{"id":213058,"date":"2025-10-14T19:35:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/213058\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T19:35:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T19:35:12","slug":"rebecca-miller-on-her-martin-scorsese-documentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/213058\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Miller on Her Martin Scorsese Documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Film Festival was a family affair f<\/a>or the Daniel Day-Lewis and Rebecca Miller<\/a> family. Day-Lewis returned from retirement to co-write and star in \u201cAnemone,\u201d <\/a>directed by his 27-year-old son Ronan<\/a>, who sent in his film after his mother submitted her five-hour Martin Scorsese<\/a> documentary, \u201cMr. Scorsese<\/a>.\u201d New York Film Festival artistic Director Dennis Lim invited them both.<\/p>\n

When we met for coffee the day after the October 4 premiere, Miller couldn\u2019t believe that 1,000 people sat still in Alice Tully Hall for five hours without leaving. That may be due to what her husband told her afterwards: \u201cIt reminded people of how much they love him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"'The<\/a> \"'Orwell:<\/a> <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the series does. I\u2019m of an age. I grew up with all these movies. I watched them when they came out, from \u201cMean Streets,\u201d \u201cAlice Doesn\u2019t Live Here Anymore,\u201d and \u201cTaxi Driver\u201d through \u201cRaging Bull,\u201d \u201cThe Aviator,\u201d \u201cThe Wolf of Wall Street,\u201d and \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon.\u201d (And that\u2019s not all!) My first job out of NYU Cinema Studies was in the United Artists publicity bullpen; I worked on both \u201cNew York, New York\u201d (1977) and \u201cThe Last Waltz\u201d (1978). While Miller doesn\u2019t tell the story of how much it cost UA, in the pre-digital era, to erase the coke hanging out of Neil Young\u2019s nose, frame by frame, she does capture that coke-fueled era in all its frenzied glory. <\/p>\n

Scorsese is part of the fabric of any cinephile\u2019s life. And soon, any Apple TV<\/a> subscriber can enjoy Miller\u2019s fast-moving five-year dive into his life and films. (Miller showed the streamer four hours of interviews<\/a> with Scorsese and got substantial backing, first for a two-hour feature, then a five-hour series.) She gets loads of help from Scorsese\u2019s ample archives and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who scored applause at Alice Tully Hall), as well as his surviving childhood friends from Little Italy and work cohorts Day-Lewis, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay Cocks, Nicholas Pileggi, Paul Schrader, and more. The good news for the always busy Scorsese: After some 10 interviews (20 hours) running from the start of the pandemic through the present, he\u2019s not talking about himself for a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Mr.\u2018Mr. Scorsese\u2019Apple TV<\/p>\n

Miller, a narrative filmmaker (\u201cMaggie\u2019s Plan\u201d<\/a>) who directed a 2017 documentary about her father (\u201cArthur Miller: Writer\u201d)<\/a>, isn\u2019t afraid to ask for help. She first met Scorsese during the filming of \u201cGangs of New York,\u201d which starred Day-Lewis. She asked the director for recommendations of movies with good voiceovers. He gave her a list. She then asked him to give her notes on a rough cut of her first film, \u201cPersonal Velocity\u201d (2002). He watched it and told her where it slowed down, and she made a fix. She turned to him again for input on her films \u201cThe Ballad of Jack and Rose\u201d (2005) and \u201cThe Private Lives of Pippa Lee\u201d (2009).<\/p>\n

Her interest in Scorsese was rooted \u201cin the apparent anomaly of his spiritual life as a Catholic and his fascination with violence,\u201d she said. \u201cHow do those two things go together?\u201d So she reached out to Margaret Bodde, his documentary producer. \u201cWell, why not ask?\u201d said Miller. \u201cThat\u2019s always my motto for everything: It never hurts to ask. It\u2019s one of the privileges of having been around people that intimidate other people, and realizing they\u2019re just people. They often don\u2019t get asked things that actually they would love to be asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how she felt the confidence to ask Bodde if anyone was making a documentary about Scorsese. \u201cNo,\u201d Bodde said. \u201cNobody is. People are definitely asking a lot. But he just keeps saying \u2018no.’\u201d First, Scorsese asked for an email pitch. (Miller suggested a periscope approach, illuminating him from multiple perspectives.) Then, he asked for a meeting. \u201cDuring this meeting, he began to talk about it as something that was going to happen,\u201d said Miller. \u201cHe started saying, \u2018Well, and then we could do this, and then we could do that. We could shoot in the office.\u2019 I was [thinking], \u2018Are we making this movie? What\u2019s going on?\u2019 So we hugged. I left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller called her producer Damon Cardasis and said, \u201cI think we\u2019re making this movie.\u201d She and the producers put up a little money. \u201cBy this time, the pandemic is in full swing; nobody can move,\u201d she said. \u201cMarty is stuck in his study. And it was just a tiny handful of people on my porch. So it was not an expensive thing. And he came upstate and sat down for two and a half hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mr.\u2018Mr. Scorsese\u2019Apple TV<\/p>\n

After a Zoom interview with Scorsese, she used the audio where he says, \u201cWhat are we? Are we essentially good or evil?\u201d \u2014 she said, \u201che\u2019s different when no one\u2019s in the room. So frank and so naked. So after that, I had everyone set up the cameras and leave the room so we were alone. Then, we got into his study, which was what I was angling for the whole time. I really wanted to get into his sanctum. And it felt very intimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller gets good stuff out of De Niro, Scorsese\u2019s collaborator on 10 films, who is not an easy interview. \u201cIf you just count the words, it was a sparse interview,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if you look at what he gave me in terms of his expressions, it was rich, and it was all inside of him. It\u2019s the way he is on screen, too. It\u2019s a lesson in screen acting. At the end of it, the crew is like, \u2018Oh my God, he didn\u2019t say anything!\u2019 And I was like, \u2018No, I think we\u2019re OK.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Images can be stronger than words. When Miller confronted the time when Scorsese is fighting for his life in a New York hospital, there\u2019s a dramatic moment when De Niro urges Scorsese to commit to making \u201cRaging Bull.\u201d Scorsese said, \u201cOK, finally, OK.\u201d Scorsese needed a movie to make. Otherwise, he couldn\u2019t live. So he recovered in order to make \u201cRaging Bull.\u201d \u201cIt was the meaning of his life,\u201d said Miller. \u201cYou have a gift, and you have to do your best with the gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every time Scorsese headed into bleak days in his career, someone rescued him. \u201cI called them his angels,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIn other words, he encounters people at the bottom of his life that help him to the next level. Part of it is the strength of his personality: He has something that makes people want to help him, that is his personal charm. There\u2019s something inside of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor Thelma Schoonmaker was one angel. Scorsese pulled Schoonmaker out of the documentary world. He had loved working with her on \u201cWoodstock\u201d (1969). \u201cHe meets Thelma, then he loses her,\u201d said Miller. \u201cBut he gets her back because he remembers \u2018she\u2019s the only person I can trust.\u2019 Can you imagine learning how to cut feature film on \u2018Raging Bull?’\u201d On their first collaboration after nine years, \u201cRaging Bull\u201d (1980), they broke all the rules. Schoonmaker shows what they did on \u201cRaging Bull\u201d on the Avid, frame by frame.<\/p>\n

\"NEWMartin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker at the \u2018Killers of the Flower Moon\u2019 premiereGetty Images<\/p>\n

Miller was prepared on the films, \u201cbut with his own life, I knew very little,\u201d she said. \u201cMost of the questions about his life are me just saying, \u2018I didn\u2019t know a lot of these things.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t a Scorsese expert in a biographical sense. And that was actually helpful, because had I been manipulating the situation in any way, it would have been maybe palpable to him, versus genuinely asking questions. Whereas with the films, of course, I had studied the films, that\u2019s what I had in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Admirably, Scorsese never backed down or compromised when the studios or someone like Harvey Weinstein tried to make him change his films. In that sense, he stayed pure. \u201cThe Color of Money\u201d (1986), starring Tom Cruise and Paul Newman, may have been a mainstream studio picture with stars that made money, but Scorsese not only delivered a hit, but a good movie. ($52 million worldwide in 1986.)<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, it was literally a survival situation at that point,\u201d said Miller. When he was asked to change his films, \u201chis attitude was like, \u2018then I\u2019ll just go. I\u2019ll steal the film. Or I\u2019ll take my name off.\u2019 There was a deep, ethical thing. It wasn\u2019t standing up for yourself to do it. It\u2019s a sense, like you\u2019re betraying something deep, if you compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another angel, DiCaprio, rescued Scorsese by wanting to work with him. Suddenly, Scorsese\u2019s more expensive projects were bankable. Scorsese could make \u201cGangs of New York,\u201d also starring Daniel Day-Lewis, \u201cThe Aviator,\u201d also starring Cate Blanchett, \u201cThe Wolf of Wall Street,\u201d which launched Margot Robbie\u2019s career, and \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon,\u201d with De Niro, which pushed newcomer Lily Gladstone to an Oscar nomination.<\/p>\n

Scorsese is candid about his turbulent internal landscape, forged in the hardscrabble Italian upbringing that fueled his movies, from \u201cMean Streets\u201d to \u201cGoodfellas.\u201d But moving through the ups and downs of his career \u2014 and he had many dips \u2014 you see how he got to that breakdown in 1978, from the never-ending production of the musical \u201cNew York, New York\u201d (1977) to his insistence on making The Band concert movie \u201cThe Last Waltz\u201d (1978) with his roommate and coke buddy Robbie Robertson at the same time. Leonardo DiCaprio points out that Scorsese made no money on that film. His agent was furious. \u201cI got to make the film,\u201d said Scorsese.<\/p>\n

\"MEAN\u2018Mean Streets\u2019Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\u201cIt struck me. He\u2019s so honest to himself,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIt\u2019s a real lesson, because everybody wants to lie to themselves a little bit about who they are, what\u2019s going on. He doesn\u2019t lie to himself that much. He\u2019s brutally honest with himself\u2026It\u2019s also so rare that such a personal artist connects with the culture in such a deep way. Time after time, he inflames the culture. Look at what happened with \u2018Last Temptation of Christ,\u2019 my God.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Miller\u2019s portrait, the filmmaker goes through isolation, loneliness, and pain. He always felt like an outsider in Los Angeles. He drove himself hard. And he was not so easy to live with for the women in his life, five wives and three daughters: Cathy (first wife Laraine Marie Brennan), Domenica Cameron-Scorsese (second wife Julia Cameron), and Francesca (current wife Helen Morris). Cathy reveals how wonderful it was to be directed by him in a supporting role in \u201cCasino\u201d (1995). (In contrast, we infer, to the rest of her more distant interactions with him.) And third wife Isabella Rossellini, while affectionate toward him, is candid about how angry and destructive Scorsese could be. (He never hit her, she said.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s fascinating is the journey and the hope,\u201d said Miller. \u201cYou see a person who maybe, essentially, hasn\u2019t changed, in the sense that the little boy who is making those drawings is still that person now. But he\u2019s changed. There\u2019s been so much evolution in him. It\u2019s interesting from the point of view of character.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RebeccaRebecca Miller at the New York Film FestivalAnne Thompson<\/p>\n

Clearly, Scorsese has used therapy, meditation, and other tools to keep his frenetic life on a calmer track. He spends time with his youngest daughter, Francesca, and his wife, Helen Morris, who has been battling Parkinson\u2019s for 30 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe wanted to be present in the film,\u201d said Miller. \u201cSo we came in and we did it, and it was right, because she\u2019s his wife, and she should be in the movie. Also, it\u2019s important to see him in that home space, as he is now. You never want to be exploitative, but at the same time, clear-eyed, keep your eyes open. If anything, [Marty] teaches you to not look away. As Spike Lee says, at some point, \u2018people want to look away, and he doesn\u2019t look away.’\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Miller had to make some tough choices about what to leave out, including \u201cHugo\u201d and the filmmaker\u2019s television and documentary work. Finally, \u201cHugo\u201d didn\u2019t relate to the themes she was pursuing.<\/p>\n

\"THE\u2018The Color of Money\u2019\u00a9Buena Vista Pictures\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Hugo\u2019 is the only one we don\u2019t have,\u201d she said. \u201cEssentially, the art and the life are in a tango, right? You can\u2019t separate them with this man, because they were sewn together when he was a very small child. So the film only makes sense when those two things are clasped together. The minute we stopped doing that, it would turn into a list movie, which is my idea of hell. The big challenge with this movie was transitions of thought and making them feel like nothing. You need to hold the audience. You need to keep the reins of the film tight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The final editorial debate was one of length. This was an Apple TV conversation. \u201cThey gave us a decent budget, not immense, but definitely decent,\u201d said Miller. \u201cIt had to increase slightly, because originally it was a feature film.\u201d<\/p>\n

After about eight months of cutting, she realized it was a series. \u201c\u2018I can\u2019t do this,’\u201d she said. \u201cThere was a version, of course, of a 15-minute childhood and [snaps fingers] get to \u2018Mean Streets.\u2019 \u2018This is terrible. It\u2019s boring. We know everything.\u2019 I started realizing we have to go deep into the original friends. It\u2019s like the kryptonite, the stuff that he molded everything out of.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series links De Niro\u2019s character in their first collaboration, \u201cMean Streets,\u201d Johnny Boy, to other roles in the Scorsese oeuvre. He was based on a real guy [Salvatore \u201cSally\u201d Uricola] in his neighborhood. \u201cAt first, Marty didn\u2019t say his name, like he was not somebody that we were never going to talk to,\u201d Miller said. \u201cHe was almost a mythic figure, and for whatever reason, it was just not even in the cards at all that I was going to talk to him. There was \u201ca fascination with this young man who was this outlaw, really, who even within the mob scene of the \u2018serious guys\u2019 was a cowboy, he was unpredictable. That\u2019s why De Niro said, \u2018Is he still alive?\u2019 Because nobody could believe that he survived, that they didn\u2019t kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scorsese\u2019s old neighborhood pal Robert Uricola helped her out when she said, \u201cGee, I\u2019m really sorry we couldn\u2019t meet your brother.\u201d Robert instantly phoned Salvatore and invited him to join them, and he showed up 15 minutes later, his shirt open to the waist, his face ravaged by hard living. Miller was shocked to find herself in the room with Salvatore and reached blindly for a question. \u201cHe\u2019s worried because he doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s going on,\u201d she said. \u201cHe said, \u2018My brother can tell you most of it, and the rest of it is off the record.’\u201d<\/p>\n

She asked him if he ever blew up a mailbox. Cut to Johnny Boy blowing up a mailbox in \u201cMean Streets.\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Scorsese\u201d premieres on Apple TV on Friday, October 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Film Festival was a family affair for the Daniel Day-Lewis and Rebecca Miller family. Day-Lewis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,28908,2977,27370,337,60403,40947,348],"class_list":{"0":"post-213058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-festivals","12":"tag-interviews","13":"tag-martin-scorsese","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-mr-scorsese","16":"tag-rebecca-miller","17":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}