For more than half a century, Martin Scorsese has surprised and provoked, shocked and illuminated, and – of course – entertained America, as few other filmmakers ever have.
Perhaps our greatest living filmmaker, Scorsese exploded into the cultural consciousness in the 1970s with “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver,” two propulsive movies that captured the way real people talk in the street and the simmering rage that fueled America’s propensity for violence.
He took all that to the next level in 1980 with his masterpiece “Raging Bull.” After the underrated but prescient “The King of Comedy,” the commercial hit “The Color of Money” and the endlessly controversial “The Last Temptation of Christ,” Scorsese again emerged on top with the wildly successful and hugely influential gangster film, “Goodfellas” in 1990.
While his results were more mixed in the decades since, he has continued making visually and emotionally arresting films like “The Aviator,” “The Departed,” “The Irishman” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” as well as documentaries on Bob Dylan, Elia Kazan, the Rolling Stones and George Harrison.
It would be impossible to capture such a body of work, much less the life of the man behind it, in a feature-length documentary, so Rebecca Miller devotes five hours to this riveting story in “Mr. Scorsese,” which debuts on Apple TV+ on Oct. 17th.
The docuseries delves into his childhood and early years as a student filmmaker to show the world of his movies – among the highlights are interviews with his childhood friends from the streets of Manhattan, whose lives and language reveal the veracity in his films. There are also interviews with his stars, especially Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, his three daughters, and several of his five wives, including Isabella Rossellini and Helen Morris, who he has been married to since 1999.
The portrait of Scorsese with Morris, who has early-onset Parkinson’s disease, is touching and quite the contrast to his testosterone-fueled, blood-spattered films.
Miller, who is married to Daniel Day-Lewis (who starred in Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence” and “Gangs of New York”) and is a feature film director in her own right, spoke recently by video about making this documentary series.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. Martin Scorsese does not seem like a formal guy. Why did you call it “Mr. Scorsese”?
I gotta be honest, I’m not sure why I called it that. I just had a feeling it should be called “Mr. Scorsese,” maybe because it’s a little different than what he’s usually called.
Q. After spending all this time with his work, what surprised you about how he evolved as a filmmaker?
One thing you realize is that his maximalist, almost Baroque approach that we consider Scorsese’s style was born with “Goodfellas.” It wasn’t like he was born shooting a film like that.
But what’s remarkable is that he was nine or ten years old, making storyboards containing a shot he’s still trying to do. And a lot of the techniques that he uses in terms of cutting in “Goodfellas,” he was already using when he was 21, making “It’s Not Just You, Murray!,” his experimental film. I really wanted to show how some of his ideas were already in that short film. That’s echoed, but to a thousand degrees in “Goodfellas” and becomes his signature style. That’s fascinating, and it shows you how long things sometimes have to marinate in somebody.
Q. What did you learn about how he evolved as a person?
You really can feel his evolution in the series. When he’s in his 30s and 40s, there’s a darkness, an edginess and danger that he projects. But he seems to have really worked through that. But in some ways, I feel he hasn’t changed at all – you still see the young boy in that man.
Q. In terms of pacing and the soundtrack of the series, it feels like you’re bringing some Scorsese to your style. Were you conscious of that?
I think it was very subconscious. But once you start to use the Rolling Stones in the soundtrack, it’s there and then you have Marty’s movies and there are a lot of clips, so there’s an osmosis that happens where there’s that kind of energy. And also, it’s a portrait of Marty, so inevitably, the movie itself starts to feel like Marty.
Q. Did doing all the interviews and research change your perceptions of any of his movies?
“The Wolf of Wall Street” was a film that I came to appreciate more, especially how beautifully made that film is. By studying it and talking to him, I realized what went into it and how it was constructed. I ended up being hugely impressed by that film. Not that I wasn’t before, but because it was such a pop phenomenon, you almost took it as a found object or something. And then you unpack it later, and see what made this film immense.
Q. And are there any of his less famous movies that you hope viewers go and check out after watching the documentary?
I might direct them to “The Age of Innocence,” which I think is perfect, just such a beautiful film. And “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” which a lot of people haven’t seen, and is such a wonderful movie.
People who haven’t seen “King of Comedy” are in for such a treat – that’s quite popular now, but it was undersung at the time. It’s amazing to think how completely dismissed it was, the flop of the year. It just shows you, if you stick around long enough, sometimes your work comes back around.
Q. “Hugo” is left out completely, as are many of his documentaries and his TV work, like “Boardwalk Empire.” And some of his bigger movies, like “The Irishman,” get less time than, say, “Shutter Island.” Was that about how these projects fit into the narrative of his life?
Exactly. The documentary is really a dance between the life and the art, the life and the art. “Hugo” is a massive and wonderful movie and deserves something big on its own. But there wasn’t really something that I had in the interviews to hook it into his life, while with “Shutter Island” he was having a mini-nervous breakdown.
We didn’t want to do a sixth episode and have the story lose its focus as a narrative. Each episode had a theme and ended on an upswing, so you could get to the next one. The last thing you’d want is a final episode that people didn’t want to watch because it didn’t have that sense of excitement. It was about how to keep the tension so we could tell his story in the most exciting way possible.