The past couple of years have seen new documentaries about Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase, and Steve Martin. Which left only one member of the Three Amigos! yet revealed in full, until now. Heralded filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan, who directed Short in the 1987 rom-com Cross My Heart, was the one to get Short to sit down and stay still long enough for us to look back in awe and wonder at Short’s manic, joyful, and incredibly funny career that has spanned five decades and still counting!

MARTY, LIFE IS SHORT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist:  Martin Short would deserve his own documentary even if all of his amigos hadn’t already undergone the process themselves.

As his current and longtime comedy partner Steve Martin says of him in a scene before the opening title appears: “I’ll tell you something about Marty. Let’s say you’re gonna host a dinner party. And you invite Marty. And then it turns out Marty can’t come. You cancel the party.”

The director, Lawrence Kasden, has access to reams of footage, not just behind the scenes on Short’s various TV and film projects, but also so many home movies shot and narrated over the years by Marty.

We see that Marty, the youngest of five children growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, with a mom who was a professional singer and a dad who was a tough hard-working Irish immigrant. Marty was performing to anyone who’d listen as a kid, but he also dealt with tragedy young; only 12 when his oldest brother died in a car accident; 18 when his mom died from cancer; and 20 when his father died. By that time, however, he’d already met the first of many friends to change his life, as a classmate at McMaster University with Eugene Levy. Levy helped talk Short into taking a year off from school to pursue an acting career.

“There was no expectation to be a star,” he recalls.

And yet. He landed a part in the now famous Toronto rendition of Godspell (subject of another new documentary), where he not only co-starred with Levy, but also Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, Dave Thomas, Victor Garber and more. Paul Shaffer did the music. And he’d fall in love with and marry Radner’s understudy, Nancy Dolman. While most of his friends joined the inaugural cast of Second City Toronto, Short resisted improv/sketch comedy, trying to be a more serious actor and singer. He eventually relented, joining the fabled comedy troupe, and later, SCTV. He broke through even bigger in the singular 10th season of Saturday Night Live, with star-making turns as eccentrics such as Ed Grimley and Nathan Thurm. We learn how he originated those and other characters, with a sort of “you just have to trust me” approach committing to big bold takes. Many years later, he’d spin off another success with the buffoonish entertainment reporter, Jiminy Glick. “If you don’t have the confidence to go up there and fail then you can’t do it,” Marty tells us, backed by testimonials from Levy, Martin, and John Mulaney (who cast Marty in his own short-lived sitcom, Mulaney).

We see how he has also remained besties with all of his SCTV cast mates, with Steve Martin and Lorne Michaels since Three Amigos!, and how almost everyone who worked with Short in some capacity got pulled into his offstage orbit, too, with their families invited over to Short’s house to hang with his family. In some cases, the comedy family was actual family. Andrea Martin married Marty’s brother-in-law, Bob Dolman. And Marty’s older brother, Michael, wrote on SCTV and has written/produced on many projects with Marty and the SCTV alums.

Much of the filmography portion of this documentary jumps from the early 1990s to Only Murders in The Building. Part of that just saves time. Partly Marty tells us that he failed a lot more than he succeeded. But even in the clips shown from Innerspace, Cross My Heart, Captain Ron, Father of the Bride, Clifford, his Tony-winning stints on Broadway, or even his multiple appearances with David Letterman in late-night TV, we’re treated time and again with evidence of his effervescence.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? While the comparisons to Steve Martin’s documentary may seem obvious, there’s not a straight chronological take happening here, and all of Marty’s home movies add to the sincerity of the project. It actually makes even more sense that Marty was essential to getting Steve Martin’s documentary made.

Performance Worth Watching: As much as this is all about Marty, it’s almost as much a loving showcase to the talent of his late wife, Nancy Dolman, and the love they shared for four decades.

Slightly more surprising? Being reminded that Short’s siblings are pretty darn funny, too. This might be the most exposure in front of the camera that his older brother, Michael Short, has received, and he has three Emmy Awards to his own credit (two for writing on SCTV, and another more recently as a co-executive producer on Schitt’s Creek).

But the most surprising highlight from all of the home movies comes the reveal that during one of Short’s many gatherings/playdates with his funny friends and their kids at his home, he got Steven Spielberg to film himself and Tom Hanks — in character as Ed Grimley and Forrest Gump, respectively — re-enacting the final scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in their swimwear on a boat. It’s symbolic of the improvised joy that Short could spread anywhere he went.

Our Take: What’s more important in a fulfilling creative life: Having fun making a movie? Or seeing it succeed at the box office? Marty would choose the former then and now.

The footage demonstrates it’s still driving him today. As Hanks says at one point, seeing Short tour with Martin as a comedy duo, or co-star in their Hulu series, isn’t even about money or fame or maintaining any sort of cultural relevance. Marty’s in it for the proverbial love of the game of comedy.

The circular time loopiness of the narrative symbolically makes sense, too. We keep coming back to Short’s childhood, or to nostalgic times when his kids were little and his wife was by his side until she died in 2010.

We learn from an old interview Short gave to Tom Snyder, talking about losing his brother and both his parents by the age of 20, that the documentary’s title is not meant simply as wordplay.“You actually have a choice. How do I handle this?” Short told Snyder on camera decades ago. “Do I collapse? Do I feel defeated forever? Or do I actually kind of learn that life is short, and have a glass of wine and laugh and fun, and appreciate these people, and never let them go? See that’s the thing, the great secret, if you never let them go from your life, then they’re always in your life. Because before you know it, you’ll be with them.” 

So the home movies keep the spirit of his wife, his parents, and Catherine O’Hara alive not just for him, but for us as well. There’s a poignant ending tribute card for both O’Hara and Short’s adopted daughter Katherine (who took her life earlier this year).

He more recently repeated his mantra to Kasden: “Like any family. It’s just a simple fact that loss is something to negotiate. It’s going to happen to all of us, and we must celebrate and continue that voice and never let it go.” 

What we also learn is that the people who enter Short’s life don’t want to let go of him, either. They want to play with him onscreen, onstage and in his home. Without him, life’s simply not as much fun.

Our Call: It’s always bittersweet when we get to learn how much we truly loved and needed someone in our culture only after they’re gone, which makes it all the sweeter for us to be able to know how much Marty has meant to so many, and to be able to toast him now while he can still feel all the love coming back from us. STREAM IT!

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.