NEED TO KNOW
Rebecca Miller’s new documentary on Martin Scorsese’s life and career shows his constant evolution, both as a filmmaker and a man.
Ahead of Apple TV+’s Mr. Scorsese’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival, director Miller, 63, spoke with PEOPLE about how her documentary examines Scorsese’s evolving and intertwining approaches to his romantic relationships and filmmaking.
“I think that it does really show the whole idea of… do people change and how does a character both stay the same and mutate and change in reaction to the life that they lead?” Miller, who previously directed fiction films like She Came to Me, says of Scorsese, 82, whom she interviewed for 20 hours. “And this is a perfect example of that, of both staying the same and keeping your essential flame, but also shifting and changing and growing. That’s one of my favorite things about the documentary.”
Scorsese has been married to wife Helen Morris since 1999; they share daughter Francesca, 25. The director has been married five times and also shares daughter Cathy, 59, with first wife Laraine Marie Brennan, and Domenica, 49, with journalist Julia Cameron. In the series, the Academy Award-winning director and his older daughters openly discuss how Martin was not always the most present parent during the earlier parts of his career in the 1970s.
Apple TV+
“At a certain point he says something about, ‘There are temptations along the way,’ and I say, ‘As a man or as an artist?’ And he said, ‘Both. ‘Cause there’s no difference,’ ” Miller recalls of interviewing Scorsese. “And it’s really true that this is a man who lives and breathes film. You can’t take the film out of the molecules of his skin, his body, his heart. The two things are together, and so they’re changing together. They’re creating each other.”
“So that’s what’s so interesting to me. It’s not like you could just peel off his filmmaker personality, put it in a closet and go examine him as a man,” she adds. “You can’t do that.”
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Apple TV+
Scorsese remains an active filmmaker in his 80s; he last released Killers of the Flower Moon in 2023 and will begin filming a new movie titled What Happens at Night, as Deadline reported on Sept. 18.
“That’s part of his secret, that he is not complacent. He is still creating himself,” Miller says of Scorsese’s drive to keep working. “Once, we were talking [about] the idea that when every time [Scorsese makes a movie] you’re thinking, ‘Well, the next one’s gonna be the really good one. I mean, that’s when I’m really gonna do it.’ ”
“He’s still thinking that that’s the next one’s gonna be the really good one. And that’s what makes him a living vivid artist,” she says.
Following the documentary’s New York Film Festival premiere, Mr. Scorsese begins streaming on Apple TV+ Oct. 17.
