The celebrity chef’s criticism of the Netflix doc doesn’t come as a shock to director R.J. Cutler. He says, “It wasn’t surprising to me that she would’ve made a different film that I made.”
The celebrity chef’s criticism of the Netflix doc doesn’t come as a shock to director R.J. Cutler. He says, “It wasn’t surprising to me that she would’ve made a different film that I made.”
Martha Stewart didn’t exactly love the process of making a documentary about her life.
The celebrity chef stopped by the The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday to chat about director R.J. Cutler‘s doc Martha, which covers the extraordinary life of Stewart through intimate interviews, never-before-seen photos, letters and diary entries.
When host Jimmy Fallon asked for her thoughts on the film, she responded, “Oh, yeah, the documentary is fine. It left out a lot, so I’m going to talk to them about maybe doing version two. There’s a lot more to my life. I mean, you know, I’ve lived a long time and I just thought, you know, maybe we’ve left out some stuff.”
Stewart added that she “didn’t like” the process of filming for the documentary because “I don’t like going to psychiatrists and talking about your feelings and all of that stuff. And the director was so intense on delving.”
However, she noted that some “good stuff came out” in the doc and that the director “got some juice.”
Stewart’s criticism of Martha isn’t all too surprising for Cutler, as he recently responded to Stewart’s review of the doc while speaking with Matthew Belloni on The Town podcast. “I hate those last scenes. Hate them,” she told the New York Times, among other criticisms, shortly after the doc hit Netflix.
“It wasn’t surprising to me that she would’ve made a different film that I made,” the filmmaker explained. “She gave me her feedback, and she was upset that I didn’t make the changes she wanted to make. But this is the process. It takes a tremendous amount of courage on her part to trust me, I respect that. In return, I share the film with her and have conversations with her about the film. If she has ideas that I think are good ideas and will help the film that I’m making, I’ll take a good idea from anybody.”
Stewart also told the NYT that she wasn’t too fond of the film’s score by Colin Stetson, as she would have preferred hip-hop music, similar to what her longtime friend Snoop Dogg makes.
“I said to R.J., ‘An essential part of the film is that you play rap music.’ Dr. Dre will probably score it, or Snoop or Fredwreck,” she said last month. “I said, ‘I want that music.’ And then he gets some lousy classical score in there, which has nothing to do with me.”
Cutler also addressed Stewart’s comments about the score on The Town podcast, noting that she has a right to be upset, but that he ultimately made the final call when it comes to storytelling decisions.
“The subjectivity of being Martha Stewart in this situation, the vulnerability that you’re in, has to be responded to with empathy and support. That doesn’t mean it has to be responded to with changes to the film,” the director said. “Martha felt the whole thing should be scored differently, but the score is extraordinary.”
Martha is currently streaming on Netflix.