https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCD445Y0R_g#t=206
Cynthia Fuchs reviews a new HBO documentary on the subject:
He reads from his [artist] father’s journals, as these might provide some insight into his father’s personal and professional struggles, insights his father didn’t share when he was alive. “Maybe his sexuality,” De Niro, Jr. offers. “I don’t know where that stood at that point.,” a reticence that may have had to do with his father’s sense of “guilt.”
As difficult as the subject might have been for the father to discuss with his son, and as difficult as it may be for his son now to detail in public, the film maintains a sort of respectful distance, leaving most of the artist’s self-representation to his paintings, his enduring engagements with the world. However this “guilt” might be working, across time and sensibilities, the film offers occasions to ponder the complexities yourself. These moments are the movie’s most resonant and least simple, exemplified when a combination of De Niro, Jr. reading from the journals and Philip Glass’ piano score, accompanies examples of his father’s work, crucifixions and pink figures, women and men, seated and faceless.
If his father was proud of him, as the actor’s career took off, the two men also lived separate lives; De Niro, Jr. suspects his father felt some concern that it was the son making the name famous, not him.
Rich Juzwiak highlights some touching moments:
Perri Peltz and Geeta Grandbhir’s doc also featured excerpts from De Niro, Sr.’s journals, and this one linking his hopelessness as an artist and as a gay man in pre-Stonewall society was particularly poignant:
Being a painter is an affection like being a homosexual. One had to have the strength to continue working without the thought of recognition even before or after death, just as one had to have the strength to accept life alone without the thought of a romantic attachment.
In another, he wrote, “Will I be recognized in my lifetime?” His son sought to make that happen—the goal of this doc stated in its first moments is to give De Niro, Sr., his due. He died of prostate cancer in 1993 at the age of 71.
De Niro discussed the documentary with Jerry Portwood:
I think people may be curious because, in a way, you are coming out for your father. He may not have been hiding his lifestyle or who he was, but it’s not something that is common knowledge.
I felt I had to. I felt obligated. It was my responsibility to make a documentary about him. I was always planning on doing it, but never did. Then Jane Rosenthal, my partner at Tribeca [Enterprises], said, “We should start doing that now.” It was not intended to be on HBO. It was just something I wanted to do.
I had footage from a guy who used to follow my father around in the ’70s. We started with that. I bought it from him and gave the footage to Thelma Schoonmaker, who was Marty Scorsese’s editor. I asked her what she could do with it, and she assembled it and put it together — it was falling apart. Then we started the documentary [with director Perri Peltz], really working, using pieces that would make sense. My original idea was to do it for the kids, about my father — whatever it would be. I didn’t know how long it would be. The thing with HBO is, I felt they would be objective about certain things. I said, “Let’s see what we come up with.”
Is there a piece of your father’s that’s your favorite?
Oh, I have a lot. I have Venice by Night at my house. I love the ones at Locanda Verde, at the grill upstairs on the second floor. There are a lot of black-and-whites that are terrific. I like the delicacy of them, the refinement. They have a certain kind of clarity. They’re really great.
The Dish 
