内容摘要：Steve Martin has never been one to follow any sort of playbook. It is fitting the first official doc

Steve Martin has never been one to follow any sort of playbook. It is fitting the first official documentary about his life is similarly unconventional: A freewheeling story told in two parts, one part focused on “Then” and one part focused on “Now” (kind of) with both parts debuting on Apple TV+ on Friday. Both documentarian and subject are trying, the best they can, to make sense of whatever “Steve Martin” is.

Directed by self-proclaimed superfan Morgan Neville (the Oscar-winner who has told the story of Fred Rogers and Anthony Bourdain), “STEVE! (martin)” never commits to one form. Like its subject, it allows itself to be a little looser, utilizing every technique available to help paint a truer picture of Martin, a man so enigmatic that his close friends don’t even seem to have a handle on him. He’d hardly be the first performer to save it all for the stage: Martin says that it was somewhat comforting to be able to put on a persona during shows. He was also able to continually reinvent himself. Who else could have walked away from stand-up just as they’d reached rock star status?