“Mr. Scorsese”, the lesser-known side of one of the great directors in the history of cinema

The first time the filmmaker Rebecca Miller saw Martin Scorsese It was on the set of New York gangsin 2002. The husband of Miller, Daniel Day-Lewiswas the protagonist. Over there, Miller found a Scorsese anxious, on the verge of the film’s enormous fight scene, filmed on a gigantic set.

“He looked like a young man, hoping he had chosen the right way to film a massive scene,” he recalls. Miller. “I was surprised by how youthful and full of life he was.”

That remains the same throughout the extensive and moving documentary portrait of Miller about the tireless and singularly essential filmmaker. In Mr. Scorsesewhich premieres Friday on Apple TV, Miller captures the life and career of Scorsesewhose films have been one of the greatest sustained arguments for the power of cinema.

“We’re talking about 32 films, which is a lot of films. But there are still more,” he says. Millerreferring to the projects that Scorsese has to come. “It’s a life that overflows its own limits. You think you have it, and then it’s more and more and more.”

The life of Scorsese has long had a mythical arc: the asthmatic boy from Little Italy who grew up watching old movies on television and who went on to make some of New York’s defining films. That is also part of Mr. Scorsesebut the movie Millerdrawn from 20 hours of interviews with Scorsese Spanning five years, it is a more intimate, thoughtful, and often funny conversation about the compulsions that drove him and the persistent questions—of morality, faith, and film—that have guided him.

“Who are we? What are we, should I say?” he says. Scorsese in the first moments of the series. “Are we intrinsically good or bad?”

“This is the fight,” he adds. “I struggle with that all the time.”

Miller started interviewing Scorsese during the pandemic. He was then beginning to do The Flower Moon Killers. Their first meetings were outdoors. Miller He first proposed the idea to Scorsese like a multifaceted portrait. Then, he imagined a two-hour documentary. Later, out of necessity, it became a five-hour series. Still, it seems too short.

“I explained that I wanted to take a cubist approach, with different beams of light on it from all possible perspectives: collaborators, family,” he says. Miller. “In no time at all, he started talking as if we were already doing it. I was a little confused, thinking, ‘Is this a job interview or a planning situation?'”

The documentaries themselves Scorsese have often been some of the most revealing windows into him. In one of his first films, Italianamerican (1974), interviewed his parents. His tours through cinema, including A personal journey with Martin Scorsese through American cinema1995, and My trip to Italyfrom 1999, have been especially revealing about the inspirations that formed it. Scorsese He has never written a memoir, but these films come very close.

Although most of Mr. Scorsese are the director’s own memories from film to film, a host of other personalities completing the portrait. That includes collaborators like the editor. Thelma Schoonmaker, Paul Schrader, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio y Day-Lewis. It also includes the children of Scorsesehis ex-wives and his old friends from Little Italy. One of them, Salvatore Sally Gaga Uricolais revealed for the first time as the model for the troubled Johnny Boy from De Nirowhich blows up mailboxes in dangerous streets.

“Cinema consumed him at such a young age and he never left him,” he says. DiCaprio in the movie. “There will never be anyone like him again,” he says. Steven Spielberg.

It can be easy to think of Scorseseperhaps the most revered living filmmaker, as an inevitability, that of course he can make the films he wants. But Mr. Scorsese remember how often it was not so and how often Scorsese found itself outside of Hollywood, whether due to box office disappointments, a clash of styles or the perceived danger of controversial subject matter (Taxi Driver, The last temptation of Christ) that attracted him.

“He fought for each of his films,” he says. Miller. “Editing all this was like riding a wild bronc. You’re up and down, dead, then alive.”

Today’s movie executives, a particularly risk-averse group, could learn some lessons from Mr. Scorsese about the difference they can make to a personal filmmaker. As discussed in the film, in the late 1970s, producer Irwin Winkler refused to do Rocky II with United Artists unless they also made wild bull.

To Millerwhose films include The Ballad of Jack and Rose y Maggie’s planbe close to Scorsese It was a lesson. He found that his films began to infect Mr. Scorsese. The editing of the documentary adopted the editing style of his films. “In proximity to these movies,” he says, “you start breathing that air.”

The proximity to Scorsese it also inevitably means movie recommendations. Many. One that stood out for Miller was The insect womanthe 1963 drama by the Japanese filmmaker Shōhei Imamura about three generations of women.

“He still does it,” he says. Miller. “He’s still sending me movies.”

Mr. Scorsese recently premiered in the New York Film Festivalwhere the son of Miller, Ronan Day-Lewisdebuted as a director with Anemonea film that marked her husband’s return from retirement. At the premiere of Mr. Scorsesea packed audience in the Alice Tully Hall of Lincoln Center came with enthusiasm to celebrate and pay tribute to its protagonist.

“You hear all those people laugh with him or suddenly burst into applause when they see him. Thelma Schoonmaker or at the end of the sequence The Last Waltz”, dice Miller. “There was such a palpable sense of excitement and love. My husband said something that I thought was very beautiful: He reminded everyone how much they love him.”

Fuente: AP.

Photos: Matt Licari/ Invision/ AP; Reuters/ Aude Guerrucci and Apple Tv+.