Mr Scorsese director Rebecca Miller on the surprising thing about Martin Scorsese

Over 50 years into Martin Scorsese’s career, a picture is emerging from the mosaic of movies he has made. “His larger project is a portrait of America,” says fellow filmmaker Rebecca Miller. “It is one of the greatest portraits of America there has ever been – and from so many different points of view.”

So what does his portrait of America over the last half century tell us about the America of today?

“How has it changed is maybe not the question. It’s how has it not changed. Some of his observations of truths – I would say he’s primarily a very truthful artist – has to do with power, the forming and protection of groups, friendship and betrayal – these are elements which hold true still now, because they’re eternal.”

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Scorsese is a director who feels familiar because his work is so ubiquitous and so influential, but through Miller’s documentary series Mr Scorsese, a fresh portrait of the artist emerges. Decade by decade, this definitive retrospective released this week reveals that the passions that drove him as a young maverick outsider in the industry are still motivating him into his 80s.

The seed of the series germinated through the pandemic. The initial idea was a single film but grew into five episodes. “There was a version where we cut his childhood into 15 minutes, and it was just so truncated,” Miller explains. Childhood reminiscences are key in the documentary as it becomes clear just how significant his early years growing up on the mean streets of Manhattan, surrounded by not very good fellas, would be.

“All the nerve endings in his work are in that neighbourhood and in that childhood, and you can trace it back,” Miller adds. “Not to say everything is autobiographical, but there is a kind of root to it.”

Miller is no stranger to great artists. Daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and acclaimed Magnum photographer Inge Morath, she’s married to Oscar accumulator Daniel Day-Lewis, who’s about to emerge from retirement to star in Anemone, directed by their son Ronan.

The Scorsese films that “loomed the largest” in Miller’s life are Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Although immediately associated with gangster films, Scorsese’s oeuvre is far wider. But there are common threads that run through the fabric of each. 

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“The Age of Innocence is also one of my favourite films,” Miller says. “That’s another film that isn’t gangster or gangster adjacent, but it’s still about distinct worlds and the machinations of power within a community.

“There’s very often an underdog trying to survive and make it out of their underdog status. You look at Raging Bull, The Wolf of Wall Street, Gangs of New York, there’s that person who’s coming from below and tries, in whatever way, to make it in the world that they’ve chosen.

“The theme of betrayal is very important in his work as well. Betrayal between friends. I’m very interested in how he treats male friendships. They’re sometimes elevated to have some of the properties one associates with romance, to do with loyalty and fidelity and the capacity to be heartbroken within a friendship. These are people who would never in words say: let’s talk about a relationship. And yet, the relationship is primary in their lives.”

Despite becoming perhaps the greatest practitioner of the medium, Scorsese has, Miller believes,  retained the spirit of the underdog which parallels that of many of his protagonists. “I don’t think you lose that feeling about yourself,” she says.

“There’s a sort of psychic stamp that happens early in life that isn’t easily diffused. Marty really was an underdog and I think continues to identify with those characters, even if he has himself become successful.

“At the same time, one of the surprising things is how many times he failed before he really started to take off. Then after he’d taken off, how many times he was written off and left for dead. 

“He had to reinvent himself so many times. There’s a sense that any moment now, it could be over, and you have to do it again.”

Mr Scorsese is on Apple TV+ from 17 October.

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