During every New York Knicks home game, the scoreboard at Madison Square Garden displays a message asking fans to refrain from disruptive behavior. It is a reasonable request, but on a recent night it was not enough to dissuade a wiry man with a beard and a ball cap, who was standing up, cupping his hands around his mouth, and yelling, “Hey, Aaron! Aaron Smith!”

A security guard, a few rows closer to the court, gestured downward with his palms: Quiet, please.

“I’m just trying to get my friend’s attention,” the man said.

“Text him,” the guard said.

“I can’t,” the man said. “He’s reffing.”

Aaron Smith was indeed one of the referees that night, working a pre-season game between the Knicks and the New Orleans Pelicans. But the man shouting his name was not a friend, just a mischievous Googler—who also happens to be one of the most acclaimed film directors in the world. His name is Josh Safdie, and he is thirty-five; he and his brother, Benny Safdie, who is two years younger, have directed a series of movies that have been increasingly ambitious and increasingly popular. In 2017, they made “Good Time,” starring Robert Pattinson, a jittery, hallucinatory crime drama, which, once you got over the jitters, was perhaps also a comedy. Their latest, “Uncut Gems,” is a hectic and soulful film largely set in New York’s Diamond District, and starring Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner, a gem dealer and sports gambler who spends two hours making progressively more frantic transactions, in search of a payoff big enough to retroactively justify the risks. Variety compared the film, admiringly, to a “protracted heart attack,” though the Safdie brothers seem to think of it, like its predecessors, as a loving and realistic portrait of their home town. Residents and visitors alike routinely complain that the city is not as interesting as it used to be; the Safdies’ work is devoted to the proposition that any place can be interesting, especially New York, provided you look carefully enough.

It was a few weeks before the opening of “Uncut Gems,” and the Safdie brothers had taken a break from pre-release screenings (Telluride, Toronto, the New York Film Festival) to steal a glimpse of Zion Williamson, the Pelicans’ No. 1 draft pick. The Safdies are obsessive about basketball; in “Uncut Gems,” Howard’s fortunes rise and fall with the outcomes of the games he bets on. But Williamson had foiled their plans by tearing his meniscus, so the brothers had to find other ways to entertain themselves. Of the two, Josh Safdie tends to be the instigator, driven by instinct and daring. Near one of the baselines, he spotted James Dolan, the team’s widely reviled owner, sitting next to a muscle-bound young man whom he recognized as Dolan’s son, Quentin, a bodybuilder, to whom Safdie had once anonymously AirDropped a photograph of a monster flashing a devil’s-horn sign—he likes sending strange pictures to strangers.

A young boy was sitting directly in front of the Safdies, and Josh made a semi-successful effort to moderate his language. (“Move the ball! What the fuck are you doing?”) Seated next to the boy was a man eating French fries, who soon became the unwitting star of a short film. Josh, raising his iPhone, zoomed in on the man’s fingers: he was neatly applying a line of ketchup to each fry, like toothpaste on a toothbrush. The brothers are always looking for ways to combine scripted storytelling with scenes from everyday life. They typically cast experienced actors alongside first-timers, which is to say, “real people”—although the Safdies would probably object that the term insults the first-timers, by implying that they’re not acting, and also the professionals, by implying that they’re not “real.” Still, viewers who found themselves transfixed by the faintly menacing professionalism of the bail bondsman in “Good Time” might have been pleased to discover that he was played by the proprietor of American Liberty Bail Bonds, in Kew Gardens, Queens.

Sometimes the Safdies seem to know everyone in the city, although not everyone in the city knows them. When they were recognized at Madison Square Garden, during the fourth quarter, it was by a student from New York University’s graduate film program. “I just want to say, you guys are my favorite filmmakers in the world,” he said, before shyly sprinting away.

“I swear to God we didn’t plan that,” said Benny Safdie, who is short-haired and clean-shaven, and a bit bigger than Josh. Benny is the quieter of the two, but he is the more dedicated performer. For a few years he tormented the city’s comedy clubs, in character as a fretful failed comedian named Ralph Handel; naturally, the brothers captured these appearances on film. (Nowadays, Benny’s schedule is slightly less flexible: he is married, with two young sons.) When the brothers are on set, Josh generally takes a position behind the monitors, shouting out suggestions to the actors. Benny customarily holds the boom microphone, talking quietly to the actors and—directly into the microphone—even more quietly to his brother.

“Yo, Kane!” Josh shouted. “Kane Fitzgerald!” He had identified another referee.

“I’m telling you, they’re like the Queen’s guard,” Benny said. “They’re not going to pay attention.”

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“No—I’m telling you, I get them,” Josh said.

“Enough,” the guard finally said, sternly.

Josh turned plaintive. “We’re not allowed to cheer?”

When the game was over—a one-point Knicks loss, not that it mattered—Josh couldn’t resist descending a few rows to talk to the guard who had shushed him. Like many people who like to get into a bit of trouble, Josh has a corresponding knack for talking himself out of it. The guard, turning conspiratorial, told him, “If it was me, I don’t give a shit. It’s an N.B.A. rule. You’re not allowed to bother the refs, and you can’t bother the players during time-outs.”

The brothers were listening intently, but they were also watching, noting not just the guard’s pungent white-New York accent but also the fit of his jacket, and the purposeful way he gripped the railing when he descended to the section below. Maybe one of these days they’ll need someone to play a Madison Square Garden security guard.

“Sandman!” Josh Safdie said, picking up his phone. “What’s going on?” He and his brother were in a sound studio in midtown, making last-minute alterations to “Uncut Gems.” On the screen, an image of Sandler, in character as Howard, was frozen in mid-patter. Josh talked quietly for a few minutes, then hung up and turned to his brother. “Sandler couldn’t believe we were back in the mix,” he said. The Safdies love crosstalk and ambient sound; they hate the idea of forcing actors to deliver credible dialogue in artificial silence. Now they were preparing a special mix for the Dolby Atmos system, which allows filmmakers to create the sensation that sounds are emanating from specific places in a room.

For years, the brothers were do-it-yourself visionaries, finding ingenious ways to make their little movies seem big; they used the city as their soundstage in part because it was free. When they began shooting “Uncut Gems,” last year, Josh was annoyed to see that his crew had posted flyers with filming permits on Forty-seventh Street; he was hoping to keep a low profile, in order to capture life in the district. Then he saw the platoon of trucks parked around the corner and remembered that he was involved in a major production, much too big to be surreptitious. For street scenes, the Safdies assembled about a hundred extras, who mingled with people going about their business. If the extras caught someone gawking at Sandler, or at the camera, they were instructed to create a simple distraction: approach the gawker and, posing as a tourist, ask for directions to the nearest subway station.