![]() ![]() They also believe that actors work best when hulking machines aren’t all up in their faces, so they prefer to situate their cameras far from a scene’s action and shoot using super-long zoom lenses. UNCUT GEMS HOWARD FREEThe co-directors get some of their best material by fostering a sense of spontaneity, so they eschew marks - electrical-tape X’s on the floor tipping off actors on where to stand - and encourage free movement about the set. That sensation of constant propulsive force was a tonal must for the film, but the Safdie brothers’ particular filmmaking methods made that a unique challenge. That the film’s cinematographer, Darius Khondji, won’t get any recognition at the Oscars this Sunday is yet another reason to cast doubt on the Academy’s judgment. Harried jeweler–slash–gambling addict Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) hustles through midtown Manhattan’s Diamond District, up and down Sixth Avenue, back and forth from his home on Long Island to his philandering-pad in the city.Įven the closeups have a jittery sort of kinetic energy to them Howard is always rocking back and forth, pacing, at times seemingly vibrating in place. Howard got shot, and he got his happy ending.Josh and Benny Safdie’s Uncut Gems is a film of relentless, unceasing motion. That might be why that final shot won't leave me alone. He wanted it all, and he got it all, and he went out on top. There were no bigger scores he could have got. He and Julia would have burned through that $1.2 million easily and got into deep water again. He could never have got out and cleaned up and gone straight. What that grin says is that in spite of everything, Howard won. That's not to say you don't root for him, and want him to settle his debts and be good to his kids and less obnoxious to his wife. "I disagree."Īdd it all together, and you get an ending that's far more spacey and contemplative than a man like Howard – reckless, destructive, selfish, jealous, angry – would seem to deserve. "I disagree, Gary," Howard says, teeth bared. It's the same grin he gives Gary the bookmaker when Gary tells him his first bet on Garnett is "the dumbest fuckin' bet I ever heard of". Most haunting of all, he still has a grin spread all over his face. He's the face of the gambling addiction that eats away at everything he ever had – family, Julia, business, home. Whenever Howard's got them on, it means Evil Howard's around – the Howard who really believed the next high would finally satisfy him, the one who could clear his debts but goes for the Hail Mary bet of a lifetime. Something about them is incredibly dark, though. Those shades are not and never were at all cool. He’s got his oval-lens rimless shades with the gradient tint on. The "old-school Middle Earth shit" Howard tells Garnett about is real.īut before we get there, there’s the final shot of Howard. Noah and Gooey in the pawn shop laugh when Howard tells them that Garnett thinks the black opal has magic powers, but there’s definitely something there. We started the film flying through the opal and into Howard’s colon, and it ends back inside both Howard and the opal and all of time and space. It’s trippy and, with Daniel Lopatin’s droning, twinkling synth score, absolutely haunting. That bleeds into the subatomic cosmos, then back into what looks like the Ethiopian mines which Kevin Garnett’s mystical black opal was dug out of, and finally into the constellations of the night sky. We zoom slowly into Howard’s face as blood blooms from the back of his head, then slowly into the gunshot wound in his cheek. Howard’s laid out on the floor of his shop as the heavies ransack it around him. ![]()
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