Josh Safdie on the ambition of ‘Marty Supreme’

0:00From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:12it's the treatment i'm elvis mitchell my guest director josh seffrey i've known for almost 20 years crazy it's his first film as the director he just told me the backstory for it uh the pleasure being robbed i saw it south by southwest but i even know you a little bit because seeing you around with your with your shorts yeah i had a lot of shorts and of course you You were always the allure. Like, oh my God, Elvis Mitchell's here. You had a very low bar in those days. Thank God it's changed. But you know what's great about you is you're there. You know what I mean? You're there. You're looking at people in the beginning, and that's special.

0:44Well, it's nice to see it be as special as it is now, especially when you're here to talk about your new film, Marty Supreme. And it, for me, falls in this sort of line of films you do about loners who don't realize that they need people around them. Interesting, yeah. And there are two scenes that really sort of epitomize that for me in this movie. The first scene is the sex scene, the shoe store. He's really connecting in a way that's not just about the sex. Absolutely. And there's a scene with a taxi driver friend who is played by Tyler, the creator, when they jump out of the car and they run.

1:13And it's like blissful. And there's moments in all of your movies. It's funny just to watch them all back to back to get ready for this. Wow, really? Even in your documentary, it's like the moment where somebody, you realize, oh, this guy desperately needs to connect with other people. Where does that come from? Wow, what an amazing question. I consider myself a lonely extrovert. I didn't really feel like I ever really fit in anywhere, so I tried to fit in everywhere in some sense. The movie's kind of chasing happiness, and I think everything I do, I'm chasing happiness. I think that time is the enemy, and the only moments when time does not exist are moments of love and purity.

1:55Those two moments you're talking about right there, obviously there's love. It's not just passion. It's, well, passion is love. It's not just sex. It's not just physical. There's a connection of two people who aren't really embracing the way they want to be or the people who they are. They're lonely in their kind of false paths in a way. And then Tyler, you know, what's beautiful about that scene, and that's one of my favorites, one of the first things that got written, And Tyler was one of the first characters, first people I wanted to cast. I wrote the movie for him, Timmy, Gwyneth, Abel. Timmy Chalamet.

2:27Timmy Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Abel Ferreira, and Tyler, the creator, Tyler Okama. Those are the people I wrote the movie for. Everyone else you cast and then you retrofit them. And Tyler is a lonely extrovert. He is also a punk. And he's looking constantly for those moments of connection where he disappears and he gets big. That's what I love about him. Every movie I make is kind of a documentary about the people inside of them on some level. And I love that you're pointing out those two moments because I relate so deeply to those moments. And I think those moments are what anchor an audience to these characters.

3:06And in the Tyler scene, you know, you see two people who have Mike. Marty has this macro dream. You say Marty is your little character who's fighting to turn table tennis into a sport. And he actually has some of my favorite lines. He's talking about the way growing up, you feel about the Harlem Globetrotters, that they were world-class athletes because of racism or forced to subsist on this subculture. There's a lot of, on my research, I read this tour diary for the Globetrotters. It was fascinating because there's a lot of theories about the Globetrotters at that period then that they were American propaganda, that the communists and the socialists were basically saying, oh, this capitalism is so great.

3:46Look at how black people are being treated in this country. And then America's like, we'll pay for the Globetrotters to go around the world and be like, look, look how great American - Goodwill ambassadors. Exactly. And for the kind of things that weren't really happening in the NBA, which was the whitest league in the world. It's crazy, right? That neediness that's in all of your films. And I think about the great moments in Uncut Gems when he's in his house, his family home by himself. And he's sort of reveling in what that house is like. You can see him seeing his family, his absent family in front of him.

4:13It's all Daddy Longlegs. I mean, heaven knows what. It's that moment where when she's with her squad, she just feels like, well, she's finally connected with some people who feel her. And it's so prevalent in your work. What was interesting about her life is that she chased, obviously, she was a drug addict, but she chased drama because drama allowed her to escape. You know, Daddy Long Legs is a foundational piece of work because I think it reflects how I felt when growing up. There was a lot of flawed people around me. When you're a kid, you just look up to these people because they're taking care of you.

4:48And I think that instilled upon me an empathy that I can see. It's dangerous at times, too. You can be led astray. But I can find the good in people. And I think that that empathy is, I think empathy is probably the most important thing we have as human beings. And I think we need it now more than ever. It's true. We're talking empathy with my guest, Josh Savity, whose new film is Marty Supreme. I guess I was thinking about this too, because you're talking about her in Heaven Knows What. Your film's also about people who use conversation as a contact sport. They tend to want to draw blood in conversation.

5:23That sort of hunger for drama you're talking about exists in all these characters. Yeah, it's exciting. I feel when I'm engaged with somebody, again, it's all about time is the enemy for everything. So it's like when you, Albert Einstein tried to describe relativity to somebody by using this example, he said, if you're with the person that you love for one hour, it feels like a second. If you have your hand on a stove for one hour, it feels like an eternity. And that one second thing is always the goal for me. And I think Ronnie and myself, Ronnie Bronstein, who I write. written on what's all your films with a lot of films with and i started off with him as as an actor in one of my movies and he contributed as a writer to that and he edits with you as well i edited on this film i edited with him you know he's a jouster too i mean he's quite confrontational you know obviously our work wouldn't be what it is without the mashing two of our minds but our writing process is quite combative is it yeah oh man it's brutal it's brutal we'll bring like the most, you know, intimate, deep rooted experience to the table because it feels relevant in the context of a scene or a story, or we're developing a character background.

6:33And one of us will just beat the living hell out of it. And Ronnie likes to say, we tie it to a chair and one of us forces it to confess its weaknesses. And then he said, the person who came up with the idea all of a sudden is joining in and beating it up too. And then the person who is torturing it all of a sudden is now defending the idea. But that, I think, you know, you see that in the work a little bit in the reifying of the ideas. I'm not sure if it's an American thing, but certainly it's something that your characters have for a kind of theater. Literally, we have to see him at a theater and his take on the play is stunningly precise.

7:07I mean, he nails it. So, I mean, his own sort of inner need for theater gives him a real eye for actual theater taking plays. Yeah, for sure. You know, what's interesting is about when you start to write the character biography, you start, you have to ask yourself, like I did all this research to understand like what was going on in the culture in 1952, 51, 50, 49, when Marty was a young man, you know, you see the movies, then you think, well, does Marty even like movies? Does he have time to go to the movies? Does he have money to go to the movies? Is he wasting that on time? And I do think that he liked the glory of the movies.

7:39And Hollywood was interesting because these people were stars and they had gravitational pull. but I don't think he was into movies. You know, obviously I had this backstory with him in the Rachel character where they, where he brought her, they skipped school and they went to go see King Kong. And while the lights, before the lights went down, he said, what are your, what's your dream? And this young woman, she's like, I don't get to dream. You know, my dream, I guess, is to find a man, have a child, take care of the child. You know, that was that. Cause that's what her, the women in her family did.

8:07And he said, no, you need to have a dream. I got two dreams. First one is to be the greatest table tennis player in the world. The second one is to become a very rich man. I shared that with Odessa, who plays Rachel Odessa Zion, who's unbelievable in the movie, and Timothy. And when they saw that, they understood that life was kind of a theater for them. And that's what made them bond. And you see that multiple times in the film. And I think what's interesting about that moment when he shows up in the play. He's going to see Gwyneth Paltrow's character in a play. And she hasn't acted for years.

8:39Which, by the way, in the first, the character hasn't acted for years. And Gwyneth has an active movie. Exactly. And I scheduled it so that the first thing I shot with Gwyneth was the first time she's going back to the stage. Oh, my gosh. Part of the director, you've got to figure out what you're shooting when. Right. Because that's very helpful. With Odessa, the first thing I'd shot with her was the first scene in the movie. So where they're role-playing. The first scene you see in the movie is them acting as theater. And all the extras didn't know what was going on. So they were my metric. They were my barometer.

9:08I was like, what do you think is going on in the scene? I think this is the beginning of a romance. I was like, perfect. They believe this theater. That's what I said to Odessa. I said, this is not you guys pretending to be something. The scene is you've never actually talked to this man before. That's the scene. And she understood that that's what they got off on. And so when Marty sees Gwyneth's character, Kay Stone, returning to the stage and he sees this young man, the themes of the play itself are actually relatable to him. this mom and mother issue and you know they're clearly there's no father in the picture and he's angry he's angry at what he's got this angst inside inside of him and uh he thinks the whole thing is phony baloney garbage and his honesty there is very attractive to k we'll take a break my guest is josh staffdy he's the director and co-writer and co-editor of marty supreme which had a very good night at the golden globes last night we'll take a break more to come stay with us

10:10Welcome back. It's The Trooper. My guest is my old friend, Josh Safdie, who hasn't done this show. I don't know why. Finally we got him here. His film is, of course, Marty Supreme. This one really is, in its way, a musical. You use all the 80s pop and synth at moments of real emotional intensity. And actually, it's funny that you have a Tears for Fears bookending the film. Absolutely, yeah. But it's the bridge to change. Until the very last month, there's no vocal in it. But just that drive and all that synth pop, that sort of new wave power pump of the 80s was both kind of upbeat or energetic and foreboding.

10:46Oh, yeah. That's just fascinating. I mean, what's interesting about the 80s is it was a time, postmodern era. And just like in the 50s, when music was taking blues music and turning it, giving it a beat, giving it propulsion and creating rock and roll, that's similar to what you're just describing. It's like you had this sad music, but all of a sudden you're moving to it. And in the 80s with these new wave bands, like, go listen to Everyone Wants to the World of the World. That's an anxiety, melancholic song. Change. I mean, I re-edited all these songs. So you're hearing the only lyric you hear in the first one is change.

11:24Change. Which I love that you pointed out because it was hard to figure out a way to loop those synthetic mallets, which became, by the way, the touchstone to my score with Dan is synthetic mallets. And my composer, Daniel O 'Patton, he likes to, I mean, he founded this, created this movement called Vaporwave, which was one of a tricks point ever. His whole concept, which he and I ascribe to, is the hauntology concept, which is that the past haunts the future and the future haunts the past. You know, when he listened to this music for the first time, when he heard what we were using, he thought of mallets and he said, what is a mallet?

11:59It's a stick with a ball at the end. He's like, oh, table tennis. So he's starting to build from there. So he's like, do we use real mallets or do we use synthetic mallets? He uses real instruments with this kind of synthetic landscape of the 80s. So it's all kind of in harmony with one another. Because the movie is, you know, it's the anachronism of the music to the very, very beautifully crafted by Jack Fisk and legendary production designer and Miyako Willizzi, my costume designer, which are perfect period. you have this anachronism that kind of tells you that time is this kind of ever long thing.

12:29And the 80s kind of juxtaposed with the 50s is telling you that there's this future is haunting the past, then the past is haunting the future. So Marty's always going to be looking back at his life, you know, as what was it? What could I have been? And the entire movie is him looking to the future. So it's this kind of play that you're hearing. And it just kind of works the way that you're describing you have this forlorn music, this content of it, but this kind of propulsive, upbeat vibe. And that's kind of the film in many ways. Getting Timothee Chalamet for this, having these two back-to-back performances between this and Dylan.

13:04Which he did in the same year, four months separated, which is crazy. It explains a lot. It really explains a lot because the two performances about ambition. There's something about these Jewish avatars, these guys who sort of create this myth about themselves that doesn't relate to their culture, but trying to separate themselves from it. These two back-to-back stories that he's in about that same kind of ambition, but this ambition to recreate yourself. The musicality. Yeah. And required an incredible amount of training from Timothy. He had to train, he had to transform himself. In the beginning, when he first showed up, I like to give the respect to actors that I would hope that directors give me.

13:41I didn't send Timothy any drafts while he was shooting. I gave him complete freedom. him i didn't even text him during the shooting of of dylan if he reached out to me i'll respond go do your thing be the character be in that space stay in the pocket so when he showed up when he wrapped you know we had been this constant communication for six years while we make developing the movie writing it he showed up and he was still talking like dylan and i was like all right give him some months to shed this skin and and get into marty mode we're talking modernity with my guest. Josh Safdie's new film is, of course, Marty Supreme.

14:16It's the treatment. It's interesting to me because, again, your film's also about these ambitions. These characters are driven by an ambition. Sometimes they don't state it as in the documentaries, but it's there, this ambition to be in this way a star. I mean, your films are so often about, especially going back to your first film and then sort of tracking from that to this, about somebody who has to find a way to be seen. Not knowing where the audience is, but also finding the audience in real time. Yeah, I mean, ambition is a distinctly, obviously, human trait. And it takes ambition or a.k.a.

14:53a dream to elicit some sort of change. And I think that they're all kind of searching for a place in the sun. That's why that George Stevens film was an inspiration while I was writing and we were getting into production. George Stevens, A Place in the Sun, which is also about a relationship between two people who can't be together. Three people, too. I mean, I always see the movies more about Shelley Winters. And what's fascinating is the movie ends. Oh, shoot. Yeah, I think that the movie ends with him thinking of Elizabeth Taylor's character as, was this really worth it? Because he's going to his death.

15:29He's going to the electric chair. And he's thinking of her. And the first time I watched it, I was like, oh, it's a love story about him and Elizabeth Taylor. and he's, what are the things he did for that? And the more I watch it, I love Shelley Winters in that movie so much. And I think that he genuinely doesn't know what happened in that moment in the boat. And I think he's thinking about this kind of false direction that he thought he was going into for this concept of a place in the sun, when really the place in the sun was with this woman who saw him for who he was. And the tragedy of it, that's a tragic movie.

16:03Especially for these last two movies of Chalamet's, I've been saying he's this generation's Montgomery Clift. There's a kind of an anxiety that's in his performances, oftentimes that we always saw in Montgomery Clift. It's why Red Riff is so fascinating because he's way too anachronistic. He doesn't belong in that movie at all. You can see John Wayne's contempt for the way he's doing. It exists also too for Marty with everybody else except for Rachel. And in Tyler's character, there's this generational difference. They don't understand the way he communicates. He can talk like that. He's from the future almost.

16:35Yeah, that's the music a little bit is speaking to it. But you did see the fast-talking, almost autodidact strivers who were, you know, you even see it in Tony Curtis's character in Sweet Smell Success, which is also a great movie. Very much reminiscent of that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I love that film as well. A little bit later in period, just a little bit, like a couple of years. But it's funny because seeing him in the streets, I thought that's what the New York, it should look like that. The garbage should look wet and heavy. That was what we were after. I said to Jack, weirdly enough, with Darius, my cinematographer.

17:11Darius Kanji. Yeah, the great Darius Kanji. We looked at black and white photographs as our inspiration. It makes all the sense in the world just because, I mean, even when they're outside, there's a lot of darkness and shadow. I mean, all those stuff walking when he's walking around the stores, it's almost lighted like the stuff in Little Italy and The Godfather. Well, I mean, that's Gordie Willis. we talked about Gordon Willis a little bit because he was the king of top light and Darius really loved this feeling of top light that there's something above you and you can, you know, Darius is a very sensitive artist and he's a lighting cameraman and nobody like him.

17:45Oh my gosh. Yeah, but we did look at mostly black and white. I said, he's like, what movies should I look at? And I was like, Sweet Smell of Success. And he said, it's a black and white film, Josh. And I said, yeah, it's okay. Look at it. He's like, then he watched it. I was like, so this is how you want to compose the shots? And I was like, no, no, don't worry. I'm going to lens the movie as I lens it. But the way the lighting is, the feeling, the contrast. The same thing with Sweet Smell Success. There's no light in the center of the room. Yeah. He would tell me, Josh, the actors have to go here.

18:12I've lit for this area. I said, well, let's see if the actors want to go there. And he's like, just tell them to go there. I was like, no, no, it doesn't work that way. And I would go through general blocking because I have an idea and all my shots are kind of designed by that. But if an actor doesn't want to do it or doesn't feel natural doing it and they in the scene, they keep doing this other thing. I'll say, Darius, he's like, we're not lit over there. I said, then we're not lit over there. Is that why there's so many pans because of that? The camera was free. I would always tell, as composed as it is at times, I would always tell my operators, it's free.

18:43And never lock the camera, keep it loose, the fluid head. In the tenement, every time you're in the tenement, it's a handheld camera because I wanted this feeling of kind of family documentary. But there's not much handheld in the film. the first table tennis sequence in Wembley it starts off in the finals very composed and then by the end you're hand held and it's totally you know deconstructed and you're there but the scenes do start off with almost a composed shot and then like fall into a photographic quality where you're following people around and I was going to ask you about that because the lighting is so interesting when people like especially people like just start to move yeah you know doing period was scary for me because all my other films were either contemporary or near period.

19:28And, you know, I had the luxury of just going out into real life and stealing the shots. And that energy of having to get it really quickly, you feel it in the film, you feel life. Here, I had to create every single thing because it's period, you can't inherit anything. So I had to go to crazy lengths with Jack and Miyako and Kay, my hair, Kay Giorgio, the head of the hair department, Kira, my makeup department, Mike. And I had to, meant casting because all those people had to be period specific. So I had to create the illusion. I said to Adam and Jack, I said, I want to time travel. I want to be there.

20:03It has to be perfect because once I get there, I'm stealing that film. So I had to create the illusion that I was stealing it because I said, I'm going to get there. I'm just going to shoot it as if it's present tense. I'm a guy from 2025 making a movie in 1952. So I was just there filming it as I would anything else. So I had to do that. and I had to get that energy and I think you feel that in the movie coming from what you're describing. I wish we could talk more about this because we're out of time. Oh no. No, no. Make another movie and come back. My guest is Josh Safdie's newest film is Marty Supreme.

20:38I can't thank you not for doing this, man. Thank you for watching all these years. Welcome to your life There's no turning back After almost 20 years, director Josh Safdie has returned to a working solo with his feature Marty Supreme, which he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein and which stars Timothee Chalamet in an award-winning performance. Marty Supreme has garnered Josh his first Director's Guild nomination. With his brother, Benny, he's co-directed Danny Longlegs and Ungut Gems. conversations with award nominees and winners at the archive kcrw.com slash the treatment and at kcrw.com slash the treat you can find thoughts on the inspirations of nominees winners and artists of all type new this week actor emily blunt who starred in benny safty's film the smashing machine blunt's treat takes her back to her childhood maybe some things not even appropriate to childhood.

21:46The show is produced and edited by Rebecca Mooney and mixed by Katie Gilgress. To better days, everyone, I'm Elvis Mitchell. It's The Treatment.