Pretend It's a City | |
---|---|
Genre | Documentary Biography |
Directed by | Martin Scorsese |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 7 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
|
Cinematography | Ellen Kuras |
Editors |
|
Running time | 26-31 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | Netflix |
Release | January 8, 2021 |
Pretend It's a City is a 2021 American documentary series directed by Martin Scorsese featuring interviews and conversations between Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz. [1] [2] The series was released on January 8, 2021, on Netflix.
Lebowitz talks to her friend Scorsese about living in New York City. The film is interspersed with clips from archived television interviews and video footage of Lebowitz and Scorsese walking around the city.
The New York Times called Pretend It's a City a followup film to Public Speaking , also a Scorsese film starring Lebowitz. According to Lebowitz, the title is a line she'd shout at people when trying to get them to move from the middle of a packed sidewalk. After the COVID-19 pandemic started, she noted, "now people think it has some more lyrical, metaphorical meaning." [1] The chapters are loosely organized around topics like money, athletics, transportation, and others. [3]
The documentary was shot before the pandemic. [4] Filming took place in Manhattan, although Lebowitz said, "we did go to Queens, [and it was] something Marty talked about as if we were going to Afghanistan." [5] Other locations include the Players Club, the New York Public Library and the streets of Manhattan. [6]
The documentary was dedicated to Lebowitz's longtime friend Toni Morrison. [7] In January 2021, Saturday Night Live spoofed the series, with Bowen Yang as Lebowitz and Kyle Mooney as Scorsese. [8]
No. | Title | Directed by | Original release date [9] |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Pretend It's a City" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
2 | "Cultural Affairs" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
3 | "Metropolitan Transit" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
4 | "Board of Estimate" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
5 | "Department of Sports & Health" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
6 | "Hall of Records" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
7 | "Library Services" | Martin Scorsese | January 8, 2021 |
On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 90% based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 7.83/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "If Pretend It's a City can't quite live up to its central duo's creative clout, it's still a delight to see their love for their city—and one another—in full bloom." [10] On Metacritic, the series has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [11]
The New Yorker in January 2021 said the documentary's depiction of pre-pandemic New York "feels like a balm in a wildly shifting world." [12] CNN described the series as a Scorsese "vanity project," but did say the show "certainly yields its share of amusing thoughts and wry observations, many of which are worth recording for posterity." [2] RogerEbert.com gave it 3.5 stars, writing "Fran Lebowitz's delivery is masterful. So, if the first episode hooks you, this is worth binge-watching." [13] The Guardian called it a "pitch-perfect dream of Warholian parties and drinking with friends, soundtracked by Lebowitz's epigrams, which stack up like the hot dog buns of the Manhattan vendor she passes." [14] PopMatters says the series "is about three and a half hours long, by far the biggest dose we've ever had of Lebowitz in one go. The runtime is relentless and the speaker is relentless and the strangers crawling all over New York are relentless and the audience's lust for more minutes is relentless." [15] The Sydney Morning Herald called it "the most fun you can have on Netflix right now." [16] Vogue called the documentary "one of the best things you will watch this year." [17]
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American filmmaker. He emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He has received many accolades, including an Academy Award, four BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He has been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1997, the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2007, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010 and the BAFTA Fellowship in 2012. Four of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".
Taxi Driver is a 1976 American neo-noir psychological drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks in his first film role. Set in a morally decaying New York City following the Vietnam War, the film follows Travis Bickle, a veteran Marine and taxi driver, and his deteriorating mental state as he works nights in the city.
Goodfellas is a 1990 American biographical gangster film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of Pileggi's 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy. Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and Paul Sorvino, the film narrates the rise and fall of mob associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980.
Little Italy is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, known for its former Italian population. It is bounded on the west by Tribeca and Soho, on the south by Chinatown, on the east by the Bowery and Lower East Side, and on the north by Nolita.
The King of Comedy is a 1982 American satirical black comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis and Sandra Bernhard. Written by Paul D. Zimmerman, the film focuses on themes such as celebrity worship and American media culture. 20th Century-Fox released the film on February 18, 1983, in the United States, though the film was released two months earlier in Iceland.
After Hours is a 1985 American black comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Joseph Minion, and produced by Amy Robinson, Griffin Dunne, and Robert F. Colesberry. Dunne stars as Paul Hackett, an office worker who experiences a series of misadventures while attempting to make his way home from Manhattan's SoHo district during the night.
Eat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of parts of Europe with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary Dont Look Back chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour. The film was originally commissioned for the ABC television series ABC Stage 67.
Frances Ann Lebowitz is an American author, public speaker, and actor. She is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities and her association with many prominent figures of the New York art scene of the 1970s and 1980s, including Andy Warhol, Martin Scorsese, Jerome Robbins, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, Candy Darling, and the New York Dolls.
Catherine Scorsese was an American actress. She began acting when her son Martin Scorsese cast her in his short film It's Not Just You, Murray!. Scorsese was of Italian descent and frequently played the role of an Italian mother. She is perhaps most well known for her appearance in her son's film Goodfellas as Mrs. DeVito, the mother of Joe Pesci's character Tommy. She also published a recipe book, Italianamerican: The Scorsese Family Cookbook.
Barbara Gladstone was an American art dealer and film producer. She was owner of Gladstone Gallery, a contemporary art gallery with locations in New York and Brussels.
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are an American director-actor collaborative duo who have made ten feature films and one short film together since 1973. Many of them are often ranked among the greatest films of all time.
Public Speaking is a 2010 documentary film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese, about the American author Fran Lebowitz.
Martin Scorsese is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and film historian whose career spans more than fifty years. To date, Scorsese has directed twenty-six feature length narrative films, seventeen feature-length documentary films, and has co-directed one anthology film.
Resident Alien is a 1990 documentary film about the life of British writer and actor Quentin Crisp. directed, produced and edited by Jonathan Nossiter, and co-produced by Dean Silvers. Resident Alien was Crisp's first documentary; it was followed by Naked in New York in 1994 and The Celluloid Closet in 1995.
The Irishman is a 2019 American epic gangster film directed and produced by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Steven Zaillian, based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. It stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, with Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jesse Plemons, and Harvey Keitel in supporting roles. The film follows Frank Sheeran, a truck driver who becomes a hitman involved with mobster Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and his crime family before later working for the powerful Teamster Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). The film marked the ninth collaboration between Scorsese and De Niro, in addition to Scorsese's fifth collaboration with Harvey Keitel, his fourth collaboration with Joe Pesci; his first with Al Pacino; the fourth collaboration between Pacino and De Niro; and the first collaboration between Pacino and Pesci altogether.
Mifune: The Last Samurai, also known as Mifune, is a 2015 biographical documentary directed and co-written by Steven Okazaki. It chronicles the life of Toshiro Mifune, a Japanese actor and international star most noted for playing samurai characters in films by Akira Kurosawa.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese is a 2019 American documentary film, composed of both fictional and non-fictional material, covering Bob Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue concert tour. Directed by Martin Scorsese, it is the director's second film on Bob Dylan, following 2005's No Direction Home. The bulk of Rolling Thunder Revue is compiled of outtakes from Dylan's 1978 film Renaldo and Clara, which was filmed in conjunction with the tour.
Pieces of a Woman is a 2020 drama film directed by Kornél Mundruczó, from a screenplay by Kata Wéber. The film stars Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Molly Parker, Sarah Snook, Iliza Shlesinger, Benny Safdie, Jimmie Fails, and Ellen Burstyn as the family and associates of Martha (Kirby) involved in her traumatic childbirth, baby loss, and a subsequent court case against the midwife, Eva (Parker), whom Martha's mother Elizabeth (Burstyn) blames for the baby's death. Martin Scorsese and Sam Levinson served as executive producers, and the film was scored by Howard Shore.
Nicolas "Nico" Heller, better known as "New York Nico", is an American documentary film director, and social media personality known for his Instagram account @newyorknico. Nicknamed the "Unofficial Talent Scout of New York", Heller uses his platform to share photos, videos and stories showcasing life in New York City.