Some Thoughts on "Marty Supreme"

 

1. Marty Mauser. The family name evokes Art Spiegelman’s breakthrough comic book treatment of the Holocaust, with its Nazi cats and Maus Jews. As a Survivor, Marty (Timothee Chalamet)  proves as indomitable in competitive humanity as in table tennis.
2. The first ping-pong ball tells it all. Under the hero’s name: “Made in America.” This hero is the hustler we met in What Makes Sammy Run, our Duddy Kravitz, etc., the aggressive, disturbing, unlikable but successful Jew that the classic noirs were afraid to present. He’s the American outsider who embraces and exploits his marginalization to get ahead. To grab his share. He refuses to be constrained by the social conventions that suppress him. He is driven to offensive self-assertion, to indecorum, to succeed in order to survive: “I’m Hitler’s worst enemy.” 
3. Why table tennis? As Marty introduces himself to the man he would cuckold, be humiliated by, then affront, “I’m an athlete.” But not the big macho athlete we expect —  not from the open court of “real” tennis, the outdoor, the rich, the clubs that banned Jews. This is the small domestic version where a Jew  might still loom large. A kitchen athlete.  
4. Then there’s the ball’s colour dynamic. Tournament players are required to wear black so that the white ball won’t be lost against a white background. Not to be lost in the background, to maintain one’s individuation — that’s also the Jew’s larger determination of selfhood. Here the hero’s table tennis skill gives him that shot. In developing an alternative colour Marty finds an alternative means to avoid that disappearance.”It’s the Marty Supreme Ball, not the Marty Normal Ball.” 
5. This Jew acknowledges and exploits the antisemitism that ineluctably awaits. “I can say that because I’m Jewish,” he wraps up an antisemitic joke: ”I’m going to do to Kletzky (Beza Rohrig) what Auschwitz couldn’t.”  By stealing the bigot’s trope he inoculates himself against the pain, as did Dick Gregory’s title Nigger. 
6. Then there are The Women. Marty’s true match is the homey, loving, earthy, dark Jewish — indeed Biblical — Rachel (Odessa A’zion). Her he has impregnated then fled. He discovers she has a drive, resourcefulness and energy that match his. Their baby solidifies them and him.
7. In the interim he is tempted away by that trad status symbol, the blonde shicksa goddess. That appeal, challenge, against-all-odds self-affirmation, trap his fantasy and lead him up the blind alley of mutual exploitation. Here Marty realizes his — albeit modified — ambition to defeat the Japanese champ who had defeated him. Banned from the tournament he manages an outside revenge win,. But only through his first suffering the goddess’s husband’s humiliating abuse and then breaking from him.
8. The Nazis had saved the older ping pong champion, Bela Kletzky’s life, then set him to defuse bombs. Not the sinecure a hero might expect as an admiring reward, but for a Jew.… In the film’s most compelling scene, that Jew follows pestering bees to their hive, smokes them out, then covers his body with honey — not for himself, of course, but for his fellow inmates to lick off! The fact that this story is true does not diminish its power as a metaphor. Sweet are the uses of adversity, indeed. 
9. There’s an essay just in what that incident reveals about the prisonerss’ suffering, indeed that of all the Jews, the camaraderie and sustenance the Jews there — and in general  —need to survive. And after all, what are the real sport stars but our source of vicarious satisfaction to help us forget our inadequacy? The honey over our bitter disappointments. Logically, however absurd, the Japanese crave their hero’s ping pong triumph over the American to avenge their WW II loss.
10. The lost dog subplot replays the central thrust. In plot he’s a possible tributary to get Marty back to Japan for what he thinks will be his redemption. The rich hoarder is as compelled to recover his Moses as Marty is his table supremacy. As the Old Testament name evokes foundational Jewry, the final conflagration ironically recalls the burning bush that fired man’s discovery of his God. 
11. So Marty is crooked, compulsive, nakedly ambitious, cruel, dislikable. This Mauser is also a mamzer (bastard). But nothing seriously criminal, just nervy. Chutzpah. His most criminal act is chipping off a piece of a pyramid in Egypt. But history absolves him. He gifts it to his mother: “We built it.” Justice may not always be blind but it is often ironic. That’s poetic.
12. Film feeds on life, as vice versa.  As the long-absent-from-the-stage aging star Kay Stone (as in heart of), Safdie cast long-absent-from-the-screen aging star Gwyneth Paltrow, who wins much respect by playing this unrespectable egotist. Enjoyably resurrected are the once current Fran Drescher and Sandra Bernhard as Mausers. The star’s stage director is played by playwright/director David Mamet. In the most interesting casting, the actress’s sleazy husband, Milton Rockwell, is played by Kevin O’Leary. The Canadian is best known as a hustler on two TV series, Shark Tank and Dragons Den, where he was a panelist cashing in on young talent. IMDB calls him “Canada’s Donald Trump,” but O’Leary can act.
13. As Marty is disappointed when his stolen necklace proves costume jewelry, its owner  Ms Stone heartbreak from the reviews of her return to the stage. Only that grief prevents her from giving Marty a real necklace to sell.. 
14. As the continuing Middle East war — should — remind us, the Jew stands for life against the death cult of radical Islam. Thus Josh Safdie’s tough guy hero ends up weeping at the sight of his baby son. Indeed that sight even charms away the infant’s tears as it may free ours..