"Maestro"
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The WSJ review: https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/film/maestro-review-bradley-cooper-leonard-bernstein-biopic-carey-mulligan-netflix-e82b1c0c?mod=e2tw
Bradley Cooper Conducts a Biopic
The actor stars in and directs a Netflix film about Leonard Bernstein that makes high drama out of the legendary musician’s complicated personal life but fails to illuminate his artistry.
In part that’s a matter of necessity: As with any creative genius, the ingredient that is most important (thinking) can’t be rendered on screen. Nobody wants to see a movie about a man sitting at a desk writing. Moreover, as depicted by writer-director-producer-star Bradley Cooper in an engaging re-creation, Bernstein had a trait that the film makes into highly cinematic drama: He was promiscuously bisexual. As the story begins, the young Lenny is leaping out of a bed he shares with another man, racing out of the room and into Carnegie Hall. It is Nov. 14, 1943. Without rehearsing, and with only a few hours’ notice, Bernstein has been selected to fill in for Bruno Walter as conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Such was Bernstein’s triumph on that day that he would be famous for the rest of his life.
“Maestro,” roughly half of which is shot in gorgeous, Expressionistic black-and-white (courtesy of the cinematographer Matthew Libatique), in its early scenes captures the ecstasy of being a young genius on the rise in midcentury New York, setting Bernstein’s fast-talking, charm-bombing ebullience against his romantic (some might say overwrought) musical compositions to recapture the can-do spirit of postwar America. He meets and woos an aristocratic young actress, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), who, like everyone else, finds the musician captivating. The monochrome photography accompanies a splashy stretch of Golden Age Hollywood fantasy in which, for instance, the couple magically breeze into a private performance of the ballet that would become “On the Town,” for which Bernstein composed the music, even joining the dance themselves. When an al fresco luncheon strikes the pair as boring, they simply run away. As for Bernstein’s affairs with men, Felicia shrugs at them. “I know exactly who you are,” she says. She suggests giving marriage a shot.
After the film switches to color about halfway through, the mood alters. As we advance deep into the ’60s and ’70s, the sleek suits and elegant dresses of midcentury disappear, to be replaced by lumpy turtlenecks, garish colors, and misadventures in hairstyling. It’s an ugly era, and though the Bernsteins are awash in wealth, living in massive Manhattan apartments and a sprawling Connecticut estate, the toxic element of their relationship can no longer be contained. One especially dismal moment encapsulates Bernstein’s dissipation: He snorts cocaine off a silver platter with great boredom, then without even getting out of his chair hands the platter up to some friends so they can partake. Someone’s nasal drip falls on him as he does so. After raising their three children, Felicia feels increasingly humiliated by his affairs with men. When rumors reach the kids, she directs him not to tell them the truth. There is a cancer within their marriage that eventually becomes literal.
If Ms. Mulligan has ever been less than brilliant, I’ve missed that performance, and she plays Felicia’s journey from exuberant flirtation to hollow alienation with heart-wrenching poise. She never seems to be showing off or overplaying the despondency, which makes it that much more effective. However, her growing disenchantment is contagious. As Bernstein wears out his welcome with her, “Maestro” does the same with the audience; aspects that are initially attractive (such as Mr. Cooper’s habit of ordering his actors to talk over one another) grow exhausting. Bernstein’s tobacco addiction is played up to such an unintentionally ludicrous degree that hardly 60 seconds of the film go by without him taking a puff (he even keeps a cigarette in his hand during a five-way hug late in the film; has this man never used an ashtray?). And though Mr. Cooper has evidently put a lot of work into capturing Bernstein’s vocal patterns, his mimicry eventually becomes overbearing. If an actor is working so hard that all the audience can focus on is the work, rather than the character, it’s self-defeating.
The major failing of “Maestro” is that it takes very little interest in Bernstein’s artistry. As the movie gets stuck in endless scenes of marital discontent, we get almost nothing on the art of conducting or composition. The creation of “West Side Story,” perhaps Bernstein’s most famous work, is skipped and we don’t really get to know any of his famous collaborators. Moreover, the dialogue (Mr. Cooper’s co-writer is Josh Singer, who won an Oscar for “Spotlight”) is aggressively banal. Not infrequently, the film features two people rushing through meaningless hunks of verbiage at the same time. In other words, it’s noise, and noise is the last word that should fix itself in your mind when watching a film about Leonard Bernstein.
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My teacher knew him and liked him a lot. I think, we who grew up in the 60s, were fortunate to have known him as a living being. It was a good time to be interested in classical music with some so many interesting characters - Bernstein being one of them. Stravinsky and Copland still were with us. Gould and Rubinstein were living artists. Not to say that now is bad as we have access to so many recorded performances - many for free. I treasure some of the performances of Bernstein as he championed American composers while educating the public on musical matters. There are some works that I learned through Bernstein and those performances remain my favorites.
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I grew up with my mother always playing opera on Sunday afternoons (that might be a reason I'm not fond of opera...). However, that was "music" in my house. It was the "meal," and anything else was either an appetizer or dessert - not the actual substance.
"Young Peoples' Concerts" were a staple as well. He made "classical" music not only accessible, he made it fun and understandable,
(geezer hat on)
Remember when A&E stood for "Arts and Entertainment?"
(geezer hat off)
Were we unusual in that we took an interest in this stuff, relative to our peers? We knew all the music because of Looney Tunes and the Lone Ranger. Do today's youths (I can't believe I just typed that) have any such interest in exposure? Of my 4 kids, only one does. If I say "Brahms" to the other 3, they look at me, smile, and are thinking "That's nice Dad. Let's get you to your room now."
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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I grew up with my mother always playing opera on Sunday afternoons (that might be a reason I'm not fond of opera...). However, that was "music" in my house. It was the "meal," and anything else was either an appetizer or dessert - not the actual substance.
"Young Peoples' Concerts" were a staple as well. He made "classical" music not only accessible, he made it fun and understandable,
(geezer hat on)
Remember when A&E stood for "Arts and Entertainment?"
(geezer hat off)
Were we unusual in that we took an interest in this stuff, relative to our peers? We knew all the music because of Looney Tunes and the Lone Ranger. Do today's youths (I can't believe I just typed that) have any such interest in exposure? Of my 4 kids, only one does. If I say "Brahms" to the other 3, they look at me, smile, and are thinking "That's nice Dad. Let's get you to your room now."
Were we unusual in that we took an interest in this stuff, relative to our peers? We knew all the music because of Looney Tunes and the Lone Ranger. Do today's youths (I can't believe I just typed that) have any such interest in exposure? Of my 4 kids, only one does. If I say "Brahms" to the other 3, they look at me, smile, and are thinking "That's nice Dad. Let's get you to your room now."
Hardly anybody I know in Real Life has any interest in "serious" music (which I consider jazz to be part of). My Russian friend listens to classical music, but that's it, partly because that's who he is, and also because his wife teaches piano. Pretty much everybody else seems to think Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are classical. The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
I was only joking
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The only thing constant is change. I wonder how many of the great composers, if they were born in todays world, would be creating the same type of music? Or would they be pop artists? Hip hop? rap?
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Were we unusual in that we took an interest in this stuff, relative to our peers? We knew all the music because of Looney Tunes and the Lone Ranger. Do today's youths (I can't believe I just typed that) have any such interest in exposure? Of my 4 kids, only one does. If I say "Brahms" to the other 3, they look at me, smile, and are thinking "That's nice Dad. Let's get you to your room now."
Hardly anybody I know in Real Life has any interest in "serious" music (which I consider jazz to be part of). My Russian friend listens to classical music, but that's it, partly because that's who he is, and also because his wife teaches piano. Pretty much everybody else seems to think Led Zeppelin and the Beatles are classical. The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
@Doctor-Phibes said in "Maestro":
The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
I see your Beethoven and Michael Brecker and raise with reading Auden on my lunch break.
Please love yourself.
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@Doctor-Phibes said in "Maestro":
The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
I see your Beethoven and Michael Brecker and raise with reading Auden on my lunch break.
@Aqua-Letifer said in "Maestro":
@Doctor-Phibes said in "Maestro":
The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
I see your Beethoven and Michael Brecker and raise with reading Auden on my lunch break.
Yeah, but you are a weirdo
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@Aqua-Letifer said in "Maestro":
@Doctor-Phibes said in "Maestro":
The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
I see your Beethoven and Michael Brecker and raise with reading Auden on my lunch break.
Yeah, but you are a weirdo
@Doctor-Phibes said in "Maestro":
@Aqua-Letifer said in "Maestro":
@Doctor-Phibes said in "Maestro":
The fact that I listen to Beethoven and Michael Brecker pretty much singles me out as a weirdo.
I see your Beethoven and Michael Brecker and raise with reading Auden on my lunch break.
Yeah, but you are a weirdo
Fair.
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Watched it on Netflix.
It was ... okay.
Cooper was great, the directing was great, the acting was great, the costumes and music were great.
But the story...
So much time spent on his relationships and not enough (as the WSJ review says) on his career. We don't know where he came from, how his ascendency to a world-class conductor happened, and his growth as a conductor and composer.
It was good, it wasn't great, much to my disappointment.
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Do be honest it was never on my watch list. Now there is no chance it will ever be on my watch list.
Will watch Napoleon though if and when the director’s cut and/or long version is ever released on BR. Never in a cinema mind you.
Elbows up!
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It was okay - a pleasant, mostly, way to spend a couple of hours.
Favorite scene was the ballet from "On the Town."
Least favorite scene(s)
- Lenny snorting coke off a platter
- Sweaty Lenny dancing in a homoerotic way with a conducting student.
2 ½ stars. Maybe three, just for Carrie Mulligan's and COoper's performance.
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Loved Hersey Felder's one man play - also titled Maestro from about a decade or so ago. Felder can play the piano (gorgeously) and did a wonderful retrospective of Bernstein's life.
