Much of the Safdie brothers’ new film, Uncut Gems, takes place smack in the center of New York City. You might think you’re familiar with this setting, its honking yellow taxis, bright lights, and throngs of tourists. But this movie is about a very specific world inside of Midtown Manhattan, during a very specific time period (a few days in 2012), and together that was a recipe for a precise and memorable aesthetic.
In a performance that has already generated some Oscar buzz, Adam Sandler portrays Howard Ratner, a jeweler in the city’s Diamond District, which roughly spans the block of West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Howard puts a nervous feeling in the viewer’s chest as he attempts to cut deal after deal, always one step behind his gambling problem. At the center of his tangled web of bets is a giant, sparkly opal he bought from Ethiopia—which he is supposed to deliver to an auction but lends to Boston Celtics player Kevin Garnett instead. So begins the frantic heist comedy/character study.
As Howard cuts his deals, he takes the viewer around his unique world, and it’s one that wasn’t easy to re-create, production designer Sam Lisenco tells Architectural Digest. Despite the fact that directors Benny and Josh Safdie had this movie on the brain for around a decade (the story was inspired by their father’s own experiences in the Diamond District) and that Lisenco is a longtime collaborator, the setting “was kind of a big mystery to me, well into the preparation process,” Lisenco says. That’s because the community of jewelers in the Diamond District is quite insular—they had to warm up to Lisenco before he was even allowed to take any reference photos.
“Initially it was just any visitations we could make to a shop in the district—especially on the upper floors,” he says. Many of the stores in the area—like Howard’s in the film—are not on street level and require customers to be buzzed in. “They adhere to a pretty strict strata of political authority. We had to butter them up to get it in there to see even what the thing looks like.” Eventually, though, Lisenco infiltrated a bit, discovering unexpected things like “fully functional restaurants that only cater to employees of the Diamond District” and even seeing the full extent of the over-the-top style that seems to be common among people who sell gems, jewels, and precious metals for a living. (Think lots of marble, “Corinthian columns with confetti plaster,” and “ceiling frescoes” at some of their private residences, he says.)
“Once we settled into the neighborhood, there was a level of pride that we were there making a Diamond District movie. So we started to get friendlier shop owners willing to play ball with us,” he says. The crew was able to film a scene on location in a marketplace where multiple jewelers have stalls, and they filmed exterior shots on the streets of the area. Howard’s store and office were built on a set.
While creating the store was a mission in accessing the unknown, creating Howard’s private spaces was more of an exercise in cultural analysis. “We had lots of conversations about what stylistically Adam Sandler’s character would strive for, assuming that the film takes place a few years ago but also assuming that he’s somebody who started making money 10 years prior to that. Presumably through the dawn of the millennium,” says Lisenco. “A lot of conversations about the cachet of postmodern architecture and postmodern design and how those things would have been appealing to him when he was 10 years younger.”
The Long Island home Howard shares with his wife (played by Idina Menzel) was filmed on location, in a well-preserved house that screams “late ’80s, early ’90s McPostmodern,” as Lisenco calls it. “There was a lot of talk about Michael Graves and Robert Venturi.” Howard also maintains a New York City apartment, which was decorated as the “bachelor pad” version of the family home.
Though Lisenco admits that the furniture for Howard’s homes consists of “a lot more of 1stdibs and eBay than I probably would’ve liked,” they dressed it up with art, wallpaper, and more details to reflect their vision. “We were like, What are the Dieter Rams industrial design pieces that aren’t the famous ones but are ones that came 20 years later? Those were the kinds of conversations we were having,” says Lisenco. "Everybody in the art department was like, This is the guy who really wanted a Sony Trinitron, even though flat-screen TVs had already started to come out. You know the very last, very finest example of that transitional moment of selfishness between analog and digital.”
In creating Howard’s 2012 world, Lisenco and the Safdie brothers also created a movie that is somehow very appealing to today’s audiences. (In addition to the Oscar buzz around Sandler, GQ declared Howard “the most stylish character of the year.”) Lisenco has a theory about why. “It’s also very important to keep in mind that, when we were making the movie, Donald Trump was getting elected,” he says. “That kind of return to selfish aesthetics, we were very considerate of that. This film is not a commentary politically. But we were entering this post-’80s bizarro postmodern resurgence—a period in which architects like Robert Venturi are dying. And so that is kind of a sweet spot where their stuff looks fresh again.”
