As Eric Hynes wrote in the cover story of our July/August issue, “At their best, the Safdies’ films don’t just mooch off the city’s story surplus—they also feed into it, contributing truly odd, activated extensions of urban life.” Their latest, Good Time, is no exception. In conversation with their lead actor Robert Pattinson, co-writer Ronald Bronstein, and Film Comment editor Nicolas Rapold at a special sneak preview, the filmmakers delineate and riff on the alchemic creation of a criminal anti-hero. Actively engaged in their native New York’s alternate (and everyday) realities, the Safdie Brothers trace the six-year long journey from the conception of to the making of Good Time—from a first encounter with Norman Mailer’s Executioner’s Song and binge-watched episodes of Cops to news of Richard Matt and David Sweat’s prison-break and the initial hard-core-addict look of Pattinson’s character.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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