Director. Actor. TikTok sensation. Martin Scorsese has done it all – and continues to do so, with several projects circling at the moment. But one we’ll get even sooner than his next planned feature – a crime drama set in Hawaii – is a five-part documentary about Scorsese himself titled, aptly enough, Mr. Scorsese.
The documentary – which turns the cameras on Martin Scorsese, who has been behind the lens for about six decades now – comes from Rebecca Miller and Apple TV+. While no official release date has been set, this will be one of the must-watch films for cinephiles everywhere.
As per Apple, “Mr. Scorsese is a film portrait of a man through the lens of his work, exploring the many facets of a visionary who redefined filmmaking, including his extraordinary career and unique personal history. With exclusive, unrestricted access to Scorsese’s private archives, the documentary series is anchored by extensive conversations with the filmmaker himself and never-before-seen interviews with friends, family, and creative collaborators including Robert De Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Robbie Robertson, Thelma Schoonmaker, Steven Spielberg, Sharon Stone, Jodie Foster, Paul Schrader, Margot Robbie, Cate Blanchett, Jay Cocks and Rodrigo Prieto, along with his children, wife Helen Morris and close childhood friends. From acclaimed director Rebecca Miller, Mr. Scorsese examines how his own colorful life experiences informed his artistic vision as each film he made stunned the world with originality. Starting with his New York University student films through to the present day, this documentary explores the themes that have fascinated Scorsese and informed his work throughout, including the place of good and evil in the fundamental nature of humankind.”
While Rebecca Miller doesn’t have an immediate connection with Martin Scorsese per-se, she is the wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, who Scorsese directed in Gangs of New York. (Miller also directed her husband in The Ballad of Jack and Rose.) As for documentaries, Miller also helmed Arthur Miller: Writer, a terrific doc on her playwright father.
As someone who devours documentaries on filmmakers (I watch Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures once a year), I can’t wait to see how Miller’s project on Martin Scorsese turns out. That Apple – who has been behind some terrific docs, including Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie and Sidney, on actor Sidney Poitier – is backing the project is also a pretty strong indicator that this is going to be genuine quality.
