Earlier this year, Soho-based printmaking studio Two Palms released fifty limited-edition, multi-color silkscreen artworks featuring a large sticky note entitled “Top 10 NYC Films.” Created by Josh Safdie, the piece prefaces the viewer with scattered asterisked disclaimers and criteria: “>85% must take place within the 5 boroughs,” “in NO specific order,” “in NO REAL specific order.”
In bold black Sharpie ink, the ten titles ranged from Taxi Driver to Kramer vs Kramer to After Hours. But the temptation to exceed the ten-movie limit proved irresistible to its creator, resulting in an entire network of bracketed titles in smaller print, totaling 115 (or at least approximately so) movies. Signed “J.S. NYC.”
This week at Hastings Hall, the Yale School of Art hosted NYC native and filmmaker Josh Safdie in conversation with critically acclaimed photographer and Director of Graduate Studies in Photography Gregory Crewdson for its Distinguished Speaker Lecture Series. Arriving thirty minutes early, I hoped to claim a spare seat and pleaded my way in, despite being neither a School of Art student nor an undergraduate art major.
I first learned about Crewdson’s work earlier this semester through a friend. In the book Beneath the Roses, his photographs expose an eerie sublayer of Americana suburbia, reminiscent of David Lynch’s surreal thriller Blue Velvet. As a film fan, his remarkable talent for evoking cinematic vividness in the stillness and restraint of a single photograph made me wonder how I had never stumbled upon his art before, especially given his link to Yale. The cinematic mood present across his work aligned with that of the invited guest, who reciprocally acknowledged photography’s influence in his filmmaking. Yet the style that permeates Josh Safdie’s filmography might be antithetical to photography’s intrinsic immutability. His cinema crackles with kinetic energy, pulsing shots, and a sweat-inducing pace. In an interview with artnet, in reference to his “Top 10 NYC Films” piece, he remarked on an “anxiety I feel in the permanence of a list.”
The talk itself focused on Safdie’s life and creative process, with Crewdson asking about the origins of his love for film. Safdie traced it to his father, a Frenchman, who bought a video camera early in his childhood, prompting him and his brother Benny to start capturing home life and everyday reality. He also recalled experimenting with his artistic pursuits, sharing an anecdote about a formative photography teacher who encouraged him to submit a picture of Staten Island to a contest, which, to his utter surprise, he won.
Viewers of Safdie’s filmography can attest to his commitment to elevating the rawness of everyday life into art. He mentioned a chat he’d had earlier in the day with Lance Oppenheim, director of the 2026 films Primetime and You Can See Everything. They discussed the feeling of “documenting reality through the lens of fiction,” a hybrid model both filmmakers clearly prefer to creating a polished illusion.
Safdie shared how foreign films shaped his formation as a cinephile and, later, a director, even confessing that, in his youth, he avoided Hollywood films at all costs. His eyes widened recalling the first time he heard the name “Godard,” watching A Clockwork Orange at a perhaps too young age, and worshipping the masters of Iranian Cinema, among them Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf.
I admired Safdie’s veneration for the artistic geniuses who had left an imprint on him, but even more his clear ability to differentiate homage from imitation. His own success rests largely on his ability to portray New York City—which he claims, “feels like the center of the universe”—in his distinct, unequivocally “Safdie” style. How had he escaped the temptation to replicate his influences, whether drawn from New York cinema or his immersion in foreign films? I asked him if he had any advice for artists struggling with the anxiety of influence.
His reply turned into a story. Earlier in his career, he had decided to create a suicide vest bearing the names of all his “influences.” “I knew they were gonna be the death of me,” Safdie explained. He directed us to the importance of gathering an entire ecosystem of influences and placing yourself above them, allowing yourself to recognize your own place within that lineage. His suggested formula lets the artist turn influence into “sediment,” sitting at the foundation of creative genius, not dominating it entirely. Personal taste becomes the antidote, the only way to still carry the artists who shaped you into art that can only be your own.
Thinking back to his Post-it artwork, Safdie’s inability to limit his New York cinematic inspirations to just ten encapsulates his parting advice: devour films relentlessly to expand the range of influences that will shape your taste.
