At Home With Fran Lebowitz

Martin Scorsese’s conversational docuseries is a cranky, necessary love letter to New York.

- By Wendy Goodman

THE FIRST THING I asked Fran Lebowitz was, Could we meet at her apartment for this interview? Before I’d even finished the sentence, she said no. This was not surprising. Lebowitz has an apartment with enough room for her 12,000-book library and for which she paid, she will tell you, as she does in Martin Scorsese’s delightfully acerbic and wise documentary series Pretend It’s a City, approximately three times what she could actually afford. She says the real estate broker asked her if she needed space to throw parties, but her answer to the broker was the same one she gave me: She just doesn’t have people over. That’s not for her—never has been. So we talked on the phone, a landline with a 212 exchange, since she is a purposeful Luddite and doesn’t have a smartphone or computer. The title Pretend It’s a City references how much less authentic New York has become with people staring into their smartphones, among other sins. It was filmed in person before the pandemic. You watch it in bites over seven half-hour segments on Netflix, a bit like a passed tray of amuse-bouches. It’s a sequel of sorts to Scorsese’s 2010 documentary about Lebowitz, Public Speaking. She is invited everywhere, knows everyone, and always tells people just how she feels. Because she is so funny, she has always been able to get away with it. When I asked Scorsese why he did a second documentary on her, he answered in an email, “I always wanted to pick things up again with Fran, because she’s inexhaustible— her personality, her knowledge, her brilliance, most of all her humor. She makes me laugh. I think it’s healing. Laughter is healing. And we need that right now.”