Steve Martin has never been one to follow any sort of playbook. It is fitting the first official documentary about his life is similarly unconventional: A freewheeling story told in two parts, one part focused on “Then” and one part focused on “Now” (kind of) with both parts debuting on Apple TV+ on Friday. Both documentarian and subject are trying, the best they can, to make sense of whatever “Steve Martin” is.
Directed by self-proclaimed superfan Morgan Neville (the Oscar-winner who has told the story of Fred Rogers and Anthony Bourdain), STEVE! (martin) never commits to one form. Like its subject, it allows itself to be a little looser, utilizing every technique available to help paint a truer picture of Martin, a man so enigmatic that his close friends don’t even seem to have a handle on him. He’d hardly be the first performer to save it all for the stage: Martin says that it was somewhat comforting to be able to put on a persona during shows. He was also able to continually reinvent himself. Who else could have walked away from stand-up just as they’d reached rock star status?
And so the medium becomes a kitchen sink: There is stock footage, animation, reenactment, home videos, movie clips, stand-up segments, talk show appearances, new interviews with famous friends (Martin and Jerry Seinfeld in conversation, for example), scripted voiceover and some fly-on-the-wall footage of him just spending time with Martin (Marty) Short bike riding, walking through town, playing cards and workshopping jokes for their show. It’s probably the only way to capture an artist who has taken the hyphenate to absurd levels: Magician/balloon artist/novelist/banjo player/screenwriter/essayist/art collector/joke teller/cartoonist/movie star/father/husband/friend. What am I missing?
For anyone who’s read Martin’s memoir Born Standing Up, “Then” might not be especially revelatory, but it’s all context and it remains interesting to hear Martin reflect candidly on a moment that now feels “like a blip.” While he might not have had a plan, he did possess a keen sense of when he’d hit a dead end, whether that be in magic, stand-up or even movies.
His life in movies is saved for “Now,” and you see someone still struggling with the agony of never really knowing if a thing would work. Everyone misses once in a while, but Martin had a brutal back-to-back of a wild success in The Jerk followed by an epic flop in Pennies From Heaven and that was just the start of his rollercoaster in Hollywood. He’s kind of moved on from that (and Mixed Nuts) but also kind of not. He said he had to do 40 movies to get five good ones. He’s being a little sarcastic, but hopefully he knows that a lot of people out there love far more than a measly five Steve Martin movies.
