Academy Award-winner Martin Scorsese is known for his big crime tale and humanist dramas. Still, the filmmaker also juggles it all by making personal documentaries on artistic figures he loves: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Eli Kazan, and more. In 2010, he made, “Public Speaking,” a documentary about author, public speaker, occasional actor, and all-around raconteur Fran Lebowitz for HBO. Now, it appears he’s made a follow-up doc in semi-secret, because a sequel doc was never reported. And it’s called, “Pretend It’s A City” and coming out on Netflix soon. Additionally, it’s a limited series that’s seven episodes long.
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Many missed it (including us), but Lebowitz herself first teased info about her “mysterious Netflix series” with Martin Scorsese about her take on New York City on a summer 2019 appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” (watch the clip below).
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As the Netflix trailer suggests, Fran Lebowitz is unapologetic about everything and has Opinions on Everything. Outspoken, provocative, and able to spin an uber-compelling yarn, the writer/speaker, humorist has made New York City her home for decades. What better sparring partner to discuss it than, Martin Scorsese, the quintessential New York filmmaker.
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Here’s the official synopsis:
Fran Lebowitz knows what she likes—and what she doesn’t like. And she won’t wait for an invitation to tell you. For decades, the critic and essayist has been expressing her opinions, sometimes grouchily, always riotously. A New Yorker to the core, Lebowitz has raised straight talk to an art form, packaging her no-nonsense observations about the city and its denizens into a punchy running commentary, one that spares nobody.
Shaping Lebowitz’s thoughts into the furiously funny guidebook, every New Yorker has at one point wished for, PRETEND IT’S A CITY checks in with a classic urban voice on subjects ranging from tourists, money, subways, and the arts to the not-so-simple act of walking in Times Square. (There is a right way to do it.) In this 7-part documentary series, Lebowitz’s own past comes into focus: a life marked by constant curiosity and invigorating independence.
Directed by Lebowitz’s longtime friend Martin Scorsese and peppered with his own witty takes on a town he knows best, PRETEND IT’S A CITY is a double dose of NYC attitude that sparks pangs of delight, fury, and recognition among those who love the place as deeply as they do.
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“Pretend It’s A City” debuts on Netflix, January 8, 2021. Watch the first trailer below.
Here’s the original trailer for “Public Speaking.”