On the surface, Chloé Zhao and Josh Safdie are not similar filmmakers. But together, in a one-on-one conversation, the directors bond over the importance of achieving a frequency while on set — whether that’s the contemplative hum of 300 extras meditating outside a replica of the Globe Theatre in “Hamnet” or the cast of “Marty Supreme” riding the rattle of an urban jungle, playing hustlers and operators.
With “Hamnet,” starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, Zhao peels back the legend of William Shakespeare and reveals a domestic tragedy that shaped his art. She examines how a seemingly happy family is shattered by the death of one its members, in a style that is melancholic and dreamlike. And with the propulsive “Marty Supreme,” Safdie lights a fuse that sends Timothée Chalamet, as table-tennis striver Marty Mauser, bouncing across New York, London and Tokyo. At each stop, he spreads chaos and sprints away from trouble, all while narrowing in on his dream to become a superstar.
The two acclaimed films have put the directors in the middle of the Oscar race. Zhao, who seems Zen in person, and Safdie, who radiates nervous intensity, meet up in New York to discuss their passion for cinema and their surprisingly simpatico approaches to moviemaking.
CHLOÉ ZHAO: There’s a kind of a paradox of emotions that weaves through your films.
JOSH SAFDIE: I like to think of my movies as about happiness and trying to chase it.
ZHAO: But that’s the saddest thing.
SAFDIE: A hundred percent. Happiness is a very sad thing, which is a strange thing to say. It’s so haunted and fleeting.
ZHAO: I’ve seen many of your films, including the earlier ones. And there is a running away from self, like the fear of staying still.
Why did you cast Timothée?
SAFDIE: I met him before “Call Me by Your Name” came out. He was just this kid who had this supreme vision for himself. He felt like a dreamer — an intense one. And the dreaming was almost pathologized. I could tell he was trying to control where he was going.
ZHAO: You capture that so well.
Benedict Evans for Variety
SAFDIE: I was watching him in other films, and I was like, no one’s exploring that. He did great in those other films, but I was like, “Oh wow — this side is still kind of untapped.”
He played Bob Dylan and Marty in the same year, and he had about four months in between. So when he wrapped, that day, he came to my office. He was still in Dylan’s voice — he was still acting like Dylan. [That’s when] I gave him 300 pages of images and research and the script.
The apex of “Hamnet” is being in touch with nature. All your other films are about nature in many ways. But this one was psychedelic almost.
ZHAO: I think both of our films are pretty good to watch on psychedelics.
SAFDIE: Oh, really? I can’t. My relationship with drugs is such a bad one. When I would smoke weed a while ago, it was a self-punishing experience. I would do it to inspect all of the things that I hated about myself and then put them in a category to study.
ZHAO: [That’s] your inner dialogue with all your shadows. But what I love about your films is that, like Shakespeare’s plays, they’re not afraid of the shadows. It’s hard for me to get my characters to the places you get your characters to, storywise.
SAFDIE: What do you mean by that?
ZHAO: The situations they’re in; allowing their shadows to come up. And to let these compulsions grab them completely, and then they do things that are almost unthinkable and sometimes unforgivable. And yet, [you] still give them humanity. That’s what a lot of characters in Shakespeare’s plays are like. He was swimming with his shadows nightly.
SAFDIE: Your films feel very free.
ZHAO: I find that being on set, working with the actors, trying to go, “Can you hold the tension between knowing and not knowing? Because I need you to have a container for the character, but I also need you to let go to the mystery.”
SAFDIE: You’re having that exact conversation with them?
Benedict Evans for Variety
ZHAO: Well, I asked them at the beginning, I said, “Hold it.” That means coming in, having some intention, but not knowing where the scene’s going to go; they don’t practice where it’s heading, so we’ll just see how it goes. If I come in every day knowing what’s going to happen, then [the film] is just mine, and that’s pretty small. There’s something so much bigger. But if you don’t have a container for it, then it’s just chaos. It’s not going to be a film. So how do we find that balance — to be half of the time a container, half the time a channel for whatever comes through?
SAFDIE: Time is kind of a container in general.
ZHAO: For sure.
SAFDIE: There are a few things that exist outside of time. Love exists outside of time. I remember Einstein once tried to explain relativity to somebody and said, “Everyone knows that an hour with your hand on a stove is an eternity. An hour with the person you love is over in a second.” And I’m pretty sure Einstein said that in kind of layman’s terms to try to explain relativity.
I try to find meaning in the micro. I believe in psychoanalysis. I believe in the development of a brain, early childhood trauma. I try to give all the actors that, so that they can have some semblance of internal monologue, which is some version of …
ZHAO: That is absolutely a container.
SAFDIE: Yeah. When I’m on set, sometimes I’m chasing something. I spend all this time writing the scripts — six years with this one — and in the scenes, I’m chasing. I’m somehow always trying to transcend the situations — trying to get the actor to transcend — but you can only do it so much. And I would rely on being on set with the performer and seeing them attach themselves to a moment, and all of a sudden, it transcends past the page — the camera even. You push the actors to that place, and the best way to do it is by throwing stimuli at them so it catches them off guard.
ZHAO: Give me examples. Because clearly you brought things out of a lot of your actors that we haven’t seen them do before.
SAFDIE: It’s a huge moment in the movie, so small though. Tyler, the Creator — Tyler Okonma — plays Wally, [Marty’s] friend who doesn’t have the luxury to dream. And there’s a frustration there. They’re doing this hustle at the bowling alley, and Marty’s playing the heel and Wally’s playing the victim, and he’s getting everybody to rally behind him.
And I told Tyler to really push it in his anger at Marty. And one take, he really pushed it: He threw his hand into Timmy and pushed his glasses into his face. And in that moment, you’re seeing all the extras — I had extras throwing lines in all the time to catch Timmy off guard, so he’s constantly having to interact with them. And in that moment, you’re seeing Timothée Chalamet kind of be like, “Oh my God, this guy just pushed me in my face in front of all these people.” And there’s a humility in that moment, but it’s underneath the performance. It’s one of the most moving moments in the film. And I always tell Timmy that, and I thank Tyler for being able to go there. Those are the moments where you’re seeing your actor transcend and kind of fuse with themself.
ZHAO: So satisfying.
SAFDIE: It really is. I felt that at the end of “Hamnet,” the beautiful moment when everyone’s reaching their hand out; you really can feel. It’s the faces, it’s the costumes, the beautiful way the film is shot.
ZHAO: It’s also the energy of the people there. There was a synchronization. There’s an energy that builds, builds, builds, and it comes through on-screen. We worked with this amazing woman, Kim Gillingham; she’s a dreamwork coach who comes from a Jungian tradition. So before I even wrote the script, Jessie and I were doing dreamwork together. Our dreams had already started mingling. By the time we got to the Globe, the cast and crew all went through dreamwork. She would be on the stage, and she would drop 300 people into a somatic meditation.
SAFDIE: Everyone went through them?
ZHAO: Oh, yeah. They’re all in a collective dream. There’s something about harmonizing the vibration of people, because we are made of vibrating particles from the universe. Once they vibrated at the same pace, it’s incredible how little I needed to do, because then they’re moving as one organism.
SAFDIE: I saw your film in the theater, and I could feel the energy around me during that final scene. There were some older women who were completely hysterical, inconsolable, to the point where I’m like, “Oh no!” But it added to the moment. It speaks to the power of a theatrical experience. I’ve seen some of my favorite films on my 10-inch television at the foot of my bed, but then you go and revisit them when they’re in theaters, and all of a sudden you’re feeling some sort of collective energy. Time doesn’t exist anymore.
Does seeing films in theaters matter to you?
ZHAO: It does matter to me. But I spent time on a reservation in South Dakota for many, many years. And the fact that your film “Daddy Longlegs” can be seen by a kid there, who may have had similar experiences to what you did, is because they can access it online. The accessibility aspect [of streaming] is great.
SAFDIE: You’re pointing out the right thing. They’re two completely different experiences and they’re both incredibly meaningful.
