Martin Scorsese almost grew up in paradise—specifically, a green, suburban neighborhood in Queens. But his family was forced to leave, and the asthmatic boy spent his childhood gazing at Elizabeth Street, a minor artery of Little Italy in southern Manhattan, from the window of the small apartment where his illness confined him.
We’ve barely passed the five-hour mark of our time with the filmmaker, and Rebecca Miller has already shown she can look her subject squarely in the eye. Scorsese had never before recounted his early years with such rich detail. Even more, no interviewer had ever managed to reveal so clearly the connections between the life of a child raised in one of New York’s poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods and the work of one of the greatest creators in the history of cinema.
Paradoxically, it’s an industry insider who paints the portrait of this eternal outsider. Rebecca Miller’s first documentary was about her father, a renowned playwright. She studied at Yale, was an actress for a time before becoming a novelist and director. She is also the wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, who starred in two of Scorsese’s feature films.