In Netflix’s limited documentary series Pretend It’s a City, Martin Scorsese has no interest in adding any distorting elements in the way he presents his protagonist author, public speaker and personal friend Fran Lebowitz.

As a matter of fact, the legendary veteran director does everything in his power to let an unfiltered, highly concentrated but no less peripatetic and discursive Lebowitz speak her mind.

The documentary series takes its title from one of Lebowitz’s grievance-filled rants about her life-long stomping grounds, the city of New York.

Additional touches by Scorsese never aim to take centre stage. The director’s editing, camera work, cinematography, archival footage inserts, location picks and music choices sprinkle a hint of purpose and guidance, supporting Lebowitz’s words, framing her pontificating by adding context, while other times there are brief allusions to kindred spirits and old friends, people who Lebowitz touched on in either name or spirit.

There is a moment in episode two in which Lebowitz mentions 1970s band The New York Dolls and their song Jet Boy, which Scorsese adds to the moment through an old recording of the band singing it. With lyrics like “flyin around New York City so high” and “this is the kinda place where no one cares/what your livin’ for”, it’s a very apt and deliberate reference, especially in the context of Lebowitz talking about the city throughout most of the series.

However, it is in the more abstract and philosophical moments of Lebowitz’s scathing analysis in which Scorsese’s aesthetics and supporting touches come to the fore. In a wonderful segment in the episode appropriately titled Cultural Affairs, Lebowitz breaks down her approach to talent across the many mediums she considers art. Lebowitz says that talent is randomly distributed throughout the world, ‘sprinkled like dust’, not beholden to genetics, education or history.

Scorsese supplements this with footage from a live session of Marvin Gaye and his band perfecting their song I Want You. It almost feels as if you’re violating a sacrosanct moment in the creation process. Scorsese immediately follows this with an audio clip of Marvin Gaye speaking about art and what it means to him, not unlike Lebowitz does. Although the two greatly differ in tone and phrasing, they are both equally demanding of anyone who thinks of themselves fit enough to be called an artist.

“An artist, if he is truly an artist, is only interested in one thing, and that is to wake up the mind of men. To have mankind and womankind realise that there is something greater than what we see on the surface. So that is always reflected in a true artist’s music or his works, his paintings,” the late singer and songwriter serenely explains.

Scorsese himself acknowledges the limitations of producing and directing non-fiction projects, but accepts the challenge of still having to hammer out a narrative while putting the project together in the montage phase.

I had to find a new form of… you could call it a monologue or a sort of opinion piece. But it’s also something nonfiction you could shape in the editing,” said the director in an interview for Rolling Stone earlier this year.

“It’s still a movie, of course, but it’s like Fran is the narrator.”