Mr. Scorsese: A Documentary Review - Into the Mind of a Master
/MR. SCORSESE
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A flawed but fascinating documentary that thrives when examining Martin Scorsese’s childhood, and stumbles when trying to navigate the personal politics of Hollywood.
Mr. Scorsese, directed by Rebecca Miller, is a five-part documentary series that examines the life and career of esteemed auteur Martin Scorsese.
The series, which debuted on October 17th, is available to stream on Apple TV+.
Martin Scorsese is, in my not so humble opinion, most definitely on the Mount Rushmore of greatest filmmakers of all-time. His career, which has spanned over half a century, is littered with such greatness it is difficult to fathom. But as Mr. Scorsese shows us, Martin Scorsese’s career, and life, has been anything but smooth sailing.
The series opens with an episode titled “A Stranger in a Strange Land”, which chronicles Scorsese’s tempestuous childhood in New York City’s Little Italy – a neighborhood which at the time was riddled with crime and violence.
The very best part of Mr. Scorsese is the first episode and all other episodes dealing with Scorsese’s childhood. The reason his childhood is so fascinating is that by examining it you can literally see where Scorsese’s filmmaking artistry was born.
A sickly child, Scorsese was confined to his apartment and had to watch the world through the panes of his window…which essentially created his worldview simulated through the box of a film screen. This detachment from the world allowed for his analytical side to connect with his artistic…thus a filmmaker was born.
In addition to being confined to his apartment, Scorsese’s severe asthma forced his father to take him to movie theatres during the hot summer days and nights – since movie theatres were the only place in the city with air conditioning which would ease his asthmatic symptoms. This gave Scorsese a great education in filmmaking and storytelling, as well as bonded cinema with his love for his father…a powerful force indeed.
On top of all that, Scorsese’s childhood was riddled with characters that would come to fill is films…gangsters, clowns, losers, thugs. Whether it be Mean Streets, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino or The Irishman, Scorsese’s movies are populated with some of the very same, or at least similar, people as those that populated his childhood.
Another staple of Scorsese’s childhood which directly relates to his films is his Catholicism. Scorsese obviously has a tortured relationship with Catholicism (I can relate), but it is undoubtedly the animating force in his artistic life.
Even the darkest of Scorsese films are fueled by Catholicism, in one way or another. As are his other more straight forward films about faith…be it The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun or Silence.
As the docu-series progresses we watch Scorsese graduate the mean streets of Little Italy and attempt to navigate the even meaner streets of Hollywood.
As compelling as Scorsese is as a person, and as astonishing as his career has been, one can’t help but feel a bit cheated watching this documentary try and tell the story of his storied filmmaking. The reason for this is that Martin Scorsese isn’t just the subject of this documentary, he is also the controlling force of it. And no matter how honest Scorsese may attempt to be, it is foolish to expect him to really hold his own feet to the fire.
Due to the constraints of Scorsese’s position – an active filmmaker and producer, we never get the down and dirty truth about his struggles with Hollywood. The only brief glimpse of the ugly world of it all is when Harvey Weinstein is held up for the briefest bit of ridicule and contempt….and even that feels soft-pedaled and exceedingly safe.
That said, it is an important exercise to go through Scorsese’s career if for no other reason than it is easy to forget how astonishing and tumultuous it has been.
The highs of Scorsese’s career…which would undoubtedly be his films Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and The Departed (his lone Oscar), take on more meaning when you understand the struggles he endured to even get his movies financed, never mind recognized.
It seems that no matter how great Scorsese was, and he is one of the all-time greats, Hollywood never embraced him and the money people never accepted him.
And so Scorsese was left to scratch and claw just to get movies made, and even when they were made he still had to fight to get them released in the form he wanted. A perfect example of this is one of Scorsese’s dream projects – Gangs of New York, which starred the biggest movie star of the era – Leonardo DiCaprio, and the best actor of the era – Daniel Day-Lewis, and yet Scorsese had to go to war with a grotesque pig like Harvey fucking Weinstein to keep control of the film. Ultimately Scorsese lost that battle, and the film greatly suffered because of it – and one is left to wonder how much even greater could his career could have been if it weren’t for the Weinstein types and their ilk fucking everything up.
One of the nice benefits of Mr. Scorsese is that it is chock full of people who normally would never appear in a documentary. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio is in it, Robert DeNiro is in it, as is Daniel Day- Lewis…who also happens to be married to the documentary director Rebecca Miller.
Miller brings a deft, if somewhat overly protective, touch to the documentary, no doubt herself informed by her artistically brilliant famous father – Arthur Miller, and his tumultuous life. Rebecca Miller’s instinct to protect Scorsese is probably born from her desire to protect her own father and also by the fact that Scorsese is so darn likeable and such a compelling figure.
If there is one takeaway from Mr. Scorsese besides the obvious – which is Scorsese’s singular artistic genius which was often beyond the world’s understanding, it is that Martin Scorsese seems like someone you’d love to spend as much time with as possible.
As a documentary about Martin Scorsese, Mr. Scorsese is a flawed work as it is much too deferential to be truly enlightening…but that doesn’t mean it is devoid of enlightenment. The first two episodes about his childhood in particular, are really fantastic and give as much insight into Scorsese as an artist as is possible.
If you are looking for a bareknuckle expose on the excesses of Scorsese’s life – of which there is much, this isn’t the docu-series for you…and if you’re looking for backroom Hollywood scuttlebutt…the same is true. But if you’re looking to discover what made Martin Scorsese the filmmaking genius he is…this documentary does as well as any could.
In writing this review I was tempted to put together a ranking of all of Scorsese’s films. After attempting to do so I decided against it because it is an impossible task. Scorsese is too great and too important a filmmaker to simply reduce his films to best and worst. His movies don’t work that way. I would feel the same about similar monumental talents like Akira Kurosawa or Ingmar Bergman.
Instead, I would just offer this brief viewer’s guide.
If you want to watch the seminal Scorsese works, start with Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino. If you want to dive a bit deeper into the canon then watch The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Cape Fear.
If you want to watch the most accessible movies in the canon (notice I said accessible and not audience friendly) then go with The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, Shutter Island, The Aviator and The Irishman.
If you really want a glimpse into the mind and soul of Scorsese then watch three often overlooked films (which are among my favorites) The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun, and Silence.
And finally, the film that is so often overlooked people tend to forget he made it but which is truly a remarkable piece of work, is The Age of Innocence. The Age of Innocence is a parlor drama that most would think is out of his wheelhouse but which reveals Scorsese to be a truly master filmmaker. Just a tremendous piece of work.
In conclusion, Mr. Scorsese is not the greatest documentary about a filmmaker you’ll ever see, but it is an enjoyable handful of hours spent with one of the greatest to ever do it, and one of the more compelling directors in cinema history…so it is worth your time.
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