I'm Josh Safdie. And I'm Sean Baker, and I'm here
to talk to Josh about the wonderful Marty Supreme.
On the A 24 podcast. It's great to do this with you,
man. I I love Marty so much.
Truly. Truly, I'm so happy for you and
the whole team. Congrats on all the accolades so
far. I mean, you know what it means
to me when, when I get your voice memos, I just luckily you
saw the movie in person, so I got like the, you know, real
live. Yeah, I've seen it three Times
Now actually, and it keeps revealing new things each time.
Well, more than more than me. My crazy respect for your taste
in movies as filmmaker. You know what that means to me.
Well, yeah. And I, I know that we love the
same stuff. We have the same sensibility and
I think. Most of the time.
Most of the time, most of the time, sometimes, sometimes we
disagree. But yes, it's true, I do leave
you very long and annoying audio.
I love them. It's actually like a little
savior. I'll say, oh, wow, I gotta, then
I'll bring them back. You're the only person I do it
with. You know that?
Oh, that's hilarious. And I like giving you a little
audio doc documentaries, too. What I'm doing is I'm on the
trains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I hear New York behind you. You miss it.
So I want to read a text that you actually texted me back in
2020. I think I was right off of from
what I can tell, this was October of 2020.
So I was right off a Red Rocket. I think I was bemoaning
something. I was, I was, I think I was
talking about how hard it is to keep things small and and we
were just talking about the size of you.
Had just made Red Rocket. I think so and I was a little
frustrated with with things the way they went, even though I
love green outcome. Oh, thank you.
But I. Simon Rex.
Unbelievable. Another anti hero like your film
but. They're not anti heroes to you.
No, but I recognize. That audiences see.
See them as anti heroes. Do you?
Do you see arty as an anti hero? I mean I hear people say it
don't I? Concept of anti heroes so like
negative? I know that's very true.
That's very heroes. I think they're human Yes,
exactly flaws and OK, so I'm gonna read this to you.
So I forgot I left you an audio text that vanished, but this is
your response. I wish we again.
I think it had something to do with with with trying to keep
under the radar, you know, cuz our previous films definitely
not Marty, but you know, I think there's been there was
documentary techniques used where sometimes had just yes,
yeah, exactly. So anyway, you wrote this, I
think it's fun to swim in bigger lakes.
And I think if you see the resource, if you use the
resources right, the product can be super interesting.
I'm falling more and more into maximalist territory.
And when you, when you wrote that, I was like, what the hell
is he talking about? But then five years later, I see
Marty and I know exactly what you're talking about.
Now you really, This is an epic film.
The scale, the scope and scale just seems really big and it's
so impressive. What?
I think what I meant about I definitely what was the date on
that 21? 20. 20 what like right, like oh
so like pandemics, like still like raging.
I had already been working on Marty.
The I think what happened was is like as you and it's kind of
similar to what was happening, I think with the direct cinema
movement in a strange way, is I started to look at life as a
construct and I started to realize like particularly with
those those movies leading up to that heaven knows what being
like kind of like the most 'cause I was like, that's a
documentary essentially. And knowing that like life, if
you look at life as like something that's built, there's
a millions of decisions that go into it.
You know, the higher power, whatever it is, is creating all
everything like this table, this microphone, the color of the
thing, the stand itself, the decision, someone's decision to
light it this way. It's all there.
And I started to kind of I think the only and I started to become
obsessive about it, in particular with with gems,
because it was this bigger movie and I was trying to still like
steal life, recreate life. So then when you start to kind
of break it down, like how can I create life and then access the
way that I was making those movies?
So like, how can I create life to have the feeling of going
inside of it and stealing the movie?
Because that is like the urgency of like getting something and
getting out. And I think that that was where
my head was at Lakes. I hate lakes.
I don't like swimming in lakes. I.
Like the ocean. But but I, I don't know, when I
talk to you and a few other people, I can open up about that
stuff. I don't think I would like send
that text to anybody else but you.
Oh, all right. OK.
I'm honored. Yeah, so, but that because
because because you know, like I texted you this when I was re
watching Prince of Broadway when you did the restoration, you put
it on film. It's it looks so amazing.
It looks so cool. Nothing, nothing looks like it.
I you know what I mean? That's one of my favorites of
yours, but it's the sneeze. Bless you, motherfucker.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 'cause it's amazing.
Cause in that moment you're watching like 2 real people.
A guy sneezes. That's the most real you can
get, right? You know what I mean, right.
And it's a decision for the guy to just remain like hard a
little bit. Oh, yeah.
He doesn't want to take. God bless you.
He wants. Yeah, bless you, motherfucker.
Yeah, yeah. And it's one of my favorite
moments. And but like, you can only
capture. And I love the jump cutting in
that movie because normally I don't.
And with the jump cutting in that film is like is is really
awesome conceptually, just kind of just works really well.
And you don't do any jump cutting.
Never done a jump cutting. Never.
No never. I always will like cut to
something and then even though like, you know what a like
incredible concept that like guitar invented, he's the first
person to use it in narrative form, right in fiction, fiction
form. It's got to be with breakfast, I
think. So I think it was like the OR
maybe popularized it. I I don't know.
That's a crazy concept. I'm going to do something that
like implies, right? That there is stuff to cut out
and like, whatever. Anyway, and it is and it's
something that I, I, it's, it's fallen a little out of fashion a
little bit. I used it in one moment in in
Anora when they're outside the strip club because I just rolled
there in 10 minutes. In the beginning.
Yes, yeah, I rolled 10 minutes for Mag and there's two of them
talking and I was like, I don't have any other coverage, so I'm
just jump cutting to the highlights.
Yeah, but. It's a great way to set up.
You know, when you do something like that at the beginning of a
movie you're establishing, you're getting a lot of like.
Info. Out there, yeah.
And goodwill too, like, and that was like also when you like when
I was thinking about that conceptually is like getting
that crazy Dolly shot of Marty walking through the Lower East
Side. The amount of like time and the.
First one where he's coming, not when he's running later.
No, no. When he's walking, when he's
like bouncing, there's that kind of, I call it a slightly like
Irish vibe of the score. And there's he's walking through
and walking by people and he's just like, not a worry in his
mind. Five hours late, but all those
people. Everything feels so alive.
And I was like shooting it, like I was stealing it.
We had, of course, we had a crane and a Dolly.
Oh, OK. But the vibe of it, the energy
and pushing and directing all those extras.
And there's the the the the woman in a white jacket.
I like, I went up to her and I was like, you're not cooking
your husband dinner out of protest that night.
She's in her head. My AD team, they're all like
going. And we had this Ken Jacobs film
Orchard Street. That was that had just been
restored. His son did Aza did it.
And that was like a Bible for us.
So we had this, that's wonderful.
We had this real life document of what that street was like.
So that was like the standard that was it was life.
That's great. And but when you do that in the
beginning of a movie, you get this crazy production value and
you set the stand like time travel and like, OK, I'm here in
this world. The movie can go kind of
anywhere because it feels that way.
I wanted, I said the Jack Fisk who designed the movie.
I said to him and Adam Willis, the set deck.
I was like, I want to time travel because I want to tell
the story presently as if I'm there because anyone who is
around my great uncle or some other people who were in that
scene, they tell the stories. I'm relating to them in present
tense. I'm not relating to them in a
period. You know what I mean?
Did. You have to did you have to like
see, I, I haven't done it period, please.
I mean, my period piece was five years ago.
So yeah. Same where Gems was 20/20/12.
But it's like you, you every once in a while you go in, it's
like, oh, we got to paint out that that's that Citi Bank, Citi
Bike Bank, you know, did you? Paint a lot of stuff out.
You know, that was crazy because I have no relationship with VFX
going into the movie outside of the sequence through the the
colon and the gem. Excuse me.
Yeah, Yeah. Which was it was an incredible
because I had to, you know, when you don't have something to base
it on you, you know, you have to build it from scratch.
And I, so I worked with the same, this guy Iran Denir, who
is incredible and he thinks he like wrote a book about he
actually his experience more like he did all the wolf of Wall
Street effects and things like that.
But but he's like, the way he thinks is he's a good guy,
almost like a physicist and he plays table tennis and he's a
simple, he plays that, he plays piano.
He's and he loves like new age electronic music.
So he was like a lot of he was perfect.
And he is like AI called him the evil, evil, evil scientist.
Whenever he was around. I was like, Oh no, what does he
want to do? This is going to be evil.
And the producer Katagis coming to me is like, well, I think we
should paint that out over there.
We can't afford to cover it. So it was a little bit of like
that. And that's a thankless job for
them because it's like hard work that no one you hope, no one
ever notices, no one's noticed. So but the table tennis stuff
had some visual effects in there as well.
But the ball basically. But we didn't on that shot in
the Orchard shoot. There's no V effects there.
We were covering. There was 2 buildings that were
built in 20/15/2020 that Jack had to build an entire new
facade for like a complete like, and you plug them in and then
when we did that crazy chase scene, you can, he would reuse
pieces and just paint them differently.
Amazing, He's amazing, he's amazing.
He, you know, he in for Tree of life.
That tree though, the, oh, there's an oak tree that Malik
was like, it was spiritual and they saw it and like, we have to
bring that tree to location. And the root ball was like
apparently like 25 feet and, and in diameter.
And it is a quote. They got the quote to move a
tree like that and for it to survive is even crazier.
I was like, insanely, I think it was like half $1,000,000 to move
the tree. So Jack was like, I'm going to
find local people and they like slowly dug up the root ball,
dusted it out and then put it on to he found like a local guy to
put it on flatbeds and they moved it.
And his greatest, The thing is that the best, like the great
triumph is that it's still thriving.
It's alive. But he's like that.
There was like an interview with him.
He was chopping down a tree that got some invasive on it and he
says to the he goes, I remember planting this tree 50 years ago
and like the time and stuff like that.
Did you, I mean, there's so much texture there seems to be you
can almost smell everything on and then also just all the
little details, especially in the in the in the shoe shop, in
his in the shop. You know, when they were
excavating that that was a real that was like it was on Orchard
Tree. We wanted to shoot in New York,
which everyone's like, it's too expensive.
I was trying to tap into the soul of the city.
Yeah, thank you. I mean, I I agree.
I don't like cheating, you know what I mean?
I think it's on some level you're cheating.
And I, I had said to production and Jack, they're like, well, we
can get more days if we do this here and do that there, we can
cheat this. And and I really wanted to shoot
this where these characters were from.
I wanted to shoot it where they lived.
And there was one shop on Orchard Street that, you know,
you get lucky with some, you know, poorly managed buildings,
you know, where they, they never took a deal and they never did
this. And there's probably family
disputes inside of it. And you can feel that dispute in
this building. And it was just like you walk
in. It's like, I don't even know
where half of the clothing where it came from.
It's like these, you know, when you see like proper, like the
garment district, like there are a lot of garmentos who make
clothing. Never heard of them.
They make them for bigger brands.
So you go in there and there's just this like slop, kind of
like garmentos slop. But it's beautiful because it's
kind of outsider. So you go in there and it's
just, you can't even believe what you saw.
It's just like underneath it all was the bones of this original
kind of, you know, this clother clothing company.
And when we excavated, we had to we had to completely clear it
out. And we have the scene in the
basement where him and I don't even know if it plays like a
basement when when him and Odessa where the child, what his
child is, could see that's in the basement because the in the
script, it actually is like a pretty long tracking shot that
brings him from switching the boxes out all the way up.
And I just condensed to cut out piece of cut out the travel.
But when we had to, because we had to shoot down there and then
we ended up having to recreate the whole basement on a stage
because we ran out of time, we had to do that.
Twice we did some stage stuff. Yeah, the.
Whole tenement, the whole tenement was on a stage.
I wanted to shoot that on location because Jack is
amazing. I was like, we have to shoot
that on location. I don't want to cheat it.
And then we went and like they were like Josh, we'd have to
rent out every apartment because you're it's a tenement.
There's one way up and down and and and so it was so we had to
read. We had to build that.
And Jack's like, trust me how you will not know when we're
there. Incredible.
But when we were excavating the basement, he sent the picture of
a just a decomposed rat carcass. But, well, it's just the bones.
And there's like, this big. And it was like something you'd
see in the Natural History Museum.
And I tried to preserve it. And then we threw that away.
And then they found a bone. Yeah, that was too big.
Looked like a collar. Oh no.
And I was like, guys, I was like, they didn't send me a
picture of that. It's like, I've got to report
that. Yeah, we can.
They're like, no, no, we think it was like a dog bone or
something. I was like, I don't know, man.
Lower East Side. Yeah, Yeah, right.
Yeah. When you as a director, when
you're shooting these scenes, you know, that have to, you
know, time travel, the audience, I'm assuming, do you do
playback? Do you watch?
I have. I say no playback because it's
another job on set and I think it's a crutch that people like
to sit at. I hate the concept to video
village, right. It's just a kind of a cancer on
a set and everyone. So I never but there there had
to be 1 on this, particularly for the table tennis thing.
So we were carrying them and they're great, you know, and I
never do playback. I never say let me see.
That you are watching a monitor. I'm watching a monitor and I'm
like, but I'm like, if the scene is here, I'm like, right there.
I blew my knees out doing the movie because I would constantly
throw myself into these little corners.
And Ian Kincaid, my gaffer, it was like, and Darius too, was
like sitting next to me on this Apple box.
I was like no, no, no, I need to be right there.
Get knee pads. Yeah, I'm gonna do that.
Actually. I was like, I'm gonna look into
getting knee pads. Yeah.
Because all in in that mansion, all of the floors were like
marble, hard, hard floors. And I.
Was throwing. Yourself too, throwing my going
down like knee. Pads.
Knee pads? Did you have knee pads?
I did, yeah. Amazon, him.
Yeah, you've done that. So when you're looking at the
monitor, is there like a the suspension of disbelief has to
kick in for you as the director, right?
Do you feel that happening in the moment?
Do you lose yourself and like, oh, I'm back and seeing Marty in
the 50s right now? Well, what's funny is I would.
I took it for granted. Oh, OK.
Because I was just there treating it as if it was real.
Yes. Every once in a while I would
say something like like Adam and Jack, the way they talk about in
real life is they'll they won't say that's so 52.
They would say that's so period. OK, yeah, they were like, oh, it
has that's so period. They would show me something
like how period this is. And I don't know if that's like
lingo for people who do period pieces how they seek, but it to
me it meant it had it took on a different meaning.
It was like this timeless thing in front of us.
It has a timeless quality as an aura like look at that look.
That's so period and the way they said that.
I don't know. I always really, it was very
spiritual to me. The art department is especially
on a film where you're going back in time and with Miyako,
her costuming it is I mean she would go and do crazy thrifting
and pulling and then so her costume department actually had
thousands of of of pieces and she didn't use any of them.
But it was more for me and her to go and look and characters in
the movie Tyler to just go and look and then you build.
So it's like, oh, this piece looks really nice.
So let's build a piece like this.
And so all of it is kind of like we're all and you know,
obviously as everyone's inspiring each other, but I
think Ericsson is the production designer on on McCabe and Mrs.
Miller. OK yeah, I know he's Jacks like
yes hero and he I'm McCabe and Mrs. Miller movie that I know
you hate the fake snow and the. There was a, you know, it was
probably the first time anyone was doing optical.
Sure, sure. And it doesn't exactly hold up.
In the beginning, well, when you see these restorations, maybe
when you see like an organization.
Like maybe I wish I just so. You know, just deprived.
You've never seen the restoration.
I've only seen the the old DVD. Well.
It's a wonderful. Restoration, I'm sure.
I mean, I remember reading a story that that Warren Beatty
when he saw that movie, like, oh man, I was so psyched to show it
to him. And he was like, and he's like,
what do you think? He goes, I couldn't fucking hear
one word that I said, what did you do to the movie?
And he's like, isn't that amazing?
And Warren, maybe he's like, no, it's not amazing at all.
But it because it was conceptual.
But but the production designer would go into town and go to the
bars and get the drunks who were there and bring them to the set
or the people who built the sets.
He'd put them in the scenes. So those that's why they feel so
alive. And I would start to, I went
nuts casting a lot of these extras and faces.
So I would populate and Jack felt like I built these sets,
but they're not alive until Josh, you put these people in
them. And that was when I would start
to, that's when I had this suspension.
Disbelief really comes alive to me is when I'm like the bowling
alley, when you just have all these people that you that have
these anachronistic to no, not timeless faces, not
anachronistic. And they're just in perfect
costume with perfect hair. Kay Georgia, my hair person, I
gave her carte blanche. I was like, if the hair isn't
perfect or right, get rid of them.
So then they had extras, people like, hey, Kay is releasing
these three extras like good, you know, And I was like, send
me pictures. Like she was right because she
was looking at the faces only. My God, what you and Jennifer
found with me, I mean, every scene is just populated with
just incredibly unique looking, beautiful people.
Yeah, Beautiful people, Yeah, because.
Jen's like a humanist and I'm lucky she's like, she's a
documentarian in her movie. Billy the Kid is a testament to
amazing movie. That was How I Met her.
I was playing pool and I was, I was on a roll.
I was feeling sharkish, You know, I was if I can lock in and
focus, my problem is, is focus. Sometimes I can.
I believe when I was a kid, I was like, can I focus on
something? I can do anything that was in my
mind. My, my, my dad instilled that
into me. But so I was playing pool and
she came up to me. She tried to like cast me.
She was doing a lot of unusual casting.
Yeah. Unusual casting for fashion
spreads. And then she, I think the first,
like, time she was. And then like, I think maybe
Spike Jones reach out to her to find the kid and Where the wild
Things are, she came up to me to be like, hey, you know, good
pays really good money, you know, you should.
And I was like, I don't know. I'm not.
I don't want to do that. Even though I was acting in my
early stuff, Like I don't want to do this just for me.
I'm trying to learn for myself. I don't want to do it for
someone else. And so I met her that way.
And then I went to see Billy the Kid and I cried watching that
film. And I went up to her and I was
like, what a beautiful movie. So what you're seeing in the
film is like, I'm meeting people on the street.
I'm sending them to Jen. She's finding people on the
street herself. She has a team of people who go
into the real world. She's looking at real, you know,
the fabric of SAG and real people.
And, and she looks at actors as real people and as you should.
And sometimes they're famous and they, you know, they make a
studio happy. And sometimes they're someone
who's just been working for a long time and no one's giving
them kind of their due. And so she's looking at everyone
the same way. But what's happening with these,
some of these first timers, and you know, as I'm, you can feel
it in your movies, is that they, and it's part of the job as a
director is instilling a certain sort of confidence and ease.
Like you have the agency to do whatever you want.
And that because whatever you decide to do is great because
you're deciding to do it on some level.
And then you, you know, you steer them and I don't like the
word manipulate, but you, you push them into areas so that
they can do their thing. And then, but so Jen's style is
she'll like do an interview with these, with these people.
Again, it doesn't matter if they're a known person or
unknown person and she'll send the 20 minute interview.
And her interviews are amazing. There's like deep dives virtual,
and then you learn something from them and then you go back
and like, I want to put this piece into the character so
you're rewriting. Sometimes you use a piece of
their OH. Yeah.
And then they see that and they're like, wow, you saw
something in me. Yeah.
And then she does.
I consider it's like acting school.
So then in her little windowless room, I'll give a character
description and a scenario. And I want to see how these
people improvise, and then she'll work with them, and then
we'll do it again. And then you introduce dialogue
and see how they can do it with structured scenes.
Yes, yeah, cuz you don't have much improv in this film.
In this one, No. I mean, I would go.
I was so afraid of the script. Yeah, even though we spent six
years on it. I'm so afraid of it, this thing.
You know what I mean? And I I I I.
Do I, I sometimes it just feels like it's, it might be too
structured. It might be too or I've been
living with it too long and it no longer feels fresh and I want
to mix it up on set And so therefore I just say like.
We'll do a. Couple takes with what I've
written and then if we feel so inspired to take it in another
place, using this as a launching pad.
Yeah. And that's what I've been doing
for the last few films because I've had to flesh out my
screenplays to full length screenplays.
Whereas the film you mentioned earlier, Prince of Broadway, Oh
my God, that was like a treatment showing up every day
and just seeing like, let's see what happens.
It's hard to do it on bigger budgets.
And also it's impossible to do what with what you did, which
is, you know, a period of peace and obviously very structured
and, and you know, I. I, I can totally write for a
long time. I was, I remember I wrote a
screenplay and I remember like this one, this like one group of
people were who I met through this strange woman and she was
like, it was this movie that ended up turning into daddy
longlings, but it was a structured script.
It was like about this kind of the same and that morphed into
daddy longlings in some way. It's about like the same family
going to a beach and that they, the whenever the kid gets lost
on the beach and, and it's a crazy movie, but I was because I
couldn't get that made. And I remember I was sitting
there within this like this, like they were lawyers that
people who were going to give us the money we're asking for like
100 grand. And we read they were like,
we're going to bring in someone who knows the industry.
So they brought in like, I don't remember some an actress that I
didn't recognize from Footloose, like AI think I'd like a small
part in Footloose. She wanted the feet.
In the opening credits, yeah. So I was like I.
Was like they were like, this is she's I'm like a whole pleasure
to meet you. And then we read the whole
script in this conference room, and I remember they said, well,
can you include 911 in it somehow?
I'm like, this movie takes place on a beach.
What are you talking about? Well, like, well, this movie
feels very nostalgic. And it would be interesting to
kind of at least evoke the Twin Towers.
And I was like, but it doesn't take place in 2000 And yeah,
whatever 1990s or 2000. Think it would be good for us
and be jokingly like pitched the most ridiculous thing and they
were like, that's a great idea. I don't want to see what it was,
but sometimes you have to appease.
But so. But my point is like I.
Never wanted to. I got afraid of the script and
then I just wrote treatments and Daddy Long Legs was just 40
pages of just prose and I was like, I'll get these kids to
Ronnie to say the words as he wants to say.
Then there was some dialogue, but it was all ideas and and on
this, and I'm sure you I mean, look, Anora's very structured
and and and that's and I think that you I think we've discussed
about other films and other film makers, this feeling of maybe
it's I don't know where maybe you like get really into, I
don't know, these these realist films that you start to have
this kind of thirst for story and you know, the story becomes,
I don't know, paramount. So you mean like starting off?
Early in your career, yeah. Where you just like to.
I just want to 1. Century.
Yeah, you have an idea. Of a movie, right, and you have
a very general structure and the goal is more.
About maybe craft and trying to like recreate reality and and
then as we've moved on, we actually have been our stories
have been more complicated more. Complicated a little.
More a little more traditional in a way.
People hate that middle and. End maybe?
People hate that, but. I I think they're I I like to
see ideas. Yeah.
We like stories, yes. We like stories.
Exactly. Yes, 100% the Cavemen around
the. Fire and the hearing a a final
and end. Do you talk?
Do you tell? Or, or do you or write the story
to somebody before you? Oh, Oh yeah, it's helpful 'cause
you know, immediately when someone's like, yeah, where's
this going? I'm just about, I mean.
I'm I'm about to get into that right now because I'm I'm I'm I
have it all here and it's about to be vomited out on on to who
do you do that with? Samantha and Alex Coco amazing
my 2 fellow producers and it's it's about me going guys come
over, sit down. I'm about I'm going to take two
edibles and I'm going to just amazing.
I know that about you. How many people know about you?
Were you on edibles at the Oscars?
I. I time it so that so that you're
coming down so. That I'm not too.
High up on stage, it's unbelievable.
I can't. We're not.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's always timed perfectly. So that it's really hitting just
as I'm exiting. I love that I you.
Know that sounds like it's such a nightmare for me.
I am when I I can't do it anymore.
And I used to smoke weed. It was a punishment.
I would sit, I would do it. I'd be alone.
If I had an interaction with someone, Oh my God, that's bad
news. And I would criticize myself and
I'd write them down and I have these nasty things about myself.
And then I would, it was horrible.
That's a horrible experience, but I thought that I needed it
to understand, you know, ideas and myself.
And then I'd be sober and I'd come to and I'd read these
things like, OK, that's through the lens of this.
So I admire that you could, because these things are, I
mean, it's amazing that you're able to, you were able to, well,
I think I've become. It was actually something I I
avoided because I had a bad experience making a student film
once. Oh really?
I was too high. And like, I'm never doing that
again. And to tell you the truth, I
don't when I'm directing. No way it could be lucid.
No, no, no. But I do use it in writing and
in post and and I edit high. Wow.
And maybe I shouldn't be in. We can delete that. 100% and
Nora. I even give in.
It was both Red Rock and in Nora that I edited literally 100%.
I don't think I edited. We'll keep doing that.
And in the end credits I thank my dispensary.
But anyway, I love that. But actually let me that brings
us to editing. You Co edit with Ronnie.
That's right, and that's the first time I've edited.
Since my early films, yeah. And I and I because I was, you
know, I'm involved, I'm so involved in the edit.
And what I was is for a long time I would get, I have
anxiety, like bad anxiety. And the, the process of editing
is anxiety inducing in the sense that like, OK, I know this, I
want to do this. I know these pieces, but it's
the it's it's. And every time I'm in the micro
of the making the specific cut, Yeah, I'm fine.
It's then when I have them all and I have to just having a
timeline where you have to move, make a cut and you have to like
make sure you get all the that. I know it's such a simple thing
that just feeling of moving a timeline.
It could be just a 4 minute scene.
It gives me so much anxiety that I can't.
I couldn't do it, so I had to get over that and imagine doing
that on a Steam. Back Yeah.
Oh my God. I.
I cut, you cut probably on that when you lose 1 frame and you're
in the bin and you're like, where's that one frame?
I made the wrong cut. So that kind of trains you to be
a little more orthodox and strict with the cutting.
So I have that background a little bit.
Yeah, that's the greatest thing about the.
Digital revolution, by the way, is what it did for post.
Oh my God, that's in my opinion, the greatest thing about
digital. So do you and Ronnie, how do
you? OK, so let it up.
And are either. One of you editing during
production? No, no, no, no, no.
During so no, not even a little bit.
So writing is the scariest part because it could be go on
forever. Of course it could go on
forever. And the idea, the hardest part,
it's the hardest part 100%. People don't like to really say
that, which is not fair to the writers.
It's the hardest part. It's the ideas, it's the
bedrock, it's the foundation. The actual hardest part is
direction. But because it's just war and
the world doesn't want your movie to exist and there's a
million problems. There's time management, it's
performances. So you have to like constantly
be blind to different parts of yourself so that this stress
doesn't exist for this person. And then you're in this space
and you're with life. All of a sudden you're doing
their takes. But it's finite.
It's over in 46 days, it's over. You know, with writing it, you
could go on forever. Who knows when an idea will come
and then the edit you have this, it's done so and and when we're
when we're shooting, I don't have time to watch dailies,
don't have time to watch dailies button learn edit.
I know I had a great editing team like who were looking at
stuff just to make sure everything.
Focused. Yeah, exactly which there was.
A lot of focus problems on this because shooting films shooting.
Film with these. Old lenses, low light scenarios,
Darius, Prince of Darkness, he's shooting things and I'm no
marks, you know what I mean? So I'm letting people and
sometimes he'll be like, Josh, the actor has to go right here.
I've lit for this area. I was like, we'll see what they
do. And he's like, no, just tell
them to go here. I was like, can't do that.
Darius Timmy with some like, you know, some of the more like
veteran actors, they can do it. And even like the veteran
actors, you don't put narcs down.
You're encouraging this freedom. Like you're saying earlier, you
have this these takes, you do them that are kind of tied to
the script. Then you then you go into these
unknown territories, these uncharted territories and you
kind of find your way back to the script a little bit looking
for these feeling, this feeling. And you end up using pieces of
just improvisation in some way or improvisation emotionally,
you know what I mean? Doing little things, moving
different places. But I would say to Darius, if
they don't hit that light pool, and then maybe over here, it's
almost more interesting because there's an imperfection there.
And like, someone might not land in a pool of light.
They might be slightly underlit. And Dr. Darius crazy, but he
started to understand, like, OK, yeah, people became not just
things you can push around, they became these real life things,
which is like a documentary in some way.
But you know, that's why I'm like, even I remember on Heaven
Knows what I like Stretched touched out the credits because
I wanted to look like it was like a real production, but it
was like 5 people making a documentary.
So that's, I try to bring that feeling a little bit to, to, to
this. But it's going back to the
editing, the dailies. Like I remember reading these
stories about Altman daily watching parties.
How does he have the time to do that?
It was beautiful because I imagine it would be.
I do that in prep. You get all the crew members,
all the department heads together and you watch all the
camera tests and things like that.
And I'm playing music and I'm putting creating the vibe.
And also the 80s music was part of that from the very beginning.
Really all of those tracks. It was written into the script.
Yeah, the you can tell. You can tell.
Because you're it's, it feels so deliberately cut to the music as
well. It seems like you've, you've,
you've even storyboarded. I don't know if you're
storyboarded like 25. Percent of the movie.
Oh yeah, interesting because you have to for some of these bigger
set pieces like the stunts, people need to know the effects
people need to know shot list like crazy the the film.
And what's crazy is I ask for statistics at the end of a movie
from the camera department. So I like know my own stats and
be like, yeah, how many takes do I do?
How much film do I shoot on the setups too like.
On the setups, how much? Do I shoot?
On the wide, how much do I shoot?
Oh yeah, close-ups. Oh yeah, cool, I mean.
I I usually shoot the wides kind of and after all the close-ups,
right, which drives the big gaffers and all them crazy
because the wide is always lit differently.
Yeah, Normally you go in, I like to establish what they're doing
on close up and then you move out to a lot, do you?
Do that I. Mix it up.
It really depends on the scene and sometimes I start with,
yeah, that's not a sign. Yeah.
I I I try not to actually stick to the same thing every time.
It's interesting though, because.
People don't realize that there's a, that's the order of
which you're shooting a scene is for the actors, you know what I
mean? It's the beginning of the
direction. We're going to start here and
then we're going to go there. And that's why if you let an AD
decide what you're doing, we're going to do this first, do that
first. And all of a sudden it's being,
this is all due respect to the AD department, but that's not
their job, you know what I mean? And you're right.
So it is tailored to each scene and two performers.
And then you have who do you, when you known actors sometimes
who wants to get shot 1st and things like that.
So you have to play that game and sometimes.
Something happens, then you have to go back.
Yeah. If you don't.
There have been a few times where I'm just like, why didn't
I just turn, you know, spin the camera and take that extra 20
minutes and shoot? Yeah, additional coverage.
Well, I'll bring in the second. Camera for that oh OK yeah I'll.
Just bring the second. Camera OK, so you had.
You had multiple cameras shooting and yeah, OK, and I
would have that. For allowing the director, the
actors, like for example, the scene between Kevin and and
Timmy in the Paris scene, that was a second day of shooting and
I really didn't want to do that. There's a huge scene in the
middle of the movie. Unfortunately, it has lots of
narrative information in it and those are the hardest scenes to
shoot just from a, from a directing standpoint, 'cause
you're just like, they have to say information that's important
to the movie and you feel bogged down by that sometimes.
But I had two cameras at once and if that drives Darius crazy
and I never try to do that where you're doing this.
Yes, the I said, I told Darius I'll never do it.
If the shots are compromised and the subjectivity is not there,
we're able to frame it up, use long enough lenses and things
like that, which I like, like anyway.
So it's like. 75 or 36360 you're far away.
Wait, what? Scene was the. 360 I've used
360. A lot.
That's like the most beautiful Jewel C series Panavision lens.
Yeah. You know what?
I discovered that lens because it was used on Rossi's Moment of
truth, the bull fighting, beautiful bull fighting, which
was a hybrid film as well, right.
On the bull stuff. He used the 360, but it was, I
think spherical. So it was, but it was, no, I
think it was Wow, he was holding.
Wonderful. Focus on all that stuff.
I mean, you have like daylight. So it was like, why a pretty
high, it was like probably F16 or whatever and you you didn't
do much. Handheld in this film, I mean,
every time we were every. Time we were in the tenement
every time was handheld. OK, but that was like a rule.
It was actually really steady handheld.
Yes, well, I have like. Colin Anderson, my camera
operator, who does all of PTA's films.
Yeah. And like a lot of Bob, Bob
Richardson movies, he's like a human, sticks human.
I mean, he's the greatest Steadicam operator ever.
He's like a Dolly. It's unbelievable.
And I had a lot of Steadicam in this.
And I told him, I begged him. I tried.
I begged him to do the movie. And he amazing.
Your operator becomes, you know, that's your eyes.
You know what I mean? And Darius operated once or
twice on the film, but he he's more of a lighting cameraman.
Darius is expressing himself through light in a very poetic
way and was doing period lighting in a way like the color
temperatures and whatnot. Probably a lot of tungsten.
Yes, they brought a lot of. Tungsten, yeah, You know, modern
day, there's the difference there's.
Definitely a different modern day lighting.
They would pull in those sky panels or something, right?
Yeah, yeah, they. Would use those and.
They would key in, they would, they would like use more Kelvin
as their reference. They would test, Ian would test
the Kelvin of like a period light and then try to match it
on these sky panels and stuff. It's just gorgeous.
I mean, it really is and it's amazing.
And did were you? You told me that maybe there
were some lenses that were actually created for the sound.
Rehoused. So rehoused my wife.
Was a producer on the movie. I was, there's a movie that's
not very good called, I think it's called The Woman's World.
And it was the, one of the first anamorphic pictures made Really.
OK, there's the rope, the rope, not rope, right.
And there was this film, A Woman's World, I'm pretty sure
it was called, and Laura Mccall's in it and beautiful in
it. And it's it's not a great movie,
but there's anamorphic. But it she found it because we
were looking for footage of anamorphic footage, in
particular of New York City in the time period.
Because beginning I was thinking I was going to mix kind of real
footage in with the film. Oh, yeah, Yeah.
And she found this movie that was one year after our period,
and it was all shot in New York. So I was like, I want the
dailies. Yeah.
So we went and the studio Fox kept all that.
So we found the dailies because I want to do this driving shot
where I wanted to create projection of the real city
using anamorphic footage. And again, that that's
conceptually cool, but we didn't end up doing it.
But what I saw was I was like, what are these lenses?
Period lenses with anamorphic? So Fox bought Bausch and Lomb
and created these lenses called Cinemascopes.
And there are two sets in the world.
And we found TCS in New York. Do you know Oliver and TCS in
New York? I do, yeah.
He's amazing. And he's like a lens hunter.
He helped me find this NASA Vivitar lens that's opened up to
.8. Amazing.
I didn't. I had it on set.
It's spherical. Yeah.
And I was going.
To say that these old lenses probably didn't open up past
four, I think Kubrick. Had one for Maryland in Atlanta
or something like that. Yeah, but they're NASA.
They're designed for outer space with no light.
So I found them with Oliver. They were, I think in Sweden,
but they were old. So he rehoused them and we
brought them. We started testing them and they
were beasts. They were like this big and they
weighed like 80 lbs. And we used them a little bit
where they had a lot of technical problems.
So we didn't use them very much, but they're in the movie here
and there. There was a lot of stuff on
Orchard Street that we cut that was all shot exclusively with
them and and it seems like you. Had it seems like you always
have a kind of a loose head on the Oh yeah, you're locked down.
Yes, you're on sticks always. It's always loose.
Absolutely. I always tell.
You do not ever lock that off every once in a while, because I
just want to be able to be where the camera could go and give
Timmy the freedom, give all the actors the freedom.
Yeah. Sometimes they go off the set,
yeah, but it feels. It keeps it alive without going
full handheld. It keeps it alive.
There's an energy there, but the rule.
Definitely was. Every time we were in the
tenement, we were handheld. That's so interesting.
How did Kevin O'Leary come to the project?
So I. We wrote Ronnie and I wrote this
character because he's a corporate.
I love him by. The way he's a corporate
colonialist. Or the first of its kind kind of
post war carpetbagger eternal power.
You know what I mean? Scary, timeless power that's
been around for as much as long long as capitalism has been
around. So I was looking at actors.
I met with a few. They just were never going to
bring what was needed. You know, I'm again, I'm chasing
life. Yes.
And so then I went back to the drawing board and I started, I
pulled up Forbes top like 50 richest people in the world and,
and I just went through each one.
And then you watch interviews with them and you know, they
don't have it. They're not cinematic, they
don't have a, they're not great looking, some of them.
And then I was like, OK, let me think of entertain, entertaining
businessmen. And there's a lot of them.
And I started going through and naturally I got to the Great
American dream show Shark Tank. And I, Ronnie and I were talking
a lot about this characters. We wrote it.
So I called Ronnie and I was like, what about Shark Tank?
Like Cuban, he goes Mr. Wonderful.
He's I was like, Oh my God, yes, Mr. One of he goes, that's the
only guy we can use off that show because he is an asshole.
He's a known asshole. He has he anchors the show.
And you know, I've watched a lot of Shark Tank.
Ronnie's watched probably every episode of Shark Tank.
He'll hit me up and be like, you got to watch this one.
But I love the show. What I like is I like the
portraiture of the people who come on.
I love business. I like watching people make
deals and and looking up what the businesses go on to do.
So I met with him and like these people like this a lot.
They have no a lot of money. He's no reason he's going to
lose money making this. There's no reason for him to do
it right. So I went on to a zoom with him
and I had to pitch him and it was frightening because it was I
was on Shark Tank. You're basically doing.
I was. On Shark Tank.
And I was that moment like he, he said something about Uncut
Gems that was illuminating because he looks at life like
product and he saw that. He's an artist, though he
started off as an artist. He edits his own material.
He has beautiful cameras that he likes.
He loves lenses. He plays the guitar.
Very unique, interesting person and unique point of view on
life. And I just knew the second I was
talking to him, I said to Ryan, he's like, he agreed.
He was like, I really like this. What's next immediately?
Yeah, I was like, well, next is we meet and we go through the
script and wait, what was? What was what did he have to say
about uncut? He said.
Things don't exist for everybody.
And you had a thing basically like there was a thing there.
And he was Speaking of the way he used the word thing was just,
it was conceptual. And I was like, oh wow, it was
it was. So he's talking about like the.
Value of the. Yeah, just like.
Not just the fact that, you know, he obviously it connected
with audiences. So maybe he's talking about that
on a pure business level. But he was also talking.
About from conceptually it was this thing.
It was a complete product without being cruel about it.
And he loved it and he loved how dark it was.
He wishes Marty was much darker. He wanted a fucked up ending for
the movie. He kept pushing it.
He wanted Rachel to die. Oh no.
And I was like. What's wrong with you this?
Is why you are who you are, man. What's wrong with these?
What is wrong? Something is wrong with it.
Well, he probably wanted to. You know, he, he liked uncut.
Well, he he, yeah, he just like wanted Marty.
He. Was so the character, he didn't
like that he got dueled. He didn't like that he lost the
duel and he wanted Marty to suffer.
So so then I was like, next step is is, you know, we meet, we go
through the scenes, I want to hear your voice.
I want to adapt it, see if it works, you know?
And he's like, well, I'm not coming in New York.
I was like, well, I don't want to do this over Zoom.
He's like, I'll fly you, I'll fly you and Ronnie and to
wherever I am. So he put us on a tiny little
plane. Just frightening.
And then we went and we met with him over the course of a day.
He had the script in his living room and he had some houseguests
who had read it twice already. And he was like a probably
businessman or something. And he, that guy loved it.
And Kevin loved the script. And then when I met with him, he
came up with that vampire line. He came up with it because we
were meeting with him and we were trying to figure out how
would Kevin O'Leary react to this kid saying to him that
money doesn't matter to him, there are other things that are
more important. This is fate in in front of him.
And he was I would never do anything that could ever
implicate me in any other way. So I would use the dark arts.
And I was like, oh, man. Like how?
And he just said, like, I would look to him, I'd say Marty, I
was born in 1601. I'm a vampire.
Look at Ronnie. And we're like, yeah, I
actually. What a line I've been.
Seeing stuff. Online and people have been
seeing this film as a vampire film.
I don't know if that was I, I, we had an idea.
Yeah, at one point, which is kind of speaks to the the music
in the film. The music in the movie is this
is this built in feeling of first of all, the timelessness
of it. What anachronism does the past
hunting the future. The future hunting the past
ontology. But the movie originally you saw
his life go pass. Yeah.
From having the baby all the way up to 87 attitudes for Pierce
concert where he's with his granddaughter.
So that was the in. The original draft, the first
draft, yeah. And you saw everything.
Where the 80s? Music came from Yeah.
And you saw. Well, there was.
I actually had the idea before I had that idea.
The idea from the very beginning I saw I wanted to see what the
what this world looked like in 1949 and I was just I was
listening to Peter Gabriel's. I have the touch time I like is
the rush hour. Yeah, I like the rush, yeah.
Pushing the people. I like it all so much.
And it just felt right yes. And I also like kind of allergic
to the feeling of a period piece, the nostalgia of it.
So you want to. Contaminate it a little bit.
Yeah, exactly. And also the 80s were very
interesting time, the beginning of post modernism.
They were revisiting the populace and prosperity of the
50s. Culture was back to the future.
Was literally the 80s going back to the 50s, right?
Right. So that was where it started.
And then you start building to it.
I'm like, this could tie it all together.
But you saw him. I can't.
I'm saying this. You would see him go through.
He comes in as you imagine he's an amazing salesman.
He turns that shop into the most successful shop on Orchard St.
He changes. It to Marty's.
Smiles her shoes. Marty smiles her shoes.
Franchises. Franchises again.
Leaves New York State. Very rich man.
All the metrics of success are there.
His family grows. He leaves the city, has this
beautiful house, and it ends with him at a concert, which is
really his granddaughter. They're great seats up front and
he's watching it and he's thinking about everybody wants
to rule the world and youth and what does it mean?
And he has the success, but he's not doing the thing that he
believed he was born on planet to do.
He has all this great stuff around.
He has these great things around him and you're on his eyes.
We built the prosthetics for Timmy and everything.
And Mr. Wonderful shows up behind him and takes a bite out
of his neck. And that was the last movie.
And he hasn't aged. Wow, OK.
And I remember aged 24 and everyone were like this is a
mistake, right? Yeah.
Oh my God, you might think trolling us.
No, I, I, I like that idea a lot.
But I'm obviously very happy with what you did.
And I love the structure now of like concept, you know,
conception, birth. And I don't think I've seen that
before. Yeah, which is, which is crazy.
It's even I feel like I've seen it before.
Yeah, and. One last thing.
Odessa, Yeah, she is incredible. Like really great.
When when when I in the beginning rewatching, I've seen
the film three times. So the second and third time I'm
just really appreciating that opening scene because I didn't I
didn't pick up on how blatantly they're lying and I pretending
not to know each other. But it's so obvious in the
second and third viewing. It's like that was her first you
schedule. As you know, while shooting
Schedule a movie, you want the first scene that they shoot to
have importance with Gwyneth, the first thing we shot with
her, with her return to the stage with Odessa, she was doing
a horror film. So I has the first thing we're
going to do is her first scene in the movie.
And I was really. I kept saying I don't believe
it. I don't believe it.
I don't buy it. The hustle's not working.
And I was like, the scene is not
you doing the hustle. The scene is you forgot your
shoes. Yes.
And the scene is you want to look at them and you want to
find these shoes. Yeah, so once she realized like,
oh, that's the scene. The scene isn't me playing the
scene is this. Then she locked in and she was
so good. And and and my metric was all
the extras because there's all these people I put into the
scene, real people. I know this, this.
He's got Mordecai Rubenstein. He's got Morty, who's like
obsessed with fashion. He knows forties, 50s fashion.
So he was a great salesman. He is a great salesman selling
shoes. All these people are in the
thing. The store is super alive.
Screwed me a little bit with sound and I would ask Morty.
I was like, what do you think is going on in the scene?
He goes, it's the beginning of a romance.
I was like, perfect, you know, yeah, once you heard that,
you're like, oh, they're. It's working.
Yeah. So none of the extras had any
idea really that they knew each other.
Right. So that was kind of the
barometers like if they buy it. Yeah, I'm happy that Yeah.
And then. And then when he.
Returns eight months later and he sees her and they have that
moment where he's saying, like, does does Ira pull out?
And she goes, you really want me to answer that question?
Starts to tear up. That was the moment where I'm
just like, Odessa's a star, like she's a *.
Yeah, she was so prepared. So great.
Jen was the second she read it. She's like, this is the actor.
Yeah, yeah, I'm. So I'm so happy for her.
Your entire yeah ensemble cast. You can't have a weak link.
You don't have a weak link. No one person ruins.
No, no. Yes, that's very true.
That's very true. OK, well, honestly, sure.
I wish I could ask you more questions.
I know this was structured as talking about my movie, but
we're. Talking about.
Marty. And but I you know.
Love you and love all of your work, so Oh well.
And I feel kinship. Yeah.
That's why when you responded to this movie, I.
Believe this is a small. Film my producer came up to me
goes it's you're like making like a $50,000 movie.
Yes, really. And goes yeah, yeah.
And I was like, I'm trying to steal this movie.
Well, so that's why when you saw it, I'm happy that that that
that resonated with you. And I hope you make a period
film to see how you do it. Yeah, I wonder.
How far I'll go back? I don't know if I will go to the
50s. Maybe the research part is hard.
The research part is hard, so you can go back to the 80s, yes.
Yeah, because I live. That but but I just find Marty
to be so inspiring because, you know, again, I see all of your
trademarks, I see all, I see your signature all over it.
But it's so different from your other stuff in terms of what you
it's so structured, it's so controlled you, but you have all
that energy, all the spontaneity, all of the
everything that makes it just feel like you're capturing real
life. But I know you didn't capture it
for I mean, you have every moment of this had to be
calculated. So I find that so impressive and
I just want to really commend you and your entire team.
See him on it. There's a lot from you, yeah.
Yeah, awesome man. Good luck with everything.