Notable Festivals: Cannes
Award Wins: John Cassavetes Award, Independent Spirit Awards
Parenthood is easily one of the most transformative experiences a person could go through. Overnight, one’s priorities — indeed, one’s entire world — radically realigns around the well-being of someone other than themselves. It is unfathomably rewarding and unimaginably challenging in equal measure. Simply put, parenthood is not for everyone, and the act of becoming one isn’t always necessarily synonymous with being one. The former requires only a physical event, whereas the latter is a constant state of attention and mindfulness.
Then there are the well-meaning parents who are nonetheless sabotaged by their own imperfect nature. The protagonist of the 2009 independent feature film, DADDY LONGLEGS, is one of the more visceral embodiments of this particular type of Bad Dad. Sire to two expectedly-hyper little boys but responsible for their care for only two weeks at a time due to custody arrangements with their mother, Lenny is a tornado of self-inflicted chaos, cursed with the long-term foresight of a goldfish. Immature, impulsive, and endlessly combative, Lenny establishes the mold for a certain type of character that has come to define the filmography of his creators, directors Josh & Benny Safdie. Indeed, as their first feature-length effort credited as a joint team, DADDY LONGLEGS asserts itself as something of a thesis statement for the brother’s unique brand of snub-nosed street cinema in desperate need of some Xanax.
The Safdies’ story, given an additional layer of insight after collaborating with underground filmmaker Ronald Bronstein, is intensely personal without being autobiographical. Their turbulent relationship with their father, Alberto, informs much of a story that’s been shaped by a chaotic absurdism that complicates our ability to discern fact from fiction. Bronstein, though not necessarily an actor by trade, delivers a performance not unlike a car crash in slow motion, forcing us to repeatedly wince as we watch through the cracks in our fingers. The Peter Pan of New York City, Bronstein’s Lenny is wiry, immature and combative — it’s easy to see why, out of an entire year, he was awarded only two weeks custody of his two sons. His grip on his job as a film projectionist is tenuous at best, always one slip-up away from termination, and his dingy studio apartment is so cramped that the fold-out bed inside his couch serves as his primary sleeping arrangement. Simply put, he’s hardly the type of father figure that promises to groom a pair of hyper-active boys into upstanding gentlemen.
DADDY LONGLEGS contains the scope of its narrative to the two-week period in which he is responsible for their welfare, and the Safdies seem to delight in showing us the myriad ways in which he casually & thoughtlessly imperils his children in his bid to be the Cool Dad. Whether he’s verbally sparring with the boy’s principal over their behavior, stealing them away on an impulsive road trip to the countryside with the previous night’s sexual conquest (and her apparently very open-minded boyfriend), or accidentally sending them into a light coma by dosing them with diluted sleeping pills so he could go to work and leave them safely unattended, Lenny simply can’t help himself. He’s fundamentally incapable of raising his children because he’s still very much a child himself… and for that, he garners a startling amount of our sympathy. We can’t help but root for the poor guy, much like the Safdie brothers seem to do for their own father.
Absurdist comedy usually surrounds the “straight man” with ridiculous, nonsensical characters. DADDY LONGLEGS flips the script by highlighting Lenny’s ridiculousness against a swath of normal people. There’s the two little boys, of course, played by the adorable real-life brothers Sage and Frey Ranaldo and using their real first names throughout in a likely bid to assimilate better into the film’s fictional reality. The children of Sonic Youth bandmate Lee Ranaldo, Sage and Frey weren’t (and still aren’t) actors, necessarily; they and their mother were approached by Josh on the street, very much in the manner they’ve discovered their other non-actor cast members. Josh & Benny lucked out in that the Ranaldos were such a creatively-inclined family, eager to jump on to the brothers’ hardscrabble vision as collaborators in their own right— to the extent that their mother, Leah Singer, would work both behind the camera (as an unofficial unit photographer) and perform in front of it as the boys’ mother and Lenny’s estranged partner. Eleonore Hendricks, who previously anchored Josh’s debut feature THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED (2008), returns in the supporting role of Leni, a young woman entangled in a complicated on/off romance with Lenny. Had she been a bit older when she met Lenny, she might have been a calming or stabilizing force, helping to straighten him out and think of somebody else for a change. As fate would have it, the apparent age gap speaks to Lenny’s shortsighted selfishness; she’s simply too young for him, unable to properly balance the scales of power because she’s too out of her element for her natural maternal instincts to fully assert themselves. The Safdies stack the remainder of DADDY LONGLEG’s cast with a collection of curious faces. Fellow film director Abel Ferrara briefly appears as a heat-packing CD hawker and clandestine mugger. Bit players from previous Safdie efforts, like the gas station clerk from THE ACQUAINTANCES OF A LONELY JOHN (2008) and the competitive table tennis player from THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, briefly pop up again where required. Josh even makes a cameo himself as one of Lenny’s co-workers at the movie house, his brief appearance further hacking away at the brittle line separating the fictional from the autobiographical.
There’s no doubt that DADDY LONGLEGS possesses an extremely rough visual presentation, eschewing any sense of Hollywood polish or artifice— and that is precisely why the film is so celebrated. Indie filmmakers have been shooting their personal howls of cinematic expression on scratchy, budget-friendly Super 16mm celluloid for decades, but the rise of widely-accessible digital motion picture photography makes it much easier for DADDY LONGLEGS to distinguish itself in opposition to. Once again sharing the Director of Photography credit with his Red Bucket Collective colleague Brett Jutkiewicz, Josh lets his natural preference for photochemical celluloid set the tone for the film’s overall technical approach. This is a film that could quite easily have been captured on prosumer HDV cameras — after all, I was out on the streets of Los Angeles at the same time shooting my own feature on a Canon XH A1 camcorder, utilizing a lot of the same tricks and techniques (and budgetary evasions). However, the organic look of 16mm film imbues an intangible aura that even high-definition video tape simply cannot replicate. Josh and Jutkiewicz pair an Arriflex 416 camera with Zeiss lenses, garnering a particular benefit from long focal lengths that allow them to capture the action from a distance. The setup is an ideal one for the Safdies, allowing them to maintain a low profile while capturing the gritty vibrance of real New York streets — no extras, no road closures, no permits. The 16mm film gauge’s chunky grain field is the only cinematic artifice that they impose on their storytelling, content to let their handheld camera work and the natural light in their surroundings capture the emotional truth behind their narrative contrivances. The faded hues of autumn complement the stone and steel tones of the city, making for a mise-en-scene that isn’t necessarily vibrant, but evocative nonetheless.
The neorealist cinema verite approach is potent enough on its own, but the Safdies find some opportunity to punctuate the self-seriousness with some playful touches. Like THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED before it, DADDY LONGLEG’s handwritten title cards inject a little stylistic flourish that rides the line between “charming” and “twee”. Also like Josh’s previous feature, the story finds time to deviate into a strange dream sequence featuring a fake animal making zero effort to come across as believable. Indeed, the film’s otherwise realistic approach serves to underscore the absurdity of the scene, which sees Lenny wake up in the middle of the night and confront a giant (comically-handmade) mosquito in his apartment. It’s a nightmare, to be sure, but the Safdies treat it with a distinct lack of seriousness that punctures any pretense of fright. The approach — much like the vintage doo-wop tracks and lo-fi kazoo humming that occasionally pop up within the film’s sound mix — is counterintuitive, but the result is inspired. There’s a tangible playfulness to the treatment of Lenny’s personal chaos tornado, coating the picture in a thin veneer of whimsy or even fantasy. Alternatively, it arguably invokes our sympathies for Lenny when there otherwise would be none, painting him as a kind of sad Sisyphean clown cursed by a string of bad luck.
It’s no secret that having a distinctive, individual storytelling voice is critical to the success of an independent film. In the absence of star power or lavish production value, story becomes the main draw; particularly, the way it’s told. The neorealist street cinema of the Safdie brothers isn’t necessarily new, nor is the handcrafted DIY vibe their work exudes, but their aforementioned playfulness and aptitude for evoking anxiety creates a strange alchemy that is entirely their own. DADDY LONGLEGS establishes the Safdie formula by drawing from the deep Freudian well of their personal experiences, rather than the aspirational emulation of the cinema that influenced them. Though Lenny makes shockingly awful, self-serving choices at nearly every juncture, there’s clearly a great deal of love and care applied to his shaping. He’s a prototypical example of the messed-up family dynamics that would define the brothers’ subsequent filmography, building off the difficult but loving relationship they were reported to have with their father, Alberto. Alberto was the one who fostered the brothers’ burgeoning passion for movies in the first place, forging the happiest aspects of their relationship by the warm light of a projector. Perhaps this is why the majority of their features are shot on celluloid film over digital — the medium itself is inextricably linked to the most intimate aspects of their lives. As such, there’s an inherent warmth to the Safdies’ storytelling, able to transcend the anxious, repulsive, and sometimes-violent weirdos that keep the machinery of plot continuously running.
With its programming in the prestigious Directors Fortnight section, DADDY LONGLEGS (or rather, GO GET SOME ROSEMARY as it was initially titled upon first release) established the Safdies as Cannes mainstays. Indeed, something about their work was connecting with international audiences, and with a coveted slot in Sundance’s Spotlight section, it would seem that domestic audiences were catching on too. A theatrical release in 2010 served as the first real stress test of the brothers’ durability in the marketplace, provoking about as mixed a response as one might expect from a grungy microbudget indie with an unrestrained narcissist as its protagonist. For every viewer turned off by Lenny’s strained attempts at maturity, there were others who appreciated the film’s honest humanity; critics like The New York Times’ A.O. Scott, who would describe the film as “a risky, heartbreaking exercise in empathy toward a person who may not deserve it”. Indeed, DADDY LONGLEG’s abject lack of Hollywood polish may have been a liability for general audiences, but to many critics, its rightful place in the long, proud tradition of DIY indie cinema pioneered by artists like John Cassavetes was immediately apparent. They would even go so far as to bestow the Independent Spirit Award bearing Cassavetes’ name on the Safdies’ homegrown opus.
Though many other filmmakers have received the dubious honor in the years before and since, it’s hard to imagine a more suitable recipient than the Safdie brothers. Like their similarity-iconoclastic forebear, Josh and Benny demonstrate the power of indie filmmaking while dismantling the toxic notion that a creative vision is not valid until approved by others with power. Had they waited for permission from a studio or some other kind of institution, they might have had more resources and marketing power, sure… but DADDY LONGLEGS could also still be languishing in development purgatory. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine anyone of sound financial mind saying “yes” to the brothers’ proposed vision, but we are all the richer for their decision to greenlight themselves. Admittedly, their privileged background yields more in the way of resources than the average indie filmmaker, but the essential truth remains the same: there is no competing with Hollywood. The sooner one realizes this fact, the sooner he or she can actually get down to the real work of cinematic expression. More than anything, DADDY LONGLEGS shows that it’s not what you have that distinguishes you as a visual storyteller, but rather, what you can do without. The Safdies’ breakout feature may lack a great many things, but it possesses the one thing that truly matters— a beating, howling heart.
DADDY LONGLEGS is currently available on high definition Blu Ray via The Criterion Collection.
Credits:
Produced by: Casey Neistat, Tom Scott
Written by: Josh & Benny Safdie, Ronald Bronstein
Director of Photography: Josh Safdie, Brett Jutkiewicz
Production Designer: Sam Lisenco
Edited by: Josh & Benny Safdie, Brett Jutkiewicz, Ronald Bronstein
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