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Isabella Rossellini reflects on her marriage to Martin Scorsese in Apple TV’s new documentary about the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
In the third episode of director Rebecca Miller’s wide-ranging five-part docuseries Mr. Scorsese, Rossellini, 73, recalls that during their three-year marriage, which lasted from 1979 to 1982, Scorsese “could get really angry.”
“Not toward me,” Rossellini clarifies. “He never hit me or anything like that, but he could demolish a room. A friend of his once filmed him and showed it to him. Marty was shocked because he didn’t realize the level of violence that this minuscule body, asthmatic, could [create.] It was like a volcano. It was terrifying.”
Scorsese and Rossellini’s marriage spanned the making of two of the director’s movies — 1980’s Raging Bull and 1982’s The King of Comedy — both of which starred his frequent collaborator Robert De Niro. As Both Rossellini and Scorsese, 82, remember in the documentary, the director went through a depressive period while making the latter film.
“I don’t even remember why he got so mad. I think that sometimes it could be a very silly little reason that would make him go over the top,” Rossellini adds. “Sometimes he [would] wake up like, ‘F— it, f— it, f— it,’ and I would say ‘Marty, the day hasn’t even started.’ Then I understood that partially also this rage was part of the fuel to give him courage; because you know, he was this little boy from Little Italy and was now this big director who had to direct this big film and big budget. And I think rage gave him that stamina to get through the day, to get to finish the film, because it’s not easy. So it was complex to be with him.”
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Scorsese’s marriage to Rossellini was his third; he has been married five times and has been married to Helen Morris since 1999; they share daughter Francesca, 25. He shares daughter Cathy, 59, with first wife Laraine Marie Brennan, and daughter Domenica, 49, with journalist Julia Cameron; throughout the docuseries, Scorsese’s older daughters reflect on growing up with a father who was not always physically available as he embarked on his film career in the 1970s and ’80s.
Scorsese and Rossellini divorced in 1982; Rossellini was later married to model-turned-Microsoft executive Jon Wiedemann from 1983 to 1986. They share daughter Elettra Wiedemann, 42; the actress is also mom to Roberto Rossellini, 43.
in Mr. Scorsese, the film’s subject tells documentarian Miller, 63, that he was “having personal problems so severely that I couldn’t edit” The King of Comedy, leading to the movie almost being taken out of his hands.
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“Very much so, yeah,” he says, when asked if he was depressed at that time. “I never experienced such depression — trying to work, not being able to work, having problems, complaining, getting crazy. I would try to meet other people, I would try to start to have relationships, never worked.”
“If it wasn’t for the doctor, five days a week, phone calls on the weekend, strong, steady work on straightening my head out, I’d be dead,” he adds. “I was on medication that was very strong, and I was getting through. It was very lonely, but it was my doing.”
Mr. Scorsese is now streaming on Apple TV.
