“Letter To Elia” (2010) co-directed with Kent Jones
Martin Scorsese’s documentaries are generally love letters to the subject matter at hand, whether it’s cinema ( “My Voyage to Italy” and “A Personal Journey Through American Movies”), the power of performance (“The Last Waltz” and “Shine A Light”) or the admiration of a musical legacy (“No Direction Home,” “Living in the Material World”). And one of his most personal of these endeavors, even if it was co-directed by former film-critic-turned-Festival-programmer Kent Jones, is “Letter To Elia,” his portrait of the filmmaker Elia Kazan. The venerable director behind “A Streetcar Named Desire” and films like “America, America” and “East Of Eden,” in many ways, one could easily see Kazan’s “On The Waterfront” as a proto-Scorsese film (it’s a picture the filmmaker explores at length in the doc). Scorsese’s fascination with his subject is palpable in all of his usually incisive documentaries, but on Kazan—a man to whom he and Robert De Niro co-presented his Lifetime Achievement Academy Award—one can feel something much beyond simple admiration: a genuine tenderness and warm affection for a man and a filmmaker of whom he was deeply in awe. Only 60 minutes long and only ever aired on PBS (not released in theaters), there’s … something missing to it, as if it was rushed or not quite Scorsese’s project alone (and it’s not, one can argue it is Jones’ film first). So perhaps in that sense it’s something of a minor Scorsese doc, but as but as a heartfelt reflection, an aesthetic appreciation and a rousing analysis of Kazan’s oeuvre, it’s one of Scorsese’s most personal works. [B]
“Public Speaking” (2010)
If most Martin Scorsese documentaries are a type of billet-doux about the subject, then “Public Speaking,” his portrait of iconic (and sardonic) New York writer Fran Lebowitz is more of an esteemed acknowledgement. That isn’t to say Scorsese doesn’t have affection for his subject, like in other docs, it’s just that the filmmaker understands that anything that comes out of her mouth is prime rib. So, moving away from voice-over where he usually describes the passion for his subject, Scorsese simply gets out of Lebowitz’s way. Turning the camera on and letting the mordant and whipsmart social raconteur rip, “Public Speaking” is more of an appreciative tribute to the power of Lebowitz’s ever-so-candid art of conversation. Acerbic and witty, no topic is sacred with Lebowitz, but as the dialogue flows, she also reveals much about herself, her often difficult childhood and what made her such an important New York voice (she’s been called the modern Dorothy Parker several times). “I always said I’m the only Jew in America whose first exposure to an intellectual, it was a black guy,” she quips in the doc about author James Baldwin. “I never met anyone like that in my life and I was mesmerized.” Sprinkled throughout the doc are clips of Lebowitz’s public speaking tours, but perhaps most personal are the anecdotes of a bitter and difficult upbringing with philistine parents who didn’t want her to read, and wanted her seen and not heard. It’s these revealing, never sentimentalized moments where Lebowitz articulates exactly why she went on to live a life centered around the gift of the gab, and Scorsese wisely lets her reveal herself almost unmediated. [B]
“George Harrison: Living in the Material World” (2011)
From seemingly from out of nowhere, Scorsese delivered one of his best and most heartfelt non-fiction projects (his aptitude as a documentarist is often overlooked in favor of his fiction films, but is nonetheless exceptional), a nearly four-hour-long documentary dedicated to the life and times of the former Beatle. Told in a charming stream-of-consciousness style that mixes talking head interviews (with everyone from Paul McCartney to Terry Gilliam) with archival footage and musical interludes, your enjoyment of this sprawling biographical mass isn’t based purely on your love of the Beatles (although your patience with all things related to transcendental meditation could probably help). Instead, Scorsese paints a portrait of a man, in both broad brush strokes and tiny details, who found himself caught up in one of pop culture’s most explosive moments, yet who somehow remained relatively anonymous amongst all that noise. George Harrison is, it turns out, a man of nuance, grace, and intelligence, capable of true selflessness and the type of caring few humans exhibit willingly. Beautifully photographed and just as beautifully put together, “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” is a late-in-his-career crowning achievement, one made all the more powerful by the fact that it was almost a complete surprise. [A-]