{"id":2729,"date":"2024-02-10T18:11:39","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T02:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/?p=2729"},"modified":"2024-02-12T17:53:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T01:53:25","slug":"some-thoughts-on-bradley-coopers-maestro-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2024\/02\/some-thoughts-on-bradley-coopers-maestro-movie.html","title":{"rendered":"Some Thoughts on Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a trap to review the movie a filmmaker didn\u2019t make. A difficult temptation as it turns out with Bradley Cooper\u2019s Maestro,<\/em> the director\/writer\/actor\u2019s passion project about Leonard Bernstein. Maestro<\/em> isn\u2019t really a movie about <\/em>Leonard Bernstein or his career, or even about music per se. It\u2019s not really a \u201cbiopic,\u201d in the traditional Hollywood sense of the word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the absence of all this, Cooper has explained it\u2019s really the story of a marriage between Lenny (as everyone called him), and Felicia Montealegre, the Broadway and TV actress, who were married from 1951 until her death from cancer in 1978.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernstein, of course, was the first American-born music director of the New York Philharmonic, the composer of West Side Story,<\/em> the glamorous and charismatic music educator who captured the public imagination, and a high priest of the arts in the 50s and 60s when it seemed like the arts might aspirationally matter to the American public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even calling the movie \u201cMaestro\u201d is a bit of a head fake. The word \u201cmaestro,\u201d once an honorific for conductors signifying their exalted status, has somewhat fallen into disuse in the classical music world. As the \u201clone genius\u201d notion fades and the authoritarian style of the classic maestri goes out of fashion, the word is a lingering artifact of an art form that\u2019s moving on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Bernstein certainly fit the image of maestro in the popular imagination and was unquestionably the most famous American conductor of his day, he was oddly something of an artifact himself. Despite the early fame \u2013 that last-minute substitution conducting the Phil that made him famous, and later writing the score for West Side Story<\/em>, an unqualified Broadway hit — he grew to resent the West Side Story<\/em> success \u2013 it followed him everywhere, eclipsing the more serious work he wanted to be known for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he wrote a catalogue full of serious music, it never achieved the success of his Broadway work. He had been sure he would be the next Copland, the American Brahms; he feared he would be \u201cmerely\u201d a Gershwin. While a celebrity conductor in America and in Europe, he was never music director of another major orchestra after the Phil, and maintained a busy guest-conducting schedule while being a strong political activist for causes he believed in \u2013 civil rights, nuclear disarmament, and AIDs research, among many more (an activist side of his life not mentioned in Maestro<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maestro<\/em> pays little more than lip service to Lenny\u2019s extravagant career \u2013 the music and a parade of leading artists of the day make appearances as useful props, or maybe more like furniture needed to fill out the room. Figures like the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, show up for half a second or so, often unreferenced by name, and their relationship to Bernstein largely unexplained. Betty Comden and Adoph Green perform at a random party, Copland and Jerome Robbins hang out in the background. And so on. More perplexingly, young \u201cTom,\u201d a Lenny prot\u00e9g\u00e9 shows up halfway through the film, an awkward and unexplained presence. Unexplained we get, and suggestive he is, but there\u2019s nothing here to further explain Lenny\u2019s enduring interest in having him around. Just another piece of furniture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scenes themselves are less events joined together into a story as they are wispy fragments woven into suggestive subtexts. The subtext is so diffuse however, that on some level, Cooper had to know he had a problem with finding a line through it all. At a couple of points in the film, everything halts while someone lists off Bernstein\u2019s accomplishments to date, updating the resume as it were so the upcoming bits make sense. The first time, Felicia does it after the couple has just met; Cooper\u2019s Bernstein listens as if she\u2019s talking about a stranger, waving her off as if indifferent to the successes. Later, an interviewer updates the career as Bernstein looks on, similarly detached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maestro<\/em> is clearly a labor of love for Cooper, and he has spent years on it, taking conducting lessons and being coached by Yannick Nezet-Seguin, music director of the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Cooper wrote and directed as well as acted, and he nails Bernstein\u2019s essence, with the ever-present dangling cigarette and the endlessly solipsistic musings. The Curtis Institute has an online archive of interview recordings<\/strong><\/a> with both Lenny and Felicia and you can hear the uncanny resemblance in the speech patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooper\u2019s neon portrayal of Bernstein is manically intense, and he affects a kind of demonic sneer at times (usually when engaging in making music) that suggests he\u2019s communing with a greater force. His turn in front of the orchestra at a famous Ely Cathedral performance of Mahler is the only extended time we see\/hear him in front of an orchestra, and it is so deliciously over the top it\u2019s something of a caricature of the famously emotive maestro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, in a scene right at the end of the movie where he\u2019s working with a student who\u2019s emotively trying to direct an orchestra and can\u2019t get the result he\u2019s after, Bernstein deftly steps in front of the orchestra, underplays his gestures and nails the result on the first try. It explains so much about Bernstein\u2019s approach \u2013 he was a kinetically flamboyant conductor, but in service to the performance he wanted to produce, even if it only took the smallest arm wave. This was controversial at the time — Bernstein’s gyrations were off-putting to traditionalists who thought them theatrical and self-indulgent. Of course, admiration turns to horror in the very next scene when Bernstein is shown making sexual moves on the young student to whom he had just given such an invaluable lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If reviewing the movie the filmmaker didn\u2019t make is a trap, and if the maestro of the title isn\u2019t Bernstein-the-conductor, surely it\u2019s Bernstein-the-husband, and Maestro<\/em>-the-marriage. And here, Cooper has cast the formidable Carey Mulligan as the self-assured Felicia. The two become immediate and enthusiastic soulmates, sitting back-to-back in the park, their intellectual bantering as meandering as the clouds in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lenny and Felicia connect at such a rare and deeply intellectual, aesthetic and abstract level that their connection endures even when Felicia finally protests her husband\u2019s extra-marital predilections. Family life is shown as a rich and stimulating foreground to Lenny\u2019s and Felicia\u2019s \u2013 herself a successful and accomplished actress — careers, a portrayal clearly taken from oldest Bernstein daughter Jamie\u2019s memoir Famous Father Girl<\/a><\/em> about her dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Felicia finally rebels against Lenny after stumbling upon another of his many affairs, it\u2019s more as an objection to a choice he\u2019s made (and which she innately understands) rather than an anguished cry of betrayal. She is well aware of the demons driving his sexuality and regrets his giving in to them. Still, she can\u2019t quite condemn his bad character. The most horrible thing she can think to say to him is that he\u2019s at war with music, repealing their oft-repeated declaration that everything is about<\/em> the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later she attends the famous Mahler cathedral performance and, overcome as he exits the stage, apologizes for saying something so fundamentally mean. At the end, when she is diagnosed with cancer he is there for her because of course he is; their bond is elemental, and as she battles her cancer, they return to the park, sitting on the grass back-to-back engaging in the same flights of intellectual fancy that began their relationship. Full circle. Recapitulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In journalism there\u2019s a designation for stories that are worthy and important and take resources to report \u2013 the Pulitzer Story. They are written to win prizes, and they\u2019re easy to spot. Maestro <\/em>is a deliberately arty movie. The first half is filmed in black and white; transitioning to color seems like such an obvious arty clich\u00e9 it cries Oscar nominee. Cooper is extraordinary as Lenny, Mulligan easily his match, and they have great chemistry. But neither has won in their categories in the early awards shows. As Maestro<\/em> hasn\u2019t for Best Picture. I\u2019m betting the Oscars are also a pass in a few weeks despite this project having all the classic winning ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a fascinating story to be told about Leonard Bernstein and his struggles with greatness, his deeply-conflicted identity, and an almost singular place in 20th<\/sup> Century cultural life. Alas, while Cooper\u2019s Lenny and Mulligan\u2019s Felicia are a worthy match, Maestro<\/em> probably isn\u2019t that story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maestro isn\u2019t really a movie about Leonard Bernstein or his career, or even about music per se. It\u2019s not really a \u201cbiopic,\u201d in the traditional Hollywood sense of the word.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/netflix-maestro.webp?fit=999%2C563&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-I1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2006\/12\/john_standing_ovations.html","url_meta":{"origin":2729,"position":0},"title":"John: standing ovations","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"December 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"By John Rockwell Doug: The issue of audience sophistication and naivety is bound up with the democratization of the arts. 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