'Martha': Martha Stewart's insider trading scandal was 'most challenging' for her to relive for documentary

Described as a "perfectionist," "powerful" and the "original influencer," in R.J. Cutler's Netflix documentary Martha, Martha Stewart finally tells her life story, from childhood to her arrest and present day ventures, in her own words. As someone who grew up in a household where she wasn't encouraged to talk about her feelings, it's the candid nature of Cutler's film, from Stewart herself, text from letters and diary entries she wrote, and comments from the people closest to her that draws the audience in.

"The most human thing is a need to have your story told," Cutler told Yahoo Canada. "It's no secret that we're all here for a blip, and the life we choose to live and the way we choose to live it, and the things that happen to us are all unique to who we are, and are the stories of our lives. And the telling of that story, it's a deep, personal thing."

"When I met Martha, it was clear to me that she was feeling the need and feeling that the time was now. She's not somebody who likes to reflect. She's announced that she's going to write her autobiography about 18 times in the last 18 years, but ... she's very honest in the film. ... She told me that she went to therapy once in her life, 10 minutes into the session she got up to walk out of the door and on her way out she said, 'Don't send me the bill.' That's Martha Stewart. So I recognized in her not only an extraordinary opportunity to tell her story and to tell a story about American womanhood, but that the moment was right and all of that led us to where we are."

'I'm more interested in the person'

Cutler is balancing several different elements in Martha. We start with getting a strong grasp of the star's upbringing, leading to how she became the first American female billionaire operating in the male-dominated and oftentimes sexist world of business. But viewers will come into this film seeking details about Stewart's 2004 trial and arrest, linked to the ImClone insider trading scandal.

In terms of approaching the balance for Martha, knowing that there is a moment in her life that's of particular interest to many viewers, Cutler said it was "exploration" and "trial and error," but revealed there was a point where the film wasn't a chronological portrait of her life.

"We edited for a year and a half, there was a point when the movie began with the trial," Cutler said. "I'm more interested in the person."

"I found myself more interested in the little girl who's in love with her father, ... she knows she's his favourite, ... she marvels at the things he teaches her about gardening, because she's Martha Stewart. But she also lives in a home where that same father can't keep a job, where he's drinking wine and his coffee for breakfast, where he's beating her brothers for weeding the tomatoes improperly, and all of that is also Martha Stewart. And that is the handle. I wanted you as the viewer to have that as you went on the journey. There's a complexity there and there's a direct line between that complexity and all of the triumph, but all of the tribulation."

'Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on high'

In a moment of particular honesty, Stewart talks about being unfaithful to her ex-husband, Andrew Stewart, including the reveal that she kissed another man on the couple's honeymoon in Italy. Stewart says in the film that it was just an "emotional" moment, taking in the beauty of the duomo in Florence. She also talks about her feelings about her husband having affairs.

"He’s the one who wanted the divorce, not I. He was throwing me away," Stewart says in Martha. "I was 40 years old. I was gorgeous. I was a desirous woman. But he was treating me like a castaway."

"He treated me really badly and in return, I guess I treated him badly. ... And I thought monogamy was admirable."

As we see in a letter she wrote to her husband while on a plane, she stated, "I hope you are enjoying your freedom and I hope my plane crashes."

But Cutler highlighted that the aspect of her life that was the most difficult for Stewart to relive was her arrest. Stewart maintains that she was a "trophy" for the U.S. attorney's office, arresting the first female American billionaire. Stewart was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators. Her securities fraud charge was dismissed.

"Those prosecutors should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on high," Stewart says in Martha.

Martha also reveals a series of diary entries from Stewart in prison, documenting what the conditions were like, including being strip searched entering the prison.

"As a viewer you experience the rawness, and it's still very raw," Cutler said. "Martha likes to say that was just a thing that happened once, but her description of her relationship to what happened and her actual relationship to what happened are two completely different things."

"I interviewed her multiple times over Zoom, but then on-camera for five days, and the day we discussed the trial and the investigation, and her time in prison, was certainly the most challenging for her."

Aside from the revealing details we get about Stewart's life, there's an interesting evaluation of her as a person, her character and how she treated others. As is stressed in Martha, Stewart was maligned publicly for being a perfectionist, but her methods wouldn't have been interpreted the same way if she was a man.

However, that certainly doesn't mean that everyone had nice thing to say about her. From friends to coworkers and family members, they were all quite honest about their opinions of Martha, calling her "a shark" and "ruthless," and someone who would "shake people down."

"I don't believe you leave a relationship, whether it's a personal one or a professional one with Martha Stewart, without a strong opinion," Cutler said.

"I found, in speaking to 100 people about her, that was the case. A couple of people to the point where they were not comfortable talking on the record, but a lot of people were eager to speak their mind. ... This is a movie about an unreliable narrator. It's a story told by an unreliable narrator in the great literary tradition, and then there are others who also have their point of view. So it's delicious. This is the fun of this, of the telling of this story."