RJ Cutler’s Martha Stewart Documentary for Netflix

From teenage models to high society caterers to family patriarchs to media billionaires to scapegoated criminals to octogenarian thirst trap enthusiasts and Snoopy Doggy friend, Martha Stewart’s life is incredible, or at least jarring.

It’s an unlikely journey, taken largely in the public eye, which posed special challenges for RJ Cutler’s new Netflix documentary, Martha. Perhaps there are younger viewers who don’t know what Martha Stewart’s life was like before her dinner party with Snoopy. Perhaps some older viewers thought Martha Stewart had fallen into awkward obscurity after spending time in a prison mistakenly called “Cupcake Camp.”

These may be the target audience for this 115-minute documentary—people who are impressed by and interested in Martha Stewart, but not curious enough to actively follow her trajectory. This is a very, very direct and linear documentary where the actual revelations are more limited by your conscious awareness.

However, in place of revelation, what makes Martha Watching Cutler thrust and parry his subjects is riveting. The prolific documentarian has made films about the likes of Anna Wintour and Dick Cheney, so he knows his way around prickly stars, and in Martha Stewart (Martha Stewart), his heroine has enough power and deserved it, ignore her. Stewart said she was selectively honest when she wanted to appear indifferent and when she wanted to achieve her goals Martha It was almost a collaboration: half the story she wanted to tell, and half Cutler’s receptiveness to the story. The latter is more interesting than a completely bland biographical embellishment and a rote formal approach.

Cutler focused on Stewart. Although he conducted many new interviews for the documentary, with friends, colleagues, family, and even some rivals, only Stewart got an on-screen headshot interview. Everyone else can provide feedback in audio-only conversations that must replace footage from Martha over the years, as well as Stewart’s current production of her luxurious Turkey Hill farmhouse.

In those “interview” scenes, Stewart goes about her business without acknowledging the camera, which illustrates her general attitude towards this documentary, which I can sum up as “I’m prepared to give you my time, but mostly Because it’s very convenient for me.”

Stewart, who is 83 and still busier than almost anyone in the world, needs this documentary less than it needs her, and she absolutely knows it. Cutler tried to pull her out and pressed Stewart on certain issues, such as the difference between her husband’s affairs and the infidelity of her own contemporaries, which still infuriated her. Whenever possible, Stewart sought to hand over letters and her diaries from prison, insulating herself from the more thorny conversations and letting Cutler do what he wanted with these semi-public documents.

“Take it out of the letter,” she instructed him after a pointless conversation about the end of her marriage, adding that she didn’t wallow in self-pity at all.

Cutler experimented with having voice actors read the letters and diary entries, and filling in the visual gaps with unassuming static illustrations.

Just as Stewart lets Cutler fill in certain gaps, the director lets the audience often read between the lines. While going back and forth about their affairs, he mentioned talking to her ex-boyfriend Andy, but Andy’s voice is never heard in the documentary. as you like. You’re free to think that she blames producer Mark Burnett for not understanding her brand on the daytime show after his release from prison — which may or may not explain Burnett’s absence, as well Treatment decisions. Martha Stewart Show as a fleeting disaster (it actually ran for 1,162 episodes over seven seasons) and pretend Apprentice: Martha Stewart Never existed. This disparity and exclusion was particularly evident in her post-prison life, which can be summarized as: “Everything was bad, and then she laughed at Justin Bieber, and everything was fine.”

At times, Stewart gives the impression that her protective facade has slipped, as she talks about new york post Journalist covering her trial: “Thank God she’s dead now. No one has to put up with the crap she wrote. But that doesn’t let anything slip. It was pure, orchestrated, and utterly brutal. More often It’s hollow enough that when Stewart wants to express disdain, she rolls her eyes or stares in Cutler’s direction, waiting for him to move on.

Stewart is not a producer Marthaand I’m sure there are things here that she might rather not bother with anymore. But at the same time, you get the sense that she’s either guiding the documentary’s subject or giving Cutler what he needs to make his own clear subject matter. In the first half, she mentions her desire for perfection over and over again, and by the end, she pauses to sum up her journey in life, “I think imperfection is something you can deal with.”

Judging from her interactions with Cutler and her staff, there is no sign that she has abandoned her strict standards. Instead, she found a carefully crafted imperfect version of herself that people liked, and she’s perfected that. As she said, that’s a good thing.