This text comprises spoilers for “Marty Supreme.”
Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme” is sorta, kinda, celebration impressed by the real-life desk tennis champion Marty Reisman. Actually, Safdie simply took the outsized character of Reisman and translated it into a really comparable character, then invented a brand new life and new adventures for him. In actual life, Reisman was a notoriously good desk tennis participant at a time when it wasn’t widely known by the athletic group. He was additionally well-known for his incessant hustling, usually faking low ability ranges solely to make massive bets and skunk any takers. He was additionally a showman, performing loopy ping pong stunts as an opener for the Harlem Globetrotters.
Within the film, “Marty Mauser” was performed by Timothée Chalamet. Mauser was simply as a lot of a fast-talking hustler as Reisman, and he additionally carried out with the Globetrotters, however he was additionally stated to have impregnated a married girl, to have fallen in with a gangster (Abel Ferrara) over a pet canine, and to have survived a collapsing bathtub accident. “Marty Supreme” climaxes throughout an exhibition ping pong match in Japan, in opposition to the fictional Endo Kato (primarily based on the real-life champ Hiroji Satoh).
The fictional Marty was pals with a Hungarian ping pong champ named Bela Kletzki (Géza Röhrig). This character was extrapolated from the real-life desk tennis champion Alojzy “Alex” Ehrlich, stated to be one of the best participant in Polish historical past. The Kletzki character tells a narrative partway by means of “Marty Supreme” about how he was as soon as a denizen of Auschwitz, and the way he as soon as was capable of sneak some contraband honey into the camp by smearing it onto his physique below his garments.
Because it occurs, that is a real story from Ehrlich’s personal life. This was confirmed in a latest article in Rolling Stone.
The Holocaust flashback in Marty Supreme was primarily based on a real story
The second comes after Marty and Kletzki compete for the primary time. “Marty Supreme” takes place within the mid-Fifties, so the shadow of World Conflict II nonetheless hangs over every little thing. Marty Mauser, in addition to the real-life Reisman, was born in 1930, so he wasn’t sufficiently old to expertise the fight and the persecution. Each the fictional Kletzki and the real-life Ehrlich had been born in 1914, so that they bear in mind fairly properly. Certainly, Ehrlich was apprehended by the Nazis throughout the struggle and compelled to reside at Auschwitz for 4 years. Kletzki tells Ehrlich’s story. Evidently, whereas being held on the camp, the Nazis would ship Ehrlich out into the woods round Auschwitz to defuse bombs. He was allowed to do that alone to maintain everybody else out of hazard.
Ehrlich, it appears, was allowed to wander across the woods briefly earlier than returning to the camp. At some point, he occurred upon a beehive that was hooked up to a tree at eye degree. Utilizing a cigarette to smoke out the bees, Ehrich was capable of crack open the hive safely and extract the honey inside. Having no means to cover a honeycomb, Ehrlich stripped down, smeared his physique with honey, and re-dressed. Again on the camp, he would wait till the Nazis had been out of visible vary, then strip, and permit his fellow Auschwitz inmates to lick the honey immediately from his physique.
This story is dramatized on digital camera in “Marty Supreme,” with the Kletzki character standing in a grim, darkish room, having fellow inmates lick him. It could have appeared bizarre visually, nevertheless it was offered as an important second of bonding between survivors.
The true Alojzy Ehrlich lived till 1992
The Rolling Stone article additionally identified that Alojzy Ehrlich was additionally a member of the French Resistance. None of this, by the way in which, was transposed onto the Kletzki character. Solely the honey story made it to the film. However plainly Ehrlich was usually ordered into the fuel chambers at Auschwitz, after which later at Dachau, however was at all times spared when one of many Nazi troopers acknowledged him as a desk tennis champion. He was spared repeatedly and survived the horrifying ordeal. Ehrlich would proceed taking part in desk tennis after the struggle, however as a result of he had finished a lot touring in Western Europe earlier than the struggle, the Polish Communist Get together ostracized him for being too “decadent.” This compelled Ehrlich to compete for France. He competed for a few years, profitable extra championships. He would ultimately open up a resort on the French Riviera. He died in 1992 on the age of 78. Effectively finished, sir.
And why did Josh Safdie embody such an express story in his film? “Marty Supreme,” one can see, may be very a lot about Jewish identification, and the way a lot of Jewish identification was wrapped up within the survival of the latest deathly persecution of World Conflict II. Marty, additionally Jewish, is discovering his personal identification by means of the experiences of different Jewish individuals all over the world. Marty, certainly, spends a whole lot of “Marty Supreme” infiltrating what are clearly “gentile areas,” the place goyim go for leisure; fancy balls, unique lodges, and the like. Marty is adaptable, bloviating to realize acceptance, flaunting his Jewish identification as a energy, reasonably than a weak point. He additionally bears quite a few indignities all through the film.
Ehrlich’s story of survival, then, is a narrative Marty takes with him. That is a part of his heritage, too.
