This is Behind the Curtain. Today we're gonna be learning about how the Safdie
Brothers developed Uncut Gems over ten years, how being a quarterback relates to
writing chaotic scenes, and what the name uncut gems really means
we started this process 10 years ago uncut gems and we
the the initial you know draft or the
initial concept of them we was inspired our dad worked in the diamond district
as a basically salesman/runner for a character who was you know paternal in
the sense that he took on a lot of outsiders and worked in the diamond
district and was a kind of a heroic guy but also kind of maybe you know did
things that were slightly unlikable but lovable so that mythological but this
yeah mythological the stories though were very pulpy and and very mimetic in
the sense that you you could sit down at a dinner table and or at a bar and you'd
want to tell these stories because they were pumped and they were fun so that's
where that first draft kind of was like nostalgic in the sense that without
sentiment sentimentality but nostalgic nonetheless and Benny and I went and
wrote that first draft and then and then over the years you know the script
either wasn't ready for a number of reasons it wasn't developed enough we
didn't earn our rights our writing and so yeah it's like okay what I'm
financing we'll move to something else and then we would just find another
property would stumble in through our interests and through our research and
we really stumbled into other projects a documentary about a basketball player a
film based on a young woman who I discovered doing research in the diamond
district and then adapting her memoirs with Ronnie to do a massive to do a
script about her own life starring her and then that project Rob Pattinson saw
that film and said I want to work with you whenever you're doing next I said
we're doing this film of the diamonds you're not right for anything there he's
like okay well maybe let's just meet and we can figure out something else and you
know wanting to keep mining and educate ourselves on pacing and genre and then
that led a good time you know with each project that we made along the way you
know you develop you know certain whatever you develop muscles that then
in turn when you retro actively go I can look at where you were with gems
you realize you've sort of outmoded it you know so much of the material is no
longer interesting to you or no longer meets your standards of quality because
of the work that you've done where you've expressed a sense expressed it
and you don't need to reexpress it one great example is the Benny's character
from good time was a was a character that Ronnie and Benny developed for a
project that Ronnie was going to do but then that turned into a character and
Anka gems the script then we there's in there for a while whenever a while and
then we went with good time and then we started to write good time when like
well we can use this character my character good time was actually in a
version of gems and for a long time and it was the same guy it was he had a
similar disability but Howard kind of took him in after his mother died so he
played like this kind of father figure to him and when he when we didn't make
gems like oh what did we do with this character because this thing Ronnie and
I had worked on a lot before that for another movie and then we put the
character he to the character and then we then we're like okay then he was in
gems and then when gems wasn't happening we're like oh we have this amazing
character we have to use him somewhere and then he found his way into good time
and then when he's in good time of course doesn't need to be in gems
anymore so a lot of his character actually and have been truly as yeah
weirdly enough yeah you mentioned good time there's a scene in good time at the
bail bonds and I remembered while we were shooting it there's like I mean
there's one two three four four characters or five characters were
caring for characters know who the fifth would be but it's omnipresent know so
the four characters and they're all speaking at the same time at different
moments to one another so the line is literally switching between two people
in one word and it was just so crazy that I remember while we were shooting
it we were like I wonder if this is gonna work like I don't even know if
it's gonna be possible to edit this together what does it go right we can I
think we can do it we can do it just make sure everything is in on point and
we'll make it work and it did work and then after that other huh we can do
that like wreaking well that was calm but it was a calm in the storm was it
confidence for characters but six conversation yes okay so it's and it's
always changing so there's like the the receptionist is talking to to the bail
bonds and they're husband and wife so they have one thing and then he turns
and looks at rob for a split second then Rob looks at the receptionist so
everything is conversation and and yeah there's phone conversation so it was
that was kind of like a prep for certain scenes and on Ketchum's where it was
like okay if we can do that we can go times ten and had so many more
characters all talking at the same time because from the very beginning is very
early on in the script process there was this gargantuan section of the script
that sometimes I think and it's one iteration was thirty page sequence and
it was the sequence where you introduced Kevin Garnett in the movie and there's a
lot of characters inside the showroom and and it kind of vacillated between
how many speaking characters there were and then we simplified it over time and
what you see in the movie is do the most simplified version which have if you've
seen the movie you'll know it's not a simple scene at all there's a lot going
on there's the back room there's the show room there's okay now you should be
stretching out fucking crazy what the greatest part about being a writer
director is that you get to you basically you you're you're directing
from the second you put a word down on the scripts because you have to actually
put yourself in that scenario and see if you can see it to cut if you could bring
it to life and and having done that scene started the pare down process okay
well this is this is too much this is overload and this will be information
overload so that start helped with the editing
process good time of that misses him and specific scene and then in the you know
the hectic part about about a scene like that is you have to take this and I'm
not even a football person but I what I can relate to something that I really
deep to me is is when the quarterback receives the ball and and is surrounded
right there you have all this defense trying to make their way to just just
two cents in the pocket and he's in the pocket and you can just see he's got
defense all around him and he can move around in the pocket can
with him but he's in the pocket all he's looking for is a pass or a run and that
pocket is kind of like a scene like that you kind of just have to try to find the
pocket and toe the line make sense of this if you work at it one piece at a
time if you build your way up eventually it'll all make sense on some level as
long as you have your communicating so yeah a good time was was was huge we go
in knowing that that's going to be the case you know it's like okay the
performance we believed would be heightened by the freedom that that
would allow that like if we could just talk over one another we don't have to
worry about pausing and waiting for you to talk so it just it create breeds an
interesting energy so let's play with that and we knew that we'd have to make
it work later somehow and we were confident that that was gonna happen and
so it just there were certain scenes were like it was almost not possible but
it just it breeds a life that reflects the characters in the film you know that
there is this constant run of people talking business here business there you
know form Lewis Sullivan said form follows function and it is so I live by
that you know when every time I would go back
to the diamond district like I was saying earlier I would get that bug that
bug came from the energy that comes from you go into a jewelry store and there's
literally three deals happening at the same time meanwhile there's a food
buffet that's out because it's you know this Jewish holiday and everyone and
then you're drinking and you're drinking at 3:00 - at noon mm-hmm so that that
energy was part of it but honestly the the personal hack for ourselves has
always been if you know your characters that's you if you know your characters
the narrative writes itself and that's happened so many times with us we've
been stuck in a hole but you really know these people and what they will do next
is determined by who they are and and that's really who you're writing for
you're writing for the characters and their real lives or the quote-unquote
real lives and it's not you know it's not like a
binary you know well do we want to make the audience feel good do we want to
make the audience feel bad which is maybe a little bit how your how you're
opposing it it's you know it's more generous than that because of what is
going to give the audience the most fulfilling experience you know in
keeping with the particular set of conceptual semaphores that comprise of
this project the movies called uncut gems right
yeah uncut gem is something that is that the beauty is has to be discovered on
the inside and then of these things that are that are judged from the outside and
deemed in unvalued invaluable unvalued or ugly and then you know the movie is
filled with uncut gems and human forms there are people who might have rough
rough on the outside appearances they might do things that might be slightly
unlikable when you dig down deep you get to something that is beautiful and and
therefore a value and and I think that the ending of the movie literally and
figuratively does that hi this is nehemiah Jordan the
creator of behind the curtain there were so many good insights from the safty
brothers about uncut gems that I've actually created a second video of bonus
information and content that you can watch right now if you liked this video
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