Martha Documentary Director Responds to Martha Stewart’s Criticism

Martha Stewart told director R.J. Cutler exactly “what she thought about” the new Netflix documentary, Martha.

“It wasn’t surprising to me that she would’ve made a different film that I made, of course,” Cutler, 62, shared on the Wednesday, November 13, episode of “The Town with Matthew Belloni” podcast. “She gave me her feedback, and she was upset that I didn’t make the changes that she wanted to make. But this is the process.”

He continued: “It takes a tremendous amount of courage on her part to trust me. I respect that. And in return, I share the film with her and have conversations with her about the film. If she has ideas that I think are good ideas and will help the film that I’m making, I’ll take a good idea from anybody. Believe me.”

Shortly after Martha’s October 30 premiere on Netflix, Stewart, 83, told The New York Times that she “hates” the film’s final moments, which show her tending to her home grounds and gardens. “R.J. had total access, and he really used very little. It was just shocking,” she told the outlet. “Those last scenes with me looking like a lonely old lady walking hunched over in the garden? Boy, I told him to get rid of those. And he refused. I hate those last scenes. Hate them.”

She also criticized the movie’s classical music score, stating that she wanted the film to feature more rap music, and made it clear that she was unhappy with how the film covered her 2004 prison stint.

On Wednesday’s podcast, Cutler joked that he fantasizes about “publishing the text messages that she’d sent me,” adding, “I will tell you that Martha expressed herself fully to me in her text messages.”

Despite her not-so-nice feedback about the film, Cutler empathizes with her concerns. “It’s very, very hard to be a subject in one of these films and to look at it with any sort of objectivity,” he said. “And so, this is a process I understand and you have to be empathetic to the subject. But that doesn’t mean that she’s in control of the movie.”

According to Cutler, Stewart “understood that there was a process, and we engaged in that process. And Martha would have liked me to have a different response to that process, but I didn’t have a different response.” However, she was not a fan of “how the film changed over time.”

He explained: “I have to say, the subjectivity of being Martha Stewart in this situation, the vulnerability that you’re in, has to be responded to with empathy and support. That doesn’t mean it has to be responded to with changes to the film. And that’s what I did. Martha felt the whole thing should be scored differently, the score is extraordinary.”

Martha documents Martha’s rise from a successful caterer to a pop culture icon, as well as shares many shocking revelations, including that she and her ex-husband, Andrew Stewart, both stepped out during their marriage.

Martha did speak positively of the documentary earlier this week on The Drew Barrymore Show. “I thought it was a good representation of a 20th and 21st-century woman and giving hope and caring to the female gender in America, really,” she stated on the show’s Tuesday, November 12, episode.

She also noted that her grandkids — Jude, 13, and Truman, 12 — watched the movie and wanted to do so again.