Yeah. Parasite was right before. And I saw The Lighthouse in Parasite. Okay. The movie, a movie that you revisited recently. Something you love that you checked out. In a Lonely Place. Oh, yeah. Great film. Nicholas LeRae, yeah. And oddly relevant for this movie. Yeah, for sure. I want to say that I revisited, because I actually, the one, it's hard because I revisited a bunch of stuff in pieces.

23:57But I guess Hole in the Head, I watched that again recently. Is there a current movie obsession you have? A director, an actor, an actress? Yeah, I recently wanted to re-watch every talk Fujimoto lensed movie, and it leads you down a pretty extensive 80s hole of filmmaking. But yeah, I wanted to look at every talk Fujimoto movie. Last question. Actually, two more real quick. Movie that made you want to become a director? Oh, that made me want to become a director. Yeah. Yeah. It might. Weirdly enough, it was probably the movie Kids. I mean, Kramer versus Kramer was the first movie that showed the power of cinema when we were little kids.

24:47But kids I saw when I was 15 and I was in a scenario where there was whippets happening. And it was I saw the scene on a VHS tape and it just felt like life bled onto the screen. And I was so curious about how that could be done. Yeah, it was – I was going to go to school to be a physicist and then film in addition. And I went to – Josh said, oh, come over to Boston University and watch this – we're looking at the neorealist, the Italian neorealist. And I saw Il Posto and totally changed. Really? Yeah. I couldn't believe that you could do – and then, of course, then you dig deeper into that whole era.