new Sam Reiss article on GQ: furniture/design in Uncut Gems
family movie about a cockeyed optimist in over his head
Happy post new year’s day … new story by me on GQ.com about the furniture and set design and material style in Uncut Gems (USA 2019). Here is the link:
https://www.gq.com/story/uncut-gems-furniture
https://www.gq.com/story/uncut-gems-furniture
https://www.gq.com/story/uncut-gems-furniture
For the story I spoke with Sam Lisenco, the film’s production designer, who has worked with directors Josh and Benny Safdie for a long time, and Kendall Anderson, the film’s set decorator. I also ambushed Josh Safdie at the jewelry showroom pop-up thing in Midtown the movie studio did the weekend before the movie came out. He gave me a short quote, which is in the story.
The guy who brought the fish in Gems had a huge role in early drafts and Lisenco said the film was about what the kid with both the Super Nintendo and the SEGA Genesis turned out to be as was an adult. Less Than Zero, the movie where Slayer covers Iron Butterfly on the soundtrack, was a big influence on the furnishings and wall cladding. Anderson said the directors’ research book for the diamond district, the one just given to department heads, had Daniel Arnold taking the photos. I hope those pics get released somewhere. Todd Haynes does an image book for every movie he does, I bet they are worth a leaf through. (His last flick, Dark Waters, about this Ohio lawyer, was very good and reminded me of The Insider but not as good. Which is really pretty good. Dark Waters was less stark than Mann’s flick(1), its tension not as high, though pretty high. Jeffrey Wigand’s wife is named Lucretia and Bilott’s wife, Sarah Barlage, in Dark Waters is a practicing Catholic. If you marry someone named after a Megadeth song your marriage is not going to last. It looked like the kids’ rooms in Gems and the nightclub there were Mean Streets-type depictions of hell, all red and black. Here is a chart of how tense Dark Waters was:
Compared to other films and common experiences(2).)
In Uncut Gems, Adam Sandler’s character lives on Long Island (Roslyn) but a lot of the jewelers they researched and hung out with live in Queens. Lisenco said some of these jeweler houses had cloud frescos painted on their ceilings indoors, but they didn’t do that for Adam Sandler’s character’s house since it would have taken away from the cinematic experience.
There is so much being written about this film. I don’t think a lot has been written about the furniture and its physical world. When I saw the movie I didn’t think the furniture belonged to Howard’s character, but his girlfriend’s. I understand the twist the directors went for after talking to the people who worked on the movie. One day they will make a movie about a birder who was pushed too far. Since birders are non-violent, beatific people, and since all good films require that someone die, it will be a challenging project for me. I hope you enjoy the story.
Thanks for reading.
Snake
List of all my shit:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-JLRt0Ec6gZBm50hATYCYmLctnF9GhVijoEbam50JSw/edit
I was going to list my favorite records and films and stories from this past decade but I don’t have reliable institutional recall about art and music. I really liked the Objekt Resident Advisor mix where he didn’t use any kick drums and Peter Hessler’s New Yorker stories from Egypt. Also the Best Show episode that aired on election night, but which is very depressing. Much time has passed. Thom Browne’s last important shirts are old enough to go to high school, and it has been twenty years since the Yankees won the pennant. I would like to thank everyone who has read this newsletter, either since the start (August 2014), or recently, regularly or once in a while or just once. Thank you for helping me create a body of work. It means almost nothing to me that the decade’s ending. There is no point in looking backwards about anything, and if you think big you will get more from the time ahead of you than what seems likely or possible now.
(1) Which I saw at the MoMA this fall with my friend Ben. The projector broke so there was a one-hour intermission where Michael Mann took questions. Ken Auletta and Ansel Elgort were both there, though not together, and as soon as the credits rolled Mann whipped out his phone and started texting people.
(2) Dinner at home is slow because you don’t have shoes on, and when It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World came out it was the fastest film yet.