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In Conversation: DANIEL LOPATIN

Jokermen

Mon Dec 29 2025

Summary

Jokermen Podcast: In Conversation with Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never)

Date: December 29, 2025
Episode Focus: Scoring "Marty Supreme," Creative Processes, Hauntology, and More

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of Jokermen brings Daniel Lopatin—celebrated as Oneohtrix Point Never and most recently the composer for "Marty Supreme"—into an in-depth conversation about scoring the film, the philosophy and aesthetics behind his musical decisions, the film's ambitious fusion of periods and genres, and broader threads through his discography. The hosts (Evan and co-host) explore how the score subverts historical expectations, meaningfully connects to themes of creation and nostalgia, and builds on both Lopatin’s personal history and wider cultural references. The discussion is laid-back, geeky, and intellectually expansive, echoing Jokermen’s signature style.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. "Marty Supreme" as a Singular Film Event

[00:37] Hosts praise "Marty Supreme" as "movie of the year," lauding Timotheé Chalamet’s "blow away performance."
The film channels the bold innovation and charisma of a young Jewish artist in 1950s NYC, likened to Bob Dylan "going electric" ([01:35]).

2. Score as Anachronistic Genius

[02:52] The score blends 1980s synthesizers with the look and feel of a 1950s period piece.
Lopatin explains:
“It’s not unlike what I would imagine a Donald Fagen music video would be like in the 80s… Nightfly.” ([13:49])
The intention was deliberately to "disrespect" period accuracy, unlocking a dreamlike, future-haunted tension in the film.
“Who are we trying to impress here?... No, let’s actually kind of disrespect [the period]. And immediately we were happy and everything was unlocked…” ([13:59])

3. Film’s Dense, Meta Layers and Casting

[03:33] Lopatin shares how repeated viewings exposed layers: focusing on costumes, set design, and cameos (e.g., Isaac Mizrahi, Nomi Fry, Larry "Ratso" Sloman).
Extended riff (04:47–06:13) on Ratso Sloman—a recurring figure in music and media—emphasizing the movie’s “Renaissance man" energy and wild cameos.

4. Marketing, Publicity, and Meta-Performance

The famous blimp in the film’s marketing is discussed.
Lopatin reveals: “They want to put all of us in the blimp... I thought it was like, basically a threat.” ([07:25])
Timothée Chalamet is highlighted for his genius in turning potentially awkward PR into meta-performance art, embodying the spirit of the film.

5. Chalamet’s Performance as Artistic Athleticism

[10:09] Lopatin describes Chalamet as treating acting with the discipline and charisma of an Olympic athlete:
“It’s like a completely bizarre return to a time of brazen enjoyment of one celebrity and one skill... It’s actually... genuine.” ([10:53])
The hosts note the “joyous” and “refreshingly non-arrogant” tone of his performance.

6. Compositional Choice: Texture, Rhythm, and Synthesis

[13:49–18:00] Lopatin details his process:
- Rejected period-authentic orchestration for 80s-influenced synths and mallets.
- The interplay between classical and electronic modernity becomes a metaphor for Marty’s identity—projecting a “dream of himself” into the future.
- Inspiration from needle drops (e.g., Tears for Fears) and textural experiments with hundreds of synthesized “mallet” sounds.

7. Hauntology, Nostalgia, and Inversion

[19:28] Deep dive into hauntology—the sense of being haunted not by the past but by possible futures.
Evan ties this to Donald Fagen’s "Nightfly":
“It’s like this song about his childhood dreams...from the point of view of a kid in the 50s being told that...you’ll have this utopian world to look forward to.” ([21:30])
Quote:
“In Marty Supreme... it’s not the past coming back and haunting the present. It’s like Marty Mouser is invoking the future, and we as an audience are haunted by the future that’s in the present of the 50s.” — Daniel Lopatin ([21:30])

8. The Necessary Dream and Melancholy

[22:18–24:14] The hosts and Lopatin emphasize the film's emotional core:
- Dreams aren’t about achieving exactly what’s wanted, but about fueling growth—
  “You need to dream so that you’ll find yourself somewhere, period... The dream is necessary to even give you the libido for life.” — Lopatin ([23:40])
- The ending is described as unexpectedly optimistic, contrasting with the doom-laden conclusion of "Uncut Gems."

9. Texture, Childhood, and Musical Influence

[28:07] Discussion of how 80s educational and commercial music, as well as the specific synthesizers (Juno-60, Yamaha DX), shaped both Lopatin’s childhood and the film’s sound.
Lopatin shares personal anecdotes about growing up around music and his father’s keyboard, “Judy” ([32:05]).

10. Album Art, Abstraction, and Visual Language

[35:27–39:10] Talk shifts to abstract and meaningful album art (e.g., “Tranquilizer”), the synergy between image and sound, and the importance of covering chaos with order and structure.
The painting on the cover of "Tranquilizer" is revealed to be “a tractor tilling the soil,” symbolizing both chaos and creation.

11. Cosmology & Influence: Kubrick, Film, and World-building

[42:10–48:11] Lopatin connects his “universe-building” to directors like Kubrick, Tarantino, Lynch:
“I tended to think about art careers as these kind of...canonical sort of, okay, you’re going to take your shot at this trope or this idiom or this genre. But...the heart is coming from the director’s point of view...” ([42:33])
Kubrick’s lavish detail and emotional layers, especially in "Eyes Wide Shut", are compared to Lopatin’s approach to electronic music—“be as generous with...every 4, 8 bar loop...as Kubrick is with a frame.” ([47:20])

12. World-building and Narrative in Lopatin’s Catalog

“Garden of Delete” as a rock opera ([49:13]); elaborate rollouts and storytelling.
Desire for each album to be its own universe, with interlinked throughlines.

13. Themes of Creation, Integrity, and the Artist’s Path

[51:55–54:08] Film is seen as fundamentally about “creation” and negotiating compromise and integrity;
- The narrative resonates as "the birth of a sport, the birth of a sense of self, and ultimately, the creation of something bigger than one character."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the film’s score:
“We briefly talked about sort of adhering to some sort of...mid-century score. And immediately just, just felt like it was cringy and boring...No, let’s actually kind of disrespect the timeline here.” — Daniel Lopatin ([13:59])
On Marty’s dream of the future:
“It’s not the past coming back and haunting the present. It’s like Marty Mouser is invoking the future and we as an audience are haunted by the future that’s in the present of the 50s.” — Daniel Lopatin ([21:30])
On the role of dreams in life:
“The dream is necessary to even give you the libido for life that gets you to where you may have not known you were going.” — Lopatin ([23:40])
On artistic generosity:
“Every inch of a Kubrick movie is gratuitously generous...If that’s not warmth, I don’t know what is. That always really influenced me with the OPN stuff—be as generous with...every 4, 8 bar loop...as Kubrick is with a frame.” — Daniel Lopatin ([47:20])
On building musical universes:
“I want them to feel like universes, like the excitement I felt when I was going to go see Kill Bill...What is the next chapter?” — Lopatin ([43:49])

Highlighted Timestamps

00:38–02:00—Opening praise for "Marty Supreme"; Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan-esque lead.
07:10–09:24—The blimp, meeting anecdotes, and Chalamet’s meta-performance.
13:08–18:00—Discussion of the score's anachronism, synthesizer choices, poetic intent.
19:28–21:30—Hauntology and how Marty Supreme flips nostalgia into future-haunting.
22:18–24:14—Musings on dreams, disappointment, and life's direction; the emotional core of the film.
28:04–31:49—Synthesizer talk: Juno-60, Yamaha DX, 1980s sounds, and childhood memories.
35:27–39:10—Album artwork analysis (Tranquilizer cover and Abner Herzberger).
42:10–48:11—Influence of Kubrick and the desire to create musical/cinematic universes.
54:08–55:16—"Marty Supreme" as a film about creation, birth, and artistic integrity.

Tone & Style

Conversational, deeply engaged, encyclopedic, humorous, and warmly self-deprecating (“music is like the cowardly artist’s film… you don’t have to work with anybody” — Lopatin [48:30]). The hosts are unabashed music and film nerds, while Lopatin embodies both the meticulous composer and the playful pop-culture philosopher. The dialogue is densely referential but remains approachable, circling big ideas with wit and depth.

For New Listeners

This episode is a must for fans of film scores, cultural criticism, and synth music. It unpacks not only the construction of one of 2025’s most distinctive films, but also the secret histories behind Lopatin’s work, touching on everything from hauntology and Donald Fagen to Kubrick, Jet Set Radio, and the joys of making weird, beautiful music nobody expected to succeed.

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Transcript

Daniel Lopatin (0:00)

Foreign.

Evan (0:14)

Welcome back to the Jokerman podcast. And this time it's a sort of a Jokerman at the Movies episode and a very special one at that because we are Talking with Daniel Lopatin, 100 tricks point never. The great artist behind the score for the great film, Marty Supreme.

Co-host (0:37)

Martin Supreme.

Evan (0:38)

Martin Supreme. I'm Evan.

Co-host (0:42)

I mean, probably the movie of the year. The film of the year, you know, for me at least, having. Having just seen it with you a week or so ago.

Evan (0:50)

Yeah, same kind of no contest. Like right out the gate I was just like, well, that's that. Yeah, that's the one.

Co-host (0:58)

I mean, all plaudits, all salutes to Eddington and to one battle after another. But like this one really, you know, brings it all together. I think in a way that it feels like a Josh Safdie film, you know, unquestionably is, but sort of takes what you might love or, you know, at least remember and feel very strongly one way or another about Good Time or gems and just kind of does it all on the biggest possible canvas. Led by, of course, Mr. Bob Dylan himself, Timothee Chalamet. Just kind of a blow away performance. I feel like it's probably good that he didn't get the Oscar last year because I kind of think he's getting it this year.

Evan (1:35)

I hope he does. I mean, it's spiritually in line with the complete unknown in some peculiar ways. He plays a young Jewish man in New York making a name for himself, breaking the rules and setting new standards in an art form.

Co-host (1:52)

Going electric, you could say, going Auric cringe. Indeed. But yes, you know, great film. Made all the greater by Dan's incredible score, which fits right in with a lot of very 80s needle drops that occur throughout this film, but also kind of bounces against the period piece aspect of the film, which is set obviously the 1950s. We talk a little bit about that concept with him. He's got a brilliant explanation for how that all works. And like, it almost seems like he had like a frame of understanding of the film that isn't there in the text of the film at all. But like makes complete sense after you hear him explain it. I don't know, it all comes together perfectly.

Evan (2:35)

Yeah, great conversation and we're very happy to share it. And thank you to A24 and A24 Music for helping this to come into being.

Daniel Lopatin (13:59)

Night fly. I think it's like I could break it down a few different ways. I've been talking about it a lot and so I hesitate to sort of regurgitate things that sound too, too obvious about it. But I, I do think I'm sort of getting to finally understand what happened here, which was like Josh and I, we briefly talked about sort of adhering to some sort of. What would a sort of mid century score be like? Or what, what would that be like? If we sort of adhered chronologically like really tightly to, to the period and immediately just, just felt like it was just like cringy and boring and, and it was just like, that's not us. That's so strange. Like, who are we trying to oppress here? Like, let's just be ourselves. And literally those conversations were just text messages for here and there. Like, hey, should we, should we at all respect the timeline here? It's like, no, let's actually like kind of disrespect. And immediately we were happy and everything was unlocked and we started talking poetically about what's really, really kind of happening essentially in, in the film. And that became this natural driver. I had known that there were some 80s needle drops that were kind of being considered and Tears for Fears was written into the first version of the screenplay. And I've read the. I've read Marty, I've read every version of this thing for years. So I knew that there was a kind of. Perhaps a version of the film that you could think of as a sort of a dream of a. Of a middle aged guy looking back at his life from maybe the perspective of like a guy with a couple kids in the 80s, thinking back in a way that wasn't necessarily the only interpretation or it's just kind of a. A fun interpretation that I used to. To think about certain things. But what really unlocked it for me was Josh's desire to involve some kind of classical music ideas in the score. Actually, that's what sort of created the opposite kind of reaction with the 80s stuff, because he just intuited that he wanted this. And we started talking about it and I started sort of getting into this metaphor of Marty Mauser as this young man who's creating kind of a version of himself that is yet to be a version of himself that's kind of a projection of himself that a dream in the future of who he wants to be that drives him through this present reality that he's dealing with. That's a world of limitations and traditions and sort of the weird kind of opulence of Fifth Avenue and rock, you know, Milton Rockwell's world and, and, and K. And and then the sort of like his uncle saying, you can't you stay in your lane, be a great shoe salesman? All of that stuff is like a kind of a feeling tone that I metaphorically connected with classical music in these different modalities of classical music. I should say neoclassical because I'm. I'm not classically trained. So everything I do should have a Quasi or a Neo in front of it. But that was the sort of maze or labyrinth that Marty is traversing. And the music of the 1980s is this sort of version of him that's yet to be. That's required there to be like a combustion engine to drive him through the maze. And when they kind of come together, that's the score.

Daniel Lopatin (25:30)

Yeah, it's so funny. I mean, we could talk about this stuff forever, but what was an amazing kind of kismet moment where everything locked in was like. I was at one of the early spotting sessions, like, maybe the second or third time I'd watched the movie, and I. So I was already kind of understood the plot pretty well, and I was getting to sort of like the. The heart of the film, sort of from a story point of view. But. So it's time to do this thing that I like to do, which is close my eyes and listen to the movie and see where I'm gonna kind of slot in where there's room. But also, sometimes that. That's a really trippy kind of thing to do for me because I. It often kind of reveals some sort of weird essence about the movie to me because especially. Especially with. With Josh and Ronnie's work and. And Their sound editing because they're really, really making these very, very concrete, bold and. And you know, up to 11 kind of choices with the sound mix. Even in the sort of, you know, before it's been locked. So I. I'll close my eyes and listen to their weird choices. And like, I was like, wow, now I'm finally locked into the game of table tennis. And it occurred to me in almost like a vision. It was just incredible. I was just like, wait a second. The paddle is like basically a wooden stick and it's like the balls at the end of it. This is a mallet. Like we have to do vibraphone stuff. And so I started thinking about like those 80s King Crimson records, but also Steve Reich and all kinds of stuff started occurring to me. But where it really got interesting was I was like, wait a second. Like all those digital synthesizers from the 80s, not unlike the ones you would hear on Night Fly, are like digital bells tines, you know, mallet. Digital mallet emulations. And they're perfect because they're quick and the transients are so sharp and you can get tons of rhythm out of melody that way. And that was because I'm not a drummer. And I was just like, wait a sec. This is incredible. It's like they're so buoyant, they're so quick and Marty Mouser, so mercurial and young and quick. And the game is so light and fast and tying everything to not just sort of mallet based music, but like particularly that flavor of like fake ersatz mallets from the 80s.