‘Marty Supreme’ | Anatomy of a Scene

“Hello, I’m Josh Safdie. I’m the co-writer, co-editor, and director of “Marty Supreme.” This is when the dream is very much alive during the first act, and we’re seeing Marty in the role that he sees himself. And I talked to Timmy about what it means to be winning. And I said, I need that to almost superhero levels. This is the character Kay Stone, the former movie star, beautifully and tragically played by Gwyneth Paltrow. ” … see the open window with a bowl of fruit on the table?” “You see it?” “I do.” “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to make an apple appear in that bowl. And if I do, you’re going to blow off your little rendezvous … ” And we shot this scene — I wanted to shoot the two scenes, Martys side and Kay’s side at the same time. So we lit it, and they’re actually conjoined by a door, these two hotel rooms. So they’re talking to each other on period telephones in real time, so that I could capture their emotional points of view. The name of the cue you’re hearing is called “The Apple,” by Dan Lopatin, my composer. And the apple is again the ultimate sign of winning. And here she shows up as part of her deal. And that’s the Viennese choir, about 30 voices, that Dan orchestrated in an effort to really have this kind of heavenly vibe. And it’s nice because I can ground the scene in Kay’s point of view, which is kind of a surrogate for the audience, which is seeing Marty in his full dream and his full stardom, and it’s reminding her of a hustle she once chased. Darius Khondji, my cinematographer, and I tried to emulate, best we could, the glory and awe that we saw in the 1949 newsreel championships. “Let’s have a little fun with this one.” “O.K.” “Have a little fun, all right?” “Gotcha.” Timmy and Geza Rohrig, who plays Bela Kletzki, spent many hours with Diego Schaaf, the film’s table tennis choreographer, who mined thousands of hours of footage in order to find the perfect points to emulate. Timmy played some of these exhibition style points and so did Geza, but the harder part was for them to time doing this with the C.G. ball. “Point, Kletzki.” And there you see Kay, now intoxicated. There’s the head of the I.A.T.T. who’s livid. “Kletzki. starts, 6 to 20, Mauser leads two games to zero.” “Match point again for Mr. Mauser.” And this is one of my favorite moments of the film, right here, the way Bela sets him up like that. Pure showmanship. And Timmy’s laugh, which is just an incredible piece of his performance and I think indicative of the way he’s able to spike the film with these big feelings of emotion and joy.