‘Mr. Scorsese’ Review: Rebecca Miller’s Conventional Yet Deeply Tender Docuseries Examines Cinema’s Finest Auteur [B+] NYFF
“There is only one Martin Scorsese,” an evergreen statement made by the famed director’s longtime friend and legendary filmmaker in his own rights, Steven Spielberg, kicks off the beginning of Mr. Scorsese, the newest, five-part docuseries from director Rebecca Miller. From the time he released Mean Streets in 1973, Scorsese became a singular voice in the New Hollywood era of the 1970s, making films that would challenge the form, deeply influenced by his Italian-American background and upbringing in the smaller, poorer parts of New York City in the 1940s and 50s. His movies explore the idea of the machismo-grandiose men, the quiet, misunderstood individuals shunned from the world, underdogs who would fight for their lives to get a seat at the table, people struggling with their faith and duty to God, and yes, the violence within our everyday lives and how that reflects on the human condition. Mix these themes with his now signature extensive uses of freeze frames, slow motion, sweeping crane shots, alongside remarkable, iconic oners, voice-narration that has a purpose in the overall pace and story of the film, and profanity that came from the voices he heard on the streets of his home, where people spoke how they felt, without thought or care of stepping on toes. Case in point, he changed cinema forever, and left a mark on audiences around the world that can’t be easily measured by words. By in an attempt to archive his work, and talk about some of the deeper moments of his decision making process, Miller and Scorsese, alongside friends, family, former and current collaborators, try and mostly succeed in explaining the impact that this man and his work has had on the world, accompanied by a few Rolling Stones needle drops.
Mr. Scorsese begins as all great portraits of a life usually do, at the beginning, with Scorsese explaining to Miller where he grew up in, how his family immigrated to the United States from Italy, and what it was like being around a world that was controlled by the mafia in Little Italy. His parents worked in the Garment District, where they both work as a clothes pressure and a seamstress, and made an honest living, putting their head down while all the temptation of the mob surrounded them. He and his older brother, Frank, would get into all sorts of trouble, running around with the local kids, fighting and racing in the streets of New York till the son went down. But Scorsese couldn’t go out too much in the summers as the heat got worse, causing his asthma to go out of control, forcing him to be in a tent in his room designed to help his breathing. As Spike Lee hilariously states in the documentary, “Thank god for asthma,” because this condition became a blessing for Scorsese as Miller reveals that as little Marty was able to get out of bed and look out the window and see his friends playing, it subconsciously is how Scorsese would go on and frame these zoom ins with his cameras in various films, as the camera is looking down on a situation or event going while the principle character is not taking place in the scene. It’s a technique that the director would say was shaped from childhood by not being able to be a normal kid; a completely candid moment that sticks out along with the fact that his family took him to the movies because the air conditioning helped his lungs. In this, an obsession was born and a legend was created.
In this first section of the documentary, Miller collects the words of Scorsese’s longtime friends, Robert Uricola, Frank Piccirillo, John Bivona, all whom grew up with the director before he was famous, sharing that they knew he had something special within him from being around him and seeing him sketch comic strips together, with vivid storytelling attached to them. In a brief but incredible moment of brilliance by Miller, she is able to get Scorsese to talk about these first artistic moments of expression while turning his original drawings into real animation. It’s done later in the series as well and shows the level of thought and attention to detail Scorsese had from the start of his professional life. Having his childhood friends was also a nice touch to see them sit around the old bars and restaurants they’d go to when they were young, reminiscing about girls, their faith, being a part of Marty’s first films before he went to NYU, and finding inspiration from their local priest, how encouraged the boys to seek a way out of their circumstance and living a better life than their ancestors before them. It’s something that boys like them were never given the chance to dream of, and for Scorsese, his dream was to go to NYU, go to film school, and escape the life he had where he grew up with his family and ten other people living in the same room. He couldn’t fathom living life like that forever, and tells Miller that escaping, even if it was uptown by a couple of subway stops, was vital to his survival.
After learning about his childhood, hearing these details about his family and his early life, the documentary becomes pretty standard information for someone like me who is well versed in the world and behind the scenes nature of Scorsese’s filmography. A few years ago, I was fortunate to do a deep dive, podcast series over Scorsese where myself and AW Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello broke down the majority of films from the director’s filmography, going over the struggles it took to get Mean Streets off the ground, meeting his lifelong collaborators like actor Robert De Niro or editor Thelma Schoonmaker, to his successes with hits like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and GoodFellas, or the struggles with making a movie like New York, New York, The King of Comedy, or The Last Temptation of Christ (which gets a good chunk in the end of the third part and start of the fourth part of the series). Exploring his filmography also meant covering his newer films with Leonardo DiCaprio with The Aviator, The Wolf of Wall Street, and The Departed, which finally won Scorsese the Oscar for Best Director, which he’s “happy” that it happened for him when it did because he doesn’t know if he would’ve been able to handle the success of winning an Oscar when he was younger, on drugs, and out of control like many are in their youth. What Miller does over the course of four episodes isn’t so much for a massive Scorsese fan like me, but for the casual viewer to be reminded of this genius and see his process, and personal struggles with mental health as he becomes the director we’ve all known to love. What feels like a Wikipedia page of information for me will feel like a revelatory dive into the career of America’s greatest director, with new interviews from De Niro, DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett and Daniel Day-Lewis to provide color on not just the experience of working with Scorsese, but who he is as a person.
The moments that do stand out for this viewer are the more personal, heartbreaking moments found within the success of Scorsese’s career. There is a moment early on, where we discover that Scorsese was part of the directing team alongside Michael Wadleigh that filmed the documentary Woodstock, a liberating moment within young Scorsese’s life. But once the footage was shot, and everyone went back to LA, he was pushed off the project. It separated him from Schoonmaker as well as the rest of the world, and all of his hard work was for nothing, leaving him in a state of depression that resulted in the crumbling of his first marriage. Miller’s strongest moment as a director and interviewee is when she breaks down this sadness within his life, as well as when Scorsese had a near death experience after living with singer, songwriter, friend Robbie Robertson, causing him to also lose his love for directing. Scorsese, talkative throughout the project, goes quiet during these sequences, afraid to bring up the internal flaws he once had within his life, as well as the anger he had built up from his childhood, causing his second, third, and fourth marriages to fall apart much like the first one. Even more distant from his marriages was the relationships he had with his first two children, Catherine and Domenica. One of the most honest moments of the film come from Domenica, who was an actress on The Age of Innocence, who felt that she truly had the attention of her father finally when they were on set together, missing a lot of those father-daughter moments when she was a child because he was off shooting the next film. The sacrifices of art have not just a toll on those who make art, but those who live with the artist. Miller is no stranger to this as her father was the acclaimed writer Arthur Miller and her husband is one of Marty’s leading men in Daniel Day-Lewis, so within these moments, the director handles everything told and shown here with sensitivity and grace necessary to understand that the girls aren’t angry with their father, but rather accepting in the disappointment that their time with him during this era could’ve been more like how he is now with his third daughter, Francesca. It’s the kind of familiar reflection that Scorsese himself would explore within a film he is making, and makes for a perfect use to connect how the director once was to how he’s aged and matured in life and to the people he loves over the years.
Over the course of five plus hours, we learn or relearn so much about Martin Scorsese, his career, his highs, his lows, his successes, and his failures. But above all the acclaim and awards lies two things that remain throughout the series, and that’s his complete honesty about the work and his intentions behind making pictures that make people think as much as they entertain, as well as his continued drive. In the final moments of Mr. Scorsese, we see him storyboarding, just like when he was a kid, for his latest film, Killers of the Flower Moon. He can’t stop shooting, working; it’s in the blood and he has so many stories left to tell. As the man lives and breathes at 82-years-old, he still is that kid at NYU, asking his friends to make Roman pictures with him in his parents living room. He can’t help but stay curious and always looking for the next thing to say within the thematic structure of a film. With that, Miller’s project concludes with a vibrant, exciting conclusion that the best from our finest director is still to come, and he’s not looking to slow down anytime soon, either in making films or restoring old classics with his various productions companies. Cinema is very much alive and well in the world of Martin Scorsese, and what Mr. Scorsese reminds us is that we are grateful to be in his orbit.
Grade: B+
This review is from the 2025 New York Film Festival. Mr. Scorsese will be released October 17 on AppleTV+.
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