EXCLUSIVE
STEVE! (MARTIN) ADOCUMENTARY IN 2PIECES Apple gets to the core of a crazy guy…
What’s great about Steve is, he’s funny but also intellectual,’ says Morgan Neville, who has made documentaries on Bono, Johnny Cash and Keith Richards, but is best known for Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018), the heartwarming, soul-searching study of iconic children’s TV host Fred Rogers. ‘There’s something about that high-culture/low-culture thing that Steve does that I love. You can be stupid and you can be really smart at the same time.’
As the title suggests, STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces divides the legendary comic and actor’s life into twin sections. The first, aided by a stunning array of archive material, wads of which were previously unseen, tracks his childhood, education, love of magic, jobs at Disneyland, and the 15 years spent chiselling away at an avant ‐garde routine that reinvented stand-up comedy, until it at last took off and Martin started selling out stadiums… only to walk away. The second section hangs out with Martin now, in his 70s, a devoted husband and father who’s dipped back into stand-up and is enjoying the success of TV show Only Murders in the Building with his best pal Martin Short.
‘The Steve you meet in the second film, you wonder: “How did he become this guy from the guy he was in the first film?”’ ponders Neville. ‘He had all this success, and then he was like, “Oh, success doesn’t make me happy.” It’s the oldest story. But Steve is somebody who worked on it, you know? Steve is a problem-solver. Literally, he’s doing puzzle
