The man with two brains looks back on his life and career from two different perspectives and reminds viewers just what a wild and crazy guy he was…and still is.
DIRECTED BY MORGAN NEVILLE/2024
A documentary on Steve Martin was surely always going to be a wild and crazy ride, but Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces gives itself room to both explore the origin story of one of the most successful comics of all time, while also providing that comic’s own perspective of a life well lived and still going strong at age 76. The fact that Steve Martin remains a creative force this many decades into his career is itself an achievement that very few in the business ever reach. Director Morgan Neville seeks to peel back the layers to show us what makes Steve tick, and the greatest enigma is that after its all said and done, we still don’t fully mine the depths of this comedic and artistic genius, leaving us no closer to knowing who this man is, other than what he has given us in his performances and the contentment he has now found.
PART I: THEN
The first episode of this two-part (piece) documentary from Apple Original Films and A24, covers “Then”. Of the two pieces, this piece has the most previously unseen footage of a young Steve Martin, including pictures of him as a 15 year old working at Disney Land selling a newspaper. This led to him hanging around the park and picking up training, learning from other performers, that would inform his eventual stand-up routine, including magic, salesmanship, catch phrases, juggling, balloon animals, and more.
It also traces his childhood, the relationship with his parents, but particularly his father, and his slow but incremental climb through the ranks to becoming the icon he now is. As you watch the archival footage, you can see a clear line from his early days into the more manic, goofy, and physical comedian he would eventually become where he is selling 9 million copies of his comedy albums by the end of the 1970’s. Part 1: THEN ends right as The Jerk is debuting in theaters, signaling the transition from stand-up to a whole new career: Movies.
PART II: NOW
The second part of Steve! (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces shifts the perspective completely. While Part 1 is more of Steve narrating his life as it happens, capturing the thoughts he was having at the time as it all unfolded, Part 2 is more reflection. Here a 75 year old (at the time of filming) is trying to make sense of it all. What was his motivation all those years ago? Why did he fell the need to stop doing stand-up for 30 years, and reinvent himself completely as a movie star?
As a movie star, how did he slowly transition away from the wackier fare like The Jerk, The Man With Two Brains, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Three Amigos, to more grounded and introspective characters, or tortured souls, that he played in films like L.A. Story, Leap of Faith, or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? Sure there was still comedy at its core, but eventually his diminishing roles and lack of blockbuster success led one interviewer to shout out the question, “How come you aren’t funny anymore?”. Steve brushes it off as he walks the red carpet where it was asked, but it was increasingly obvious that the man who could manically perform on-stage and lead whole audiences out of the theater to local burger joints, was finding himself increasingly isolated internally by the mid 1990’s.
The second part of this series shows us the transition out of this period of isolation as Steve has, over the years, found peace within himself. He found love, and his wife had their first child when he was 67. There are many interviews from life-long friends, former co-stars, and lots of footage of Steve working with Martin Short today. As films started to wind down, Steve found himself shifting his creative focus again, wanting to collaborate more with his friends. From comic books with Harry Bliss, to stand-up tours with Martin Short, to his involvement as a writer and actor with Martin Short and Selena Gomez on their heralded HULU series, Only Murders In the Building, to his banjo recordings with his band the Steep Canyon Rangers, Steve is all about collaboration now. It’s an unlikely third act that has the now 76-year old still performing at a high level.
As someone who caught Steve Martin and Martin Short’s 2018 tour, Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, I can vouch that Steve Martin is still hilarious, though more subdued from the 1970’s version. If you catch this 2018 tour film on Netflex, watch for the final song, “5 More Minutes” where Steve glides back, albeit briefly, into his 1970’s glory, dancing like he’s with Dan Ackroyd as the Czech Brothers on SNL, showing snipets of his “what if people had one arm in the center of their body”, and even motioning where you could picture him saying his classic line, “well…..excuseeeeee meee!”, while doing it.
While the documentary series gives us much (and its a treasure trove of personal sharing that Steve is willing to do now, compared to his 1970’s heyday when he was quite unwilling to even talk about his love of art, commenting that that was too private for him to speak publically about), I still was left not knowing much about this comedic genius. Many things Steve is asked about in terms of trying to recollect his reasons for doing certain bits in his former stand-up act, or trying to ascertain how his brain thinks and develops his craft, he simply punts on it all. He doesn’t really seem to want to understand that, even turning off a cassette that is playing the audio from one of his classic shows when it becomes too painful and personal for him to listen to. He is too much of a critic of his own work. We do get to see he and Martin Short going through new material that they’ve developed to see if it is funny or not for their upcoming performances, but we never get to see the creative process.
The end work of his performances on stage, film, television, stage plays, and musical recordings is the ample evidence that we have of his artistic genius, but just don’t try to understand how it all came about. Steve is still trying to do that. What we do understand by the end of this series is that Steve WAS an artistic tour de force, IS an artistic tour de force, and 76 years into his life he shows no signs of slowing down. He may not be be as wild and crazy, but he’s still hilarious. More importantly, he is happy where he is at in his life, and that for him is what is fulfilling.
