Even if you’ve never seen a Martin Scorsese movie, you know Martin Scorsese. That’s the benefit of being one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and one whose work has remained relevant across six decades.
Those with a cursory interest in movies may only know him from his gangster pictures or perhaps even in caricature as that New Yorker with the bushy eyebrows and rapid speech. For those people, Rebecca Miller’s five-part Apple TV+ docuseries “Mr. Scorsese” will be a revelation, a way of expanding an understanding of this filmmaker and why his movies have had such an enduring impact even if some of his pictures weren’t fully embraced in their own time. For those who are already fans of Scorsese, there’s still plenty to enjoy, but we’re left with the question of why Miller took this particular approach, and if simply going through the filmography of his narrative features is the way to probe deeper into such a prolific artist.
What elevates “Mr. Scorsese” from being merely a Wikipedia entry is the involvement of Scorsese and his close collaborators, who can speak as primary sources on his life and works. The first two episodes are the best part as we see Scorsese chat with childhood friends and speak about growing up in a rough neighborhood around mobbed-up guys. On the one hand, all of this material–his asthma pushing him towards movies rather than sports, the influence of the Catholic Church, attending NYU–is known, but it’s great to see it rendered not only with old photos and home movies, but in Scorsese’s own words. It’s one thing to say “Oh, Johnny Boy from ‘Mean Streets’ is partially based on this guy from the neighborhood, ‘Sally Gaga,’” but it’s a complete delight to then have an old friend of Scorsese call up Sally and ask if he wants to come by and be in the documentary. That’s where “Mr. Scorsese” comes alive in a way that feels distinct and special from all the profiles that have been done before.
It’s also great to see Miller probe deeper into earlier works and how those both crafted Scorsese as a professional filmmaker as well as fed into his personal turmoil like his drug addiction and failed marriages. When you take the time to explore “Boxcar Bertha,” then you can dig into the influence of people like Roger Corman and John Cassavettes. Corman gave Scorsese a shot to make a feature and the demands of a professional (albeit knock-off, B-movie) outfit while Cassavettes was essential as a guiding voice of independent cinema pushing the young filmmaker to tell a personal story with “Mean Streets.” From there, you can really get rolling into seeing Scorsese’s development for a movie like “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” and the drive for personal expression in movies like “Taxi Driver” or even flops like “New York, New York.”
Since the docuseries largely spends its time exploring Scorsese through his features with occasional offshoots regarding his personal life (his marriages, his celebrity, etc.), “Mr. Scorsese” is mostly successful at recontextualizing the filmmaker before he became a legend. We can see that for decades, Scorsese, despite his acclaim, always had a tumultuous relationship with Hollywood, a town that didn’t always know what to do with someone who never had the populist touch of contemporaries like Spielberg or even De Palma. His violence was deemed too aggressive and his movies were unafraid of ambiguous conclusions. That was never going to fit into a post-70s Hollywood, and it’s fascinating to see movies like “The Color of Money” and “After Hours” as a way of Scorsese fighting his way back in only to invite controversy once again with “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
As the docuseries moves into its fourth episode, you can see what Miller is up against as each Scorsese movie or project could conceivably be worthy of its own documentary. “Mr. Scorsese” sets “Last Temptation” up to be a major battle and turning point, but it’s resolved in about five minutes so the episode can get to “Goodfellas,” which is understandably a bigger and more influential work in Scorsese’s oeuvre. Once the series reaches the ‘90s, it feels like it’s on fast-forward a bit, trying to get to all of the director’s narrative features even if only for a minute (there’s hardly any time spent on “Cape Fear” or “Bringing Out the Dead” and “Hugo” gets skipped entirely), and starts to miss what makes Scorsese a transcendent force worthy of a five-episode docuseries.
Consider that other directors receive this kind of glowing documentary treatment (the series is dubbed a “film portrait,” which I feel is accurate), but even Spielberg and De Palma only got features. Scorsese is worth this long-form exploration, but not because he’s made so many movies or lived such a rich life. The biggest element that Miller opts to largely omit is his contribution to cinema as an artform beyond himself. We all know that Scorsese has made so many incredible movies, and credit to “Mr. Scorsese” for likely leading viewers to check-out some of his less-appreciated work like “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and”Age of Innocence.” But to only include about a minute or so on The Film Foundation and the World Cinema Project in the docuseries’ final 20 minutes feels like misunderstanding why Scorsese is a unique force in film history.
Miller fully grasps Scorsese’s ongoing outsider status (after watching this, I now have no problem understanding why it took until “The Departed” for him to win Best Director and why “Killers of the Flower Moon” received 10 Oscar nominations and zero wins), but what elevates him as a rare figure are his larger contributions to restoring and supporting the art of cinema. I can understand not making time for his TV work like “Vinyl” and even skipping his music documentaries outside of “The Last Waltz.” But Scorsese, unlike almost any other major filmmaker, has used his power and influence to uplift cinema as an artform. No other mainstream director spends their time trying to figure out how to restore a movie like “Touki Bouki” and get it to a wider audience. Few other major directors make classic cinema such an ongoing cornerstone of their work and then, as in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” question how it crafted their flawed understanding of America.
Perhaps that’s why the end of “Mr. Scorsese” can’t help but feel a little underwhelming. It’s certainly interesting that Scorsese felt dour and depressed while making “Shutter Island” and then upbeat and energetic during “Wolf of Wall Street,” but it would be a stretch to say this is unique to this one director. Exploring his movies does provide some insight to his character, beliefs and the way he has, for lack of a better word, mellowed over the course of his life to where he seems fairly settled and happy in his life with wife Helen and daughter Francesa in a way that eluded him in his relationships as a younger man.
It is, again, a portrait, and an essential one if only because it allows Scorsese to reflect on his life and work at length. But for a five-hour look at a master filmmaker, “Mr. Scorsese” still feels like it’s missing the bigger picture.
“Mr. Scorsese” premieres on Apple TV+ on Oct. 17.