At a Film Comment Presents preview screening of the Safdie Brothers’ newest film Good Time at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, co-directors Josh and Benny Safdie, lead actor Robert Pattinson, and co-writer and co-editor Ronnie Bronstein sat down for a Q&A with Film Comment editor Nicholas Rapold. The resulting 45-minute conversation about the acclaimed film, to be released on August 11 after its acclaimed premiere in competition at Cannes, spans the gamut, from a rundown of the backstory of the main character to an explanation of the involvement of Iggy Pop (complete with an invocation of termite art).
“It’s probably safe to say that, up until now, no lucid person had compared a Safdie brothers film to the work of Michael Mann,” Rory O’Connor said in our review. “Indeed, it may still be a stretch, though Good Time — the New York siblings’ latest eye-popping, pill-popping, attention-deficit character study — could feasibly be described as just that. It’s in parts a heist movie (iconic masks included) and a chase movie, but not an homage in any sense — more an evolution, like a 21st-century fast-food hybrid that mixes trash television and drug culture with Day-Glo-splattered night-time cinematography and throbbing synthesizers, thanks to a standout score from Oneohtrix Point Never.”
Watch it below, along with new images and an inventive poster for an upcoming series on the influences of the film at Metrograph. The Q&A can also be found on the Film Comment Podcast.
The coolest poster we’ve seen in a long time—designed by @JOSH_BENNY for their 13-film crime series. Opens tmrw 8/3: https://t.co/F66AS9lFQm pic.twitter.com/FcOMTcSe2x
— Metrograph (@MetrographNYC) August 2, 2017
Good Time opens on August 11.