https://www.sabzian.be/text/a-lost-form

A Lost Form

The Smashing Machine and Marty Supreme

VERTAALD DOOR TRANSLATED BY TRADUIT PAR Trevor Perri

Following the success of Good Time (2017) and Uncut Gems (2019), the Safdie brothers each embarked on their first solo project. In The Smashing Machine (2025), Benny Safdie shows the trials and tribulations of MMA legend Mark Kerr, played by Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, who is himself a former professional wrestler. In Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme (2025), Timothée Chalamet takes on the role of table tennis prodigy Marty Mauser, loosely based on the Jewish American Marty Reisman, who, in his quest for success, didn’t shy away from deception and manipulation. Two biopics about sporting legends, filmed by two brothers who have collaborated before – it invites comparison.

Mark Kerr and Marty Mauser share a relentless obsession with their sports. Yet the motivations that drive them to put on boxing gloves or pick up a table tennis bat are different. Once in the ring or behind the table, something else is at stake for these two elite athletes. Kerr, who lives a comfortable life in his villa with a swimming pool, is driven by a deep-seated need for validation, fuelled by a profound fear of losing. Marty has been dealt a different hand. For this Jewish American shoe salesman in 1950s New York, table tennis is a survival strategy, a gateway to social mobility. The film suggests that Marty’s amoral attitude stems less from an unsympathetic character than from a precarious situation that denies him the luxury of a moral compass. It makes him a pawn of a society that presents success as merely a matter of willpower. Yet the critique of the American dream never really takes hold, for lack of a formal foundation.

If there’s any critical impulse at all, it’s undermined in Marty Supreme by a visual language that fits seamlessly with the very kind of entertainment cinema the brothers had deconstructed in their earlier films. Uncut Gems punctured the myth of the American dream by showing the nerve-racking pursuit of it through hyperkinetic editing, claustrophobic camerawork and a frantic soundtrack that destabilize classic Hollywood language and its associated worldview from within.

Marty’s hustle is also translated narratively into an endless series of stumbles and, in that sense, aims for a similar effect, but the film lacks the sensory overload with which Uncut Gems tips exhilarating excitement into a terrifying, nihilistic fever dream. The result is conservative, the most illustrative example being the immersive promotional campaign in which Timothée Chalamet remains true to his role: “Dream big!”

Contrary to his brother, Benny Safdie does demonstrate a formal exploration that maintains a conscious relationship with conventions. The documentary realism of The Smashing Machine, achieved through a handheld 16 mm camera and long takes, breaks with the classic biopic aesthetic that Marty Supreme embraces without hesitation. During the matches, Benny positions the cameraman next to the ring, where he has to fight for a spot with press photographers who block his view. There is no rhythmic editing from multiple angles, no close-ups stringing together punches and kicks. Instead, a haze of bloodied bodies and limbs unfolds, often unclear whose they are, framed by the ropes of the ring. It’s only when Kerr walks off the stage towards the changing rooms that we get closer. Dwayne Johnson’s extraordinarily muscular back fills the frame like a shield keeping the outside world – and in this case, the intrusive handheld camera – at a distance. It’s only in the changing room that he bursts into tears. We watch the intimate scene, the battle between Kerr and his demons, with hesitation. The documentary realism of The Smashing Machine claims to offer access to the intimate space that sports films do not usually enter.

There is, however, little to be discovered there, apart from a vague hint of emotional intensity. In its attempt to reveal a reality, the film comes up against the limits of a life that ultimately yields little dramatic material. The Smashing Machine places the burden of proof on reality without exploring it cinematically. The yoke of true events ultimately dooms the film, causing the realistic aesthetic itself to come to the fore. Every camera movement stands out, every spontaneous zoom looks calculated. The call to watch is so loud that the filmmaker himself demands all the attention. What is meant to come across as nonchalant looks artificial and contrived. It is not Kerr the wrestler, but Dwayne Johnson’s mechanical body, spasmodically expressing emotions, that draws the attention. It is not his vulnerability, but Johnson’s facial prosthetics and hairpiece that dominate the frame. The drawn-out pauses create not tension but rather meaningless, awkward interruptions, with an alienating and almost unintentional Brechtian result.

Despite their differences, Marty Supreme and The Smashing Machine both mark a similar break from their earlier collaborative work. In both solo projects, style and subject matter are artificially pulled apart as two separate poles: in Josh’s case, a critical manoeuvre that fails to find a form; in Benny’s, a form adrift in search of content.

Image (1) from The Smashing Machine (Benny Safdie, 2025)

Beeld (2) Marty Supreme (Josh Safdie, 2025)

ARTICLE
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In Passage, Sabzian invites film critics, authors, filmmakers and spectators to send a text or fragment on cinema that left a lasting impression.
Pour Passage, Sabzian demande à des critiques de cinéma, auteurs, cinéastes et spectateurs un texte ou un fragment qui les a marqués.
In Passage vraagt Sabzian filmcritici, auteurs, filmmakers en toeschouwers naar een tekst of een fragment dat ooit een blijvende indruk op hen achterliet.
The Prisma section is a series of short reflections on cinema. A Prisma always has the same length – exactly 2000 characters – and is accompanied by one image. It is a short-distance exercise, a miniature text in which one detail or element is refracted into the spectrum of a larger idea or observation.
La rubrique Prisma est une série de courtes réflexions sur le cinéma. Tous les Prisma ont la même longueur – exactement 2000 caractères – et sont accompagnés d'une seule image. Exercices à courte distance, les Prisma consistent en un texte miniature dans lequel un détail ou élément se détache du spectre d'une penséée ou observation plus large.
De Prisma-rubriek is een reeks korte reflecties over cinema. Een Prisma heeft altijd dezelfde lengte – precies 2000 tekens – en wordt begeleid door één beeld. Een Prisma is een oefening op de korte afstand, een miniatuurtekst waarin één detail of element in het spectrum van een grotere gedachte of observatie breekt.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati once said, “I want the film to start the moment you leave the cinema.” A film fixes itself in your movements and your way of looking at things. After a Chaplin film, you catch yourself doing clumsy jumps, after a Rohmer it’s always summer, and the ghost of Akerman undeniably haunts the kitchen. In this feature, a Sabzian editor takes a film outside and discovers cross-connections between cinema and life.
Jacques Tati zei ooit: “Ik wil dat de film begint op het moment dat je de cinemazaal verlaat.” Een film zet zich vast in je bewegingen en je manier van kijken. Na een film van Chaplin betrap je jezelf op klungelige sprongen, na een Rohmer is het altijd zomer en de geest van Chantal Akerman waart onomstotelijk rond in de keuken. In deze rubriek neemt een Sabzian-redactielid een film mee naar buiten en ontwaart kruisverbindingen tussen cinema en leven.

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