Mr. Scorsese’s review – Five hours is not long enough to do justice to the greatest film director of all time | television

TThe world does not lack documentaries about Martin Scorsese. Those who want to see his inspirations and methodology can actually search for a personal journey with Martin Scorsese through 1995’s American Films, 2004’s Scorsese on Scorsese or any of the endless biographies that fans have collected on YouTube.

But all of this is incomplete, either frozen in the middle of Scorsese’s career or lacking direct input from the man himself. Rebecca Miller’s sprawling Apple TV documentary Mr. Scorsese is an attempt to rectify that. If it’s not entirely successful, it’s because five hours is nowhere near enough time to do justice to the man’s masses.

The project seems somewhat necessary. Scorsese’s 2025 film has a good reputation. He is perhaps the greatest filmmaker in the history of the medium. He commands praise and respect, and is a pillar of the financial institution. What Mr. Scorsese does well is remind you that this was not always the case.

In Miller’s interviews, Scorsese is clearly keen to remind the world that he spent most of his life as the ultimate outsider. A sick child born in Queens, New York, near the street where mobs disposed of their bodies, suffered from asthma and had to watch the world through his third-floor window, escaping only to air-conditioned movie theaters that would alleviate his symptoms.

He had been, as he put it, an outcast throughout his life over and over again. He is outcast from his neighborhood after a family dispute. He is ostracized by his peers because he is made (in the words of John Cassavetes) “a piece of shit” in Roger Corman’s film Boxcar Bertha. He was shunned by his religion because he performed the final temptation of Christ. He was ostracized by Hollywood after the failure of Condon’s films and Bringing Out the Dead. His body had rejected him after his hospitalization, blood pouring from every orifice, when his massive drug intake caught up with him in his 30s. However, every time he fell, his talent and determination helped him find his way back.

The series doesn’t shy away from any of these flaws. There is a particularly shocking scene in The Last Temptation of Christ, in which nuns appear on television to tell the audience that buying a ticket is a mortal sin, and anti-Semitic protests outside the home of studio head Lou Wasserman.

No wonder there are so many stories about Scorsese’s volcanic temperament. We remember the times he would overturn desks, smash phones, and trash rooms whenever anyone dared get in the way of his vision. Fortunately, this seems to have subsided now. By the end of the series, a combination of tangible success, domestic happiness, and the reality of serving as his wife’s caregiver seems to have softened the edges of a man who at times seemed frighteningly hard-headed.

But Mr. Scorsese is also trying to bolster the director’s standing within the industry. Steven Spielberg has been interviewed at length, and Ari Aster proves as adept at deconstructing Scorsese’s films as he is at the films that inspired him. Perhaps the biggest hit is Daniel Day-Lewis, who gives an uncharacteristically charming and quirky interview about his two projects with Scorsese. Obviously the fact that he’s married to Rebecca Miller may have helped the arrival, but his engagement is an undoubted highlight.

And yet, despite its long run, something about Mr. Scorsese still feels frustratingly slight. Perhaps this is because the series noticeably loses its intensity as its career continues. The first few episodes are rich and informative, but we’re still stuck in the ’90s by the end of episode four. That leaves only an hour to talk through his quarter-century of work, during which he made nine films, a quarter of which were given over to Gangs of New York. Hugo — his 2011 attempt at a 3D family film — isn’t even worth mentioning.

His vital work in restoring and preserving lost classics with the Film Foundation and the World Cinema Foundation, his work as a documentarian, and his choice to champion exciting new voices as a producer — any one of which could stand half the length of Mr. Scorsese alone — have all been overlooked in the sprint to the finish line. In other words, Martin Scorsese’s final documentary has yet to be made. But if you have a love of film and five hours to spare, you could do a lot worse.