MARTHA
US, 2024, 115 minutes, Colour.
Martha Stewart.
Directed by RJ Cutler.
In the later decades of the 20th century, most Americans knew the name, Martha Stewart. She had become a significant “influencer”. Not so well-known outside the United States, but influential with her range of magazines and her company, the focus on “Living” and how best this could be done in the US context are American women and home keepers, especially in the changing feminist perspectives of the 20th century.
For non-Americans, there was a general awareness of Martha Stewart and her high profile. So, it was something of a shock when in 2004 she was in court, sentenced to prison and serving her sentence.
This documentary, well written and directed by RJ Cutler (many documentaries, especially an insightful portrait of comedian and actor, John Belushi), offers us a portrait and study of Martha Stewart. Because of her high-profile, there is a great deal of newsreel footage over the decades, and especially her television presence and her shows. No lack of photo material. No lack of people able to comment.
But, the major advantage is a long interview with Martha Stewart herself (the later 70s) which forms the core of the documentary, Martha Stewart in her own words, and the audience able to look at her, listen to her, note her reactions, note the body language, hear the intonations. She herself made some objections about the documentary itself and what was included and what was excluded. (Not favourable to her final aged image very happy with the first half of the film.)
There is the expected material about her childhood, comfortable in New Jersey, intelligent and smart, modelling, commercials, in the mid and late teens, her being an enterprising young woman, her marriage, studies, pregnancy and child, but her being strong-willed and determined.
For audiences who want more background to Martha Stewart, the Wikipedia article is quite extensive and detailed.
With Martha Stewart herself giving the commentary as well as all the media that can be drawn on, the audience sees her career as a stockbroker on Wall Street, her moving into the catering business, being a shrewd businesswoman, many saying she was very difficult to work with, developing all kinds of advice for American women and their households, cooking to gardening, her move into writing, the link with the Time company, books and range of magazines. By 2000 her company, Omniliving, went public, Martha Stewart the billionaire.
For those familiar with the charges of insider trading, this documentary spends a lot of time with explanations of Martha Stewart’s friendships and connections, developments of drugs and medication, deals, collapses, her decisions about selling stock, the charges. And, there is a great deal about the trial itself, her reaction, her presence, sentence.
While she was imprisoned for five months,, finding it difficult, she nonetheless survived and made the most of it. And, in the coming years, sometimes retiring from public view, she recovered, emerged, the documentary spending a lot of time on her role at a Roast for Justin Bieber, her taking over, her humour, her relating to the younger generation, the connection with Snoop Dog at the Roast and then teaming with him for a television show, showing that in her 70s, she was not prepared to look back and that you connect with the younger generation!
So, RJ Cutler presents this portrait of Martha Stewart, very much in her own words, very much in the images of her, the American dream of success, her fall but, nevertheless, recovery.
(A very good insight is provided by film reviewer, Owen Gleibman Variety: marketing the Martha personality: the self-empowered WASP goddess, direct and imperious, with an eerily serene grin of beatific power. She was a woman who glowed, who peered at the world through an upscale glaze. Those familiar with Carl Jung and personality types, and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Martha Stewart could be a powerful example of the Type, ENTJ, the type shared, it is suggested, by Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, D Roosevelt, Steve Jobs…)
