Bill McCuddy to HE: If the movie is all tap dancing and bullshitty, who do you even care for? It’s not a film — it’s a series of sketches about a very unlikeable guy. And you can calm down about O’Leary who is just playing himself.
HE to McCuddy: Have you seen Marty Supreme? It’s the bolt and the buzz and the sheer fuckoff-edness, but Chalamet is not channelling Don Logan….he’s not playing a malicious psychopath but a pushy, charming pogo stick…a user, taker, grifter and tap-dancer. (Who plays a great game of ping-pong.) He’s a crazy artist, an obsessive believer, a go-go guy on the make.
Life is struggle, y’see. And Marty isn’t just an irrepressible life-force — he’s a metaphor. We all have to claw, climb, hustle, push, goad, seduce, charm. All he needs to do is acquire kindness, a conscience, a sense of decency. Which he begins to do at the end.
Safdie, as noted, ignores the ’50s period trappings and atmosphere by using ’80s music on the soundtrack, but you know what he should’ve also used, and for the closing credits in particular? “Hungry,” that mid ’60s Paul Revere and the Raiders song. Because the lyrics sorta kinda sum up the Marty ethos or attitude. Not exactly but somewhat.
“Girl, you got this need to know what I’m all about
And that there’s something that you dig
You can’t figure out
“Well, you wanna know what moves my soul
And what ticks inside of my brain
Well, I’ve got this need, I just can’t control
And now it’s, it’s drivin’ me insane
“Girl, I’m gonna have it all someday
If you’ll just hang on to my hand
And if I break some rules along the way
Girl, you gotta understand
“It’s my way of gettin’ what I want now
‘Cause I’m hungry”