David Bianculli

All I'll tell you is, the cliffhanger this season is one I never saw coming.

When you get there, I hope you'll be as knocked out by it as I was.

If the thought of a five-part, five-hour study of Martin Scorsese might sound excessive, then maybe you haven't seen enough of his movies.

Or, for that matter, feasted on any of his multi-part documentaries on the history of film, both domestic and international.

They're treasures, loaded with insights, passion, and hints about which films to seek out next for even more riches.

In Rebecca Miller's new Mr. Scorsese, he turns that focus and knowledge on his own work, with Miller providing visual aids to underscore his points.

Take, for example, one of Scorsese's most famous films, Taxi Driver.

Robert De Niro plays New York City cab driver Travis Bickle, who is rejected by some elements of the city and repulsed by others.

Scorsese explains to Miller how he set out to emphasize Travis's sense of alienation visually by subtly but intentionally selecting how he presented De Niro's character on screen.

We're given lots of other insights about Taxi Driver, and not just from Scorsese.

Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster talk about how their improv sessions during rehearsals defined their characters and led to some of the movie's most indelible scenes.

The film's screenwriter, Paul Schrader, talks about how both the director and the actors elevated what was written on the pages of his script.

And Schrader, when asked by Miller, also talks very chillingly about how the pent-up, potentially violent loner of Taxi Driver is a much more familiar character today in real life.

One of Scorsese's friends and fellow directors, Steven Spielberg, offers some taxi driver's insights, too.

He tells how Scorsese avoided an X rating for that movie, which the film board threatened to impose because of its bloody climax, by adjusting the color of the blood on the finished prints from bright red to a much more muted brown.

Scorsese learned that lesson well.

Later, for his brutal boxing epic Raging Bull, he drained the color of blood completely, shooting the entire film in black and white.

Most of Scorsese's films are dissected with this same loving detail, by those who know him and his movies best.

The people interviewed include not only De Niro, Foster, Schrader, and Spielberg, but actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, Margot Robbie, and Cate Blanchett, directors Spike Lee and Brian De Palma, and rock stars Mick Jagger and Robbie Robertson.

Then there are his other creative collaborators, such as Thelma Schoonmaker, and his grown children, his wife and ex-wives, and childhood friends.