Benny Safdie is still doing it for the losers
We meet The Smashing Machine director in New York
For A Rabbit’s Foot 360, Features writer Luke Georgiades and Creative Director Fatima Khan joined the filmmaker in his native New York to discuss celebrating life’s great losses, the beauty in an MMA tap-out, and Dwayne Johnson taking a beating as Mark Kerr in The Smashing Machine. Interview by Luke Georgiades.
Benny Safdie is serving us a slice of his New York City.
We’re at Joe’s Pizza on Carmine Street, Greenwich Village—a legendary institution that, I’m told, every New Yorker worth their salt has dined in at some point or another. Teeming with an infinite stream of customers, the only thing more famous than a slice from Joe’s are the names who have devoured them, with the walls inside lined with framed photos of some of the famous patrons who’ve stopped by over the years. Everyone from Matthew McConaughey and A$AP Rocky to Kim Kardashian and Bill Murray has tucked into one of Pino “Joe” Pozzuoli’s pizzas. Safdie’s face isn’t on the wall just yet—but give it time. A few weeks after we meet, the 39-year-old filmmaker will ascend the stage at the Venice Biennale to accept the Silver Lion for Best Directing for his first solo feature, The Smashing Machine. An achievement Safdie never “in a million years” thought he would win, he tells me during a later conversation. But here and now, dressed casually in jeans and a navy blouson, he remains indistinguishable from the crowd—just another New Yorker enjoying a slice on the sidewalk.
It’s a concept that intrigues Safdie: that every anonymous face on the street carries a lifetime of triumphs and failures. The idea is integral to the story of MMA [Mixed martial arts] pioneer Mark Kerr, the life of which Safdie’s The Smashing Machine is based. The film—aptly starring WWE wrestler-turned-Hollywood megastar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson—follows Kerr’s failed comeback attempt during the 2000s, which ultimately led the former fighting champion to fade into near-total anonymity, despite having helped lay the groundwork for what is now one of the most popular and lucrative sports on the planet. “Mark Kerr gave an interview where he was talking about how he was working at a car dealership and the customers didn’t know what he had done in his life,” Safdie tells me. “They didn’t know that he had won three championships. They had no idea. That could be anyone.” During his acceptance speech in Venice, he refers to The Smashing Machine as “an exercise in radical empathy,” thanking Kerr for “living his life so that we could feel it.”
Safdie is always on the lookout for stories hidden beneath the noise of everyday life. At one point, as we huddle around a couple of pizza boxes balanced on tiny bar stools, I notice him sprint away from the group. He disappears around the corner and returns moments later carrying a small film camera. He’s found an image: a man in his early 70s, parked on the curb outside Joe’s, one leg casually draped over the open door of his work van with a pizza box resting on the dashboard. Safdie carefully and unobtrusively finds his angle—pointing the camera at the man’s reflection in the van’s rearview mirror—and takes the shot. Then another. Once satisfied he’s captured the moment, he slips seamlessly back into the flow of our conversation.
WATCH: Cinema Saves with Benny Safdie: At his favourite cinema in New York, Safdie talks movie snacks, cinematic memories and making his first film Daddy Longlegs.
Safdie is always on the lookout for stories hidden beneath the noise of everyday life. At one point, as we huddle around a couple of pizza boxes balanced on tiny bar stools, I notice him sprint away from the group. He disappears around the corner and returns moments later carrying a small film camera. He’s found an image: a man in his early 70s, parked on the curb outside Joe’s, one leg casually draped over the open door of his work van with a pizza box resting on the dashboard. Safdie carefully and unobtrusively finds his angle—pointing the camera at the man’s reflection in the van’s rearview mirror—and takes the shot. Then another. Once satisfied he’s captured the moment, he slips seamlessly back into the flow of our conversation.
Later, he takes us to the Walter Reade Theatre at Film at Lincoln Center—another iconic spot, and Safdie’s favourite cinema in the city. “Me and my brother [Josh] shot a scene from our very first movie, Daddy Longlegs, in this theatre.” He recalls. “The lead actor [frequent Safdie collaborator Ronald Bronstein] was a projectionist here.”
The Walter Reade is midway through a retrospective celebrating the life and career of the late Gene Hackman. Safdie is due to catch a plane that evening, but expresses relief that he’ll be back in town before the theatre’s screening of Scarecrow, which he calls one of the all-time great Hackman films. The two FLC staff members on duty nod in enthusiastic agreement.
Unlike at Joe’s, blending in here isn’t quite as easy for Safdie, who, after well over a decade in the game, has gradually cemented himself as one of contemporary cinema’s most trusted and exciting voices. While chatting with staff in the lobby, he finds himself standing in front of a giant screen photo of him flashing a peace sign next to a grinning Emma Stone. “Yep, there I am,” he jokes, self-deprecatingly. It’s not long before one of the theatre employees produces a Criterion edition of his 2019 phenomenon Uncut Gems and politely asks for an autograph. Safdie happily obliges, taking the pen and scribbling his name across Adam Sandler’s glinting face. “I don’t ask filmmakers to sign stuff often,” the employee had confessed earlier. “But this one is special.”
