<\/p>\n
\n\tJosh Safdie<\/a>\u2019s \u201cMarty Supreme<\/a>,\u201d now in theaters, is filled with \u201880s bangers, including Tears for Fears<\/a>\u2019 \u201cEverybody Wants to Rule the World\u201d and Peter Gabriel<\/a>\u2019s \u201cI Have the Touch.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut Safdie\u2019s latest film \u2014 starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet as a young man from New York\u2019s Lower East Side who dreams big and aspires to conquer the world of table tennis \u2014 is set in the 1950s.<\/p>\n \n\tIt\u2019s an intriguing juxtaposition that totally works because it\u2019s not an ordinary period piece.<\/p>\n \n\tSafdie, who also edited the film and wrote the screenplay alongside Ronald Bronstein, was inspired while watching a video of a 1948 British Open table tennis event. \u201cThis wiry young guy was bouncing all over the place, couldn\u2019t stand still, cocky, but also totally vain,\u201d he recalls. The guy was much like Marty.<\/p>\n \n\tAround the same time, he became obsessed with Gabriel\u2019s 1982 song, which he says he listened to over 1,000 times. \u201cI decided to set the footage to that song, and it just worked. Something was happening there; it felt mythic,\u201d Safdie explains. He adds, \u201cThere was a contemporary quality to seeing the anachronistic music paired with the \u201840s or early \u201850s.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSafdie explains how the new wave-flavored music actually makes sense with the film\u2019s themes. \u201cPresident Reagan was nostalgically in that first era of postmodernism, actively trying to recall the \u201850s. In the face of defeat from Vietnam, culture was really just starting to redo itself in the vein of the \u201850s. You saw it in style. You saw it in movies. \u2018Back to the Future\u2019 is literally going back to the \u201850s. But on a very simple level, what happens when you do that is the past starts to feel like it\u2019s haunting the future, and the future feels like it\u2019s haunting the past.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt one point, Safdie had written a version of the film where Marty was shown in the 1980s. It was an alternate ending. Safdie says, \u201cHe\u2019s at a Tears for Fears concert with his granddaughter, listening to the lyrics of \u2018Everybody Wants to Rule the World,\u2019 and reflecting on his youth.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThat scene was ultimately removed. But Safdie stayed committed to the 1980s tunes including New Order\u2019s as \u201cpropulsive, energetic, and fun\u201d while still exploring the concept of the past and future in conversation.<\/p>\n \n\tFor the score, Safdie turned to composer Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), who scored both \u201cGood Time\u201d and \u201cUncut Gems.\u201d Lopatin, known for inventing vaporwave \u2014 a genre of electronic music from the 2010s that offers a nostalgic, surreal take on 1980s music \u2014 was the perfect choice to tie the film\u2019s needle-drop moments together. Lopatin says there was no real differentiation between the game of table tennis that Marty plays and his spirit. \u201cHe\u2019s buoyant and energetic, and no one believes in him. There\u2019s an energy to him, a buoyancy and a lightness that is mirrored in the game itself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \n\tLopatin used fast, percussive strikes to keep the score melodic, incorporating mallet strikes to mirror the ping-pong balls. He notes, \u201cThose mallet sounds are also really prominent in new wave music and synth-pop of the \u201880s.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tLopatin was inspired by the concept of memory and time, as well as that original ending. \u201cThe score goes back to, what would it be like to think back on your coming of age in the 1950s while hearing Tears for Fears blasting in your ears, and maybe you\u2019re side by side with your children, but somewhere else in your mind?\u201d The result, in Lopatin\u2019s words, was \u201can abstraction of that Tears for Fears concert.\u201d He describes it as what happens when the present dissolves, and memory and the present converge. \u201cThe score is a kind of abstraction or an undercurrent \u2014 a symbolic wave of what was in the script.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTo align with the songs, which also include New Order\u2019s \u201cThe Perfect Kiss,\u201d Lopatin used digital synthesizers from the 1980s, including the Yamaha DX7 from 1983. He also incorporated flutes, saxophones, and string arrangements on top.<\/p>\n \n\tHis score became was an expression of Marty\u2019s youth, energy and ambition. If Marty is a builder and a bridge between worlds \u2014 past, present, and future \u2014 so too is the score and its accompanying songs. Safdie concludes, \u201cI think all those things coming together in sync with one another \u2014 the synchronicity \u2014 has that additive effect of like, \u2018Oh my god, this movie\u2019s teeming with life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source variety.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Josh Safdie\u2019s \u201cMarty Supreme,\u201d now in theaters, is filled with \u201880s bangers, including Tears for Fears\u2019 \u201cEverybody Wants to Rule the World\u201d and Peter Gabriel\u2019s \u201cI Have the Touch.\u201d But Safdie\u2019s latest film \u2014 starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet as a young man from New York\u2019s Lower East Side who dreams big and aspires to conquer the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2213178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[328254,328117,350806,398369],"class_list":["post-2213177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-josh-safdie","tag-marty-supreme","tag-peter-gabriel","tag-tears-for-fears"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Josh-Safdie-on-Why-He-Used-1980s-Music-for-the.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2213177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2213179,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213177\/revisions\/2213179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2213178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}