Who Is the Real Martin Short?
2017 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Aleysa Young
Genres: biography, documentary
Tones: contemplative, humorous
A portrait of comedian Martin Short goes to the man himself to explore the person behind his public persona, tracing the inspirations for his favourite characters and his gift for observing and absorbing idiosyncrasies.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a doc about a famous comedian's personas—which sounds like the most obvious thing ever until you realize it's basically a hall of mirrors with no bottom. Young doesn't solve the puzzle, which is the whole point, and that refusal to land feels genuinely unsettling in a format designed to comfort.
A formally intelligent portrait that understands the tradition of celebrity documentary while interrogating it—the way Young lets Short himself become the unreliable narrator of his own mythology, using performance history as both evidence and red herring, positions this as essential work in the lineage of persona-studies.
The decision to let Short's own character work become the investigative method—rather than treating it as decoration around a biography—is what makes this breathe; it's a five-minute film that trusts the audience to read technique as substance.