By Eli Landes
The Museum of Contemporary Art is kicking off a new weekly film series that focuses on directors who occupy the difficult-to-define space between art, experimental film and conventional narrative-based cinema. It’s fitting that the program will launch with a focus on the films by out-of-the-box New York filmmakers, brothers Joshua and Benny Safdie, programmed by Melbourne International Film Festival director, Michelle Carey. Last year, the brothers were the focus of a retrospective at the festival, where we had the chance to speak to Benny Safdie about the pair’s latest work, Heaven Knows What.
Josh and Benny Safdie’s 2014 film, Heaven Knows What, is an adaption of Arielle Holmes’ real life chronicle of living on the street, addicted to heroin. From the gonzo brand of filmmaking that the brothers trade in here, you would not expect that Benny Safdie would be as well-groomed as he presents to us today.
Benny Safdie notes that while researching another film, his brother, Josh ran into Holmes on the 47th street subway and immediately struck up a friendship. “Once he had her write her stories down we could see her voice, see her perspective and it was completely unique,” says Benny Safdie. “So from there it was adapted into the film; it was completely organic. We weren’t setting out to do that in the first place, so the film kind of found us in that way.”
There’s a beautiful surprise when the credits roll and audiences realise that it was Holmes herself playing the lead. “The thing is, there would never be a movie if it wasn’t her starring in it,” demands the young co-director. “It certainly may not be one hundred percent factual, but it was one hundred percent emotionally factual, so we wanted to get at exactly what she felt in real life.
“You kind of know whether somebody can act or not,” the genial New Yorker continues. “You could tell that she was completely unfazed and she didn’t give a shit. She just had that presence.
“I rarely go into movies with a moral perspective,” he says. “There are a lot of movies that glorify drug use and we didn’t want to do that. But at the same time we didn’t want to be preachy and judgey about it. So we were going to make you feel what it felt like to have to get the drug and what the world feels like. As an audience you are going to feel that insanity and you’re going to make the judgment yourself.”
At the recently wrapped Melbourne International Film Festival, the Safdie Brothers enjoyed a ten film retrospective, which is surprising considering their young age and limited amount of work, which also includes shorts and documentaries. However, collectively their diverse body of work constructs a gritty mosaic of the human struggle, and those that get left in the fringes. Although, Heaven Knows What is clearly not their first project together, the production was not without its familial differences.
“He was so enamoured by this ability of these kids to live in the moment and I think that it’s so frightening,” notes Benny Safdie about his brother Josh. “So it’s that kind of balance. We allow each other to see different aspects of the world that we might not have seen.
“It’s interesting, there are a lot of fights,” he jokes. “But most of the time it’s furthering the idea. It’s pushing and pulling our perspectives to get to this place. Because we’re brothers you understand that if you have a fight we’re still going to be brothers. It’s not like a friend who you can cut off, so it eliminates a lot of that pettiness.”
The Contemporary Film Program will kick off on Saturday, April 2 with a screening of Heaven Knows What at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Find the full schedule of films from the Safdie Brothers here.
Picture caption (L-R): Josh and Benny Safdie.
