What Tension Looks Like: Uncut Gems

INTRO

There are two ways to present a story: objectively or subjectively.

Directors who frame their stories through an objective lens use the camera to create an emotional distance from the characters so that the onus of how the film is interpreted is placed solely on the audience. Hirokazu Kore-Eda is a great example of a director who likes to maintain a wider, objective point of view on social realist stories.

On the other hand, directors who frame their stories subjectively use the camera to manipulate the audience into getting entangled in the minds of the characters. Warping the viewer’s emotional perspective into that of the fictional people represented on screen.

The Safdies use the camera to create cinematic worlds in this subjective style. Uncut Gems is no exception.

In this video I’ll break down how they used this subject approach to directing to create a chaotically tense, amped up, social realist thriller which visually represents the manic, addictive behaviour of its lead: Howard Ratner.    

BACKGROUND

“The goal was to make it seem like it was unspooling in front of you. That there was no script at all because that adds to the tension. It adds to the plausibility of, no, this is actually happening in front of me.”

In the ten years which it took the Safdies and fellow co-writer Ronald Bronstein to develop and write the script, this goal of complete and utter immersion remained at the film’s centre. It’s a style of filmmaking which they’d spent years cultivating.

Their other films, such as Heaven Knows What and Good Time, also prioritised a similar chaotic realism which was built around characters more on the extreme side.These movies push right to the limit of what is realistic. Keeping audiences in maximum suspense without losing them due to implausibility.

Josh and Benny initially pitched the script to Adam Sandler’s manager in 2009, who rejected it before Sandler got a chance to read it. 

In 2016 they managed to secure funding for the project from Elara Pictures and RT Features. They later cast Jonah Hill as the lead, and attempted to age down the character, with A24 set to distribute. The Safdies cultivate this sense of amped up realism in their films through a combination of casting actors with star power alongside first-time actors.   

After almost ten years, Sandler saw Good Time, got hold of the script in 2018 and agreed to come on board to star, replacing Hill.  

To get a sense of Howard Ratner before production began the Safdies conducted camera tests. 

“It wasn’t all there but it was pretty close. It was kind of exciting that all of a sudden he just put on these clothes, put on the teeth and he just clicked. We had this viewing room at a sports bar and we filled it with these degenerate gamblers, some real life bookees who we were actually trying to convince to be in the movie still and there was a Celtics game on. That was the only script. You have your bet and this is it. All these people were trying to meet Adam Sandler but here he shows up as Howard and he’s trying to give them enough Sandler so that they’re, like, OK with it but he’s really just trying to open up their personalities so he can feast on them.”

While they did embrace a certain amount of improvisation during production, they noted that improv was a means but not an end. They used that same spontaneous, realistic energy that comes from improv but structured it through the written scenes in the script.   

So while a large part of the energy of the film came from casting and performance, another component of it came from the film’s visual style.

VISUAL STYLE

So, how did they use cinematography to represent manic, addictive tension visually?

They borrowed from the visual approach which they had formed with DP Sean Price Williams on prior films such as Heaven Knows What, whose characters were literal addicts with some of the same impulsive, chaotic decision making traits as Ratner.

This time they teamed up with cinematographer Darius Khondji.

Heaven Knows What used extremely long, old school wildlife lenses and sometimes shot two whole blocks away from the actors. As the lenses were too large and cumbersome to be able to operate efficiently handheld, Sean Price Williams operated the camera off a fluid head tripod. This allowed him to track the actions of the actors from a far off, voyeuristic point of view.

Khondji adopted this style of using extremely long focal lengths, shooting from far away off an operated fluid head. From early on Khondji made it clear that he wanted to help the Safdies make their movie, rather than imposing his own visual preferences. 

“They wanted Uncut Gems to capture the realism of New York, with a garish and gritty look, inspired visually by the kinetic photography of filmmakers such as Robert Altman and post modern architecture in the city, which I found rather ugly.”

“I am more disposed towards glamorous and exciting visuals and quickly realised they did not want a pretty-looking result.”

In particular they referenced the garish, postmodern architecture and designs of Michael Graves. 

Instead of using spherical zooms he pushed to use Panavision C-Series anamorphic lenses. He felt anamorphic lenses would help to isolate Ratner amongst the busy backgrounds and make his close ups feel larger than life.

"Of course, widescreen can be used to convey the epic nature of the story, but anamorphic can also act like a magnifier. Josh and Benny like telling stories close-up to their characters. They love how the long anamorphic lenses rendered the actors' faces, and felt it was perfect for Howard.”

He even managed to track down a rare 360mm Panavision anamorphic prime lens which allowed them to shoot tight shots with a compressed, uneasy feeling.

They also implemented zooms to introduce dynamic movement and mimic subjective point of view shots.These were done on Panavision front anamorphic zooms, specifically the 70-200 and 40-80. 

Khondji’s lighting embraced the realistic yet garishly colourful tone that the Safdies wanted. He was forced to light in a 360 degree style where the entire area of the set is lit. 

This was due to the Safdie’s preference for not having definite marks for actors and them preferring the actors to block the scene in the way felt most natural, giving them space to improvise and move around if necessary.

This lighting style was different to most of Khondji’s films where he lights specific areas which the actors would be forced to stand in on marks.

To give the negative a rougher feel Khondji selected Kodak’s higher grain 500T film stock which he pushed by an extra stop. This means he underexposed the film by a stop and then got the lab to compensate by overdeveloping it. The result was a grainier image with more contrast and less resolution.

Some scenes were shot digitally on the Alexa Mini. 

Colourist Damien Van der Cruyssen created custom LUTs to try and balance the look of the digital footage with the 35mm scans. In the final grade he also added grain elements to the Alexa footage, shot by the camera crew with the 500T film, to try and maintain the same continuity in texture across the film.

Now, let’s take a look at a couple of examples from Uncut Gems to break down how this visual approach was implemented.

SCENE 1 - JEWELRY STORE

Ratner’s 47th Street jewelry store located in New York’s Diamond District was all built and shot in a studio. They leaned into a colourful, garish look both in the production design as well as in the lighting.

Khondji’s team rigged Arri Skypanels overhead into the ceiling panels which could all be controlled. This meant the lights were out of sight and scenes could be shot 360. 

These RGB LEDs are also easily dimmable and can alter their colour. They used them to create a palette of strong, tacky cyans, pinks and greens. They also placed different practical lights in shot all around the store.

In these scenes, and indeed throughout the whole movie, the camera almost never sits still as it tracks the constant movement of the characters. This cranks up the tension visually. Large portions of these scenes also play out in close ups shot on long lenses. By not letting the scene play out in wides it’s difficult to get a sense of the layout of the store. This framing results in a claustrophobic, trapped psychological feeling.

Overall this mixture of harsh, garish lighting, constant camera movement and an abundance of close ups builds up a feeling of chaotic tension in Ratner’s space. 

SCENE 2 - THEATRE

While this feeling of constant tension is cranked up through most of the film, the Safdie’s carefully insert just enough moments of calm to punctuate the madness and prevent the movie from being too overbearing.

These scenes typically involve quieter moments with his family, around whom he is forced to momentarily slow down.

This scene plays out with realistic, yet more traditionally cinematic lighting. The colour temperature is a more comforting, warmer tungsten. There’s a more conventional contrast split between light and shadow. The light is softer. In these less crazy scenes the camera finally comes to a stop. The scene is covered in locked off frames. 

However the shot selection still sticks to claustrophobic close ups. Like Ratner himself, although the visual language briefly becomes a little more grounded it never truly relaxes.

Using the slower pacing of these stiller moments allows the audience to take a breath for a second before the tense, action-packed rollercoaster begins again. 

CONCLUSION

The subjective camera in Uncut Gems functions to heighten the feeling of tension which Ratner embodies. The cinematography is Ratner. It’s bold, garish, rough, intense and always in motion.

Rather than having beautiful, cinematic images for their own sake, Uncut Gems does a great job of making visual decisions which truly support the mood of the story.

Even if that mood is ugly and intensely chaotic.

That is what good cinematography is meant to do.