The modest success of DADDY LONGLEGS (2009) and the prestige afforded by its Cannes debut wouldn’t quite launch Josh and Benny Safdie’s directing career into the stratosphere, but it would raise their profile significantly. Most filmmakers would leverage the moment to land a big studio film, but even at this relatively early stage in their careers, it was quite clear that the Safdie brothers were not most filmmakers. Instead, they doubled down on their commitment to the indie scene, dedicating themselves to the cultivation of their own development slate and the continued growth of their New York-based filmmaking collective, Red Bucket Films. For the next two years, they would embark on a series of shorts that followed every little creative whim while further reinforcing their idiosyncratic storytelling tastes.

WHY? THIS MOVIE EXISTS (2010)

Promotion is a core part of the job for any filmmaker, and those without the luxury of well-connected marketing teams must take on the considerable task themselves. It’s hard work, to be sure, but it doesn’t need to be a chore. When it came time to promote DADDY LONGLEGS’ limited theatrical run, the Safdies were already predisposed to the notion— albeit in their own signature way. In what is easily the most “New Yawk” marketing campaign ever devised, the 2010 short WHY? THIS MOVIE EXISTS documents Benny wandering around the Big Apple handing out screening flyers while a giant billboard is attached to his person. A vintage torch song plays underneath the visuals, adding a cheeky flair to the proceedings as Benny wanders the streets, parks, and subways, hawking flyers to passerby who quite literally pass by without giving him an ounce of attention. The brothers shoot on consumer digital video, capturing the action from afar as is typical of their distinct style of street photography. Whether or not the hustle resulted in actually filling out the theater, WHY? THIS MOVIE EXISTS is an amusing testament to the brothers’ all-consuming passion for their medium— a passion that refuses to be constrained by something as trivial as a “marketing budget”.

JOHN’S GONE (2010)

One of the more high-profile shorts in their filmography, JOHN’S GONE (2010) continues the Safdies’ brand of homegrown cinema while fostering their international acclaim. The piece, which would be programmed at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, finds Benny playing an aggrieved young man faced with the signature Safdie conundrum of always being in a hurry while having nowhere to go. He’s an aimless hustler, trying to flip every beneficial turn of events into an even-tidier profit. The story is designed as a series of encounters that convey a “day in the life” feel; whether he’s hawking old electronics on the street to kids with a monkey in their backpack, spraying the halls of his apartment complex for roaches, or arguing with the Chinese food delivery guy, there’s a certain absurdist flair to his interactions. There’s even a hint of danger, like when a squirrelly prospective computer buyer pulls a knife on John.

JOHN’S GONE assembles the core Red Bucket Films team, including their DADDY LONGLEGS co-writer Ronald Bronstein, art director Sammy Lisenco, and Brett Jutkiewicz and Zachary Treitz on lighting and sound, respectively. The transfer that’s available on Vimeo obscures the clarity of JOHN’S GONE’s acquisition format; at first glance it appears to be standard-def digital video, but the credits list 16mm lens film and steadicam rentals from NY rental house Du-All (fun fact: we rented our own camera package from Du-All for our own feature, THE VEIL). Regardless of a film or video source, JOHN’S GONE is a Safdie film through and through, captured with an unadorned, handheld verite style. Long lenses capture the action from afar, allowing the crew to maintain a low profile while documenting John’s interactions with a suite of unknown actors and non-actors alike. 

Like their feature work, a distinct strain of anxiety courses through the piece; like John himself, we’re never allowed to get comfortable. It’s their signature emotional key, having discovered its power on DADDY LONGLEGS. JOHN’S GONE, then, uses its short-form storytelling structure as a safe space in which to further experiment and play in this arena while cultivating the Safdies’ distinct voice.  

BUTTONS (2011)

One of the pleasures of working with a filmmaking collective instead of a studio or conventional production company is the opportunity to collaborate on non-commercial ventures. The 2011 short BUTTONS is one such example; co-directed with fellow filmmaker Alex Kalman and incorporating additional footage shot by the Safdies’ frequent collaborator Eleonore Hendricks, BUTTONS is an experiment in mobile cinema. Though cell phone video quality at the time was nowhere near the cinema-adjacent quality it is today, the Red Bucket crew could see that day was inevitable. Both an example of digital street cinema and an experiment in adapting the snapshot-style visual grammar of mobile video into a longer presentational format. Each vignette is identified with color-blocked intertitles, their cumulative effect standing as an appropriately-eccentric portrait of New York City. Taking the image of a suited man dancing while waiting for his subway car to arrive as an example, BUTTONS captures a surprising amount of humanity within its chunky, smearing pixels. While anyone can theoretically point a camera at a stranger on the street and capture something interesting, the Safdies’ practiced familiarity with the notion allows them to see life’s little flourishes where others would see nothing at all.

STRAIGHT HUSTLE (2011)

Detailed on IMDB as a seven-minute short commissioned by the Northwest Film Forum’s One-Shot program, the Safdies’ 2011 short STRAIGHT HUSTLE evidently isn’t available for public view at current. Judging off its logline, which simply states: “these two got a cold hustle going on in downtown Seattle”, we can already tell it’s going to possess the same handheld verite street cinema the brothers are known for. The Seattle setting represents a major departure, however, and it would be very interesting to see how the Safdies’ gritty East Coast sensibilities translate to the soggy Pacific Northwest.

THE BLACK BALLOON (2012)

Released in 2012, THE BLACK BALLOON is another one of the Safdies’ higher profile shorts. Like THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED (2009) before it, the piece was commissioned by luxury fashion brand Kate Spade as a clandestine promo. So clandestine, in fact, that the only way one would know it was branded content is by paying attention to the credits (Spade Films, Inc. is listed as the copyright holder and the brand’s namesake’s husband, Andy Spade, is credited as an executive producer). Unlike THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, THE BLACK BALLOON sticks to the assignment (no stealth feature to be found here). Nevertheless, it is very much a Safdie film— aside from a few fleeting closeups of a Kate Spade handbag, the brand’s presence is very much buried underneath the brother’s unique brand of gritty absurdism.

The core concept involves the titular black balloon, which the Safdies seem to imbue with some kind of sentience as it escapes from a bundle of brightly-colored balloons (held by Spade himself) and goes on a whimsical journey across New York City. The balloon floats along to the avant-garde synth rock of Gong, observing a handful of vignettes that collectively capture New York’s idiosyncratic humanity. Two particular episodes stand out, as they embody the Safdies’ characteristic blend of gritty street hustle and wry absurdism. The first sees an interaction between frequent Safdie collaborator Eleonore Hendricks as a besuited television executive and her slovenly former show host named Razzo, who was fired for insulting President Obama on air. The two bicker on a busy street about the chances of restoring his former position while the Safdies’ handheld camera uses a long lens to capture the action from afar. The second finds the black balloon coming across a van filled with other inflated balloons. Assumingly under the impression that the other balloons are trapped, our plucky balloon tries to free them by bashing against the van’s back window until it breaks, subsequently giving us the comical sight of the other balloons popping against sharp shards of glass as they stream out into the sky.

While fellow Red Bucket member Sam Lisenco returns to help produce and Benny runs sound, THE BLACK BALLOON utilizes the talents of some new collaborators, namely production designer John Furgason and cinematographer Sean Price Williams. The result retains the grungy, unglamorous verite look we’ve come to expect from the Safdies, complete with claustrophobic closeups and lo-fi digital textures. More pointedly, THE BLACK BALLOON seems to tap into a primal sentiment that unconsciously informs the Safdies’ storytelling. At one point, an aggravated character cries out: “I love you as a human being, but I hate you as a person”— a seeming contradiction of opposing impulses that, on closer look, isn’t so contradictory after all. Compassion and morbid fascination can co-exist, and the Safdies appear to have an ample supply of this off-kilter concoction. Perhaps this is why their characters are at once so repulsive and endlessly compelling; far from the conventional “likable” quality that Hollywood insists on imbuing its heroes with, the Safdies’ various protagonists are nevertheless marked by their humanity… many times with unsavory characteristics that we can see in ourselves. Even in the faceless guise of a latex black balloon, the Safdies can compel our empathy; we recognize its curiosity, wanderlust, even fear. This kind of storytelling ability is the mark of a true filmmaker, and goes a long way towards explaining the Safdies’ early success despite their work’s deliberate lack of technical polish. 

THE TROPHY HUNTER (2012)

A short piece made for the Turtle Conservancy, 2012’s THE TROPHY HUNTER leverages the Safdies’ documentary-adjacent style towards a message advocating against the illegal wildlife trade— which, after weapons and human trafficking, is apparently the third largest commodity on the black market. Structured as a fake documentary that capitalizes off the brothers’ reputation of purveyors of the contemporary urban hustle, THE TROPHY HUNTER introduces its onscreen host Glenn O’Brian as a New York icon, its handheld camerawork following him into the gaudy (and surprisingly cramped) penthouse of a Chinese businessman eager to show off his hedonistic lifestyle and his expensive collections of art and exotic wildlife. Though stated as taking place in Hong Kong, the piece was shot in the Safdies’ native New York, in a high-rise apartment that exudes the same new-money sleaze that coats later features like UNCUT GEMS. Though it is a relatively low-profile short within the Sadies’ filmography, THE TROPHY HUNTER is notable in the context of other works like THE BLACK BALLOON and THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, in that it sees the brothers feeling their way around the commodification of their aesthetic by corporate and non-profit interests alike— an undeniable sign of their growing impact on pop culture.

SOLID GOLD (2012)

Though their 2012 short SOLID GOLD is currently unavailable for public viewing, we can infer a few points from the scattered information across the internet. The piece finds Benny dressed up as an all-gold street performer/mime— the kind who pretends to be a statue (we had a guy like this who plied his motionless trade outside the Pioneer Place mall in downtown Portland). Like other Safdie shorts before it, the piece was shot on the street in a covert fashion so as to capture non-actors’ interactions with Benny as well as his growing frustration with a fruitless hustle. It also is evidently a personal favorite of the brothers’, as they would make an off-kilter sequel in 2020 with Adam Sandler called GOLDMAN VS. SILVERMAN.

LOSE HER ISLAND (2012)

Another 2012 short, LOSE HER ISLAND, would close out this brief run of shorts. Like so many others, the piece is unavailable for public viewing as of this writing. IMDB lists the story as being about “Jacques Cousteau’s investigation on fighting sea elephants and the losers who roam an island”. Evander Holyfield and George Foreman are listed as performers, albeit via stock footage. I can’t imagine how those two elements fit together, but I’m sure the Safdies do so with a gleefully absurdist touch.

In the broad sweep of things, this two year run of shorts doesn’t necessarily evidence a huge amount of artistic growth on the brothers’ part, but it does reinforce and clarify their storytelling voice. More importantly, they’re able to do so in a relatively safe space, far away from the scrutiny and expectation they’d have otherwise faced with another theatrical effort. Their storytelling voice is inherently playful, so allowing themselves the opportunity to play is crucial for the evolution of their feature-length efforts. Indeed, the features immediately to come would reap the benefits, offering a sharper, bolder, and more sophisticated approach.