Movies…with a little bit of obscure culture and sports mixed in
Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) is one of most famous composers and musicians to ever live, and Maestro tells the story of Leonard through the lens of his marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan).
“This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.”
Director: Bradley Cooper
Writers: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan
Release Date: December 20, 2023
IMDB
Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) is one of most famous composers and musicians to ever live, and Maestro tells the story of Leonard through the lens of his marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan). Such a choice of lens allows the story by Cooper and Josh Singer to take a deep dive into the scarred psyche of a one-of-a-kind emotionally complicated artistic genius.
Maestro (2023) is a movie about love, but it is not necessarily lovely. Leonard is a man who colored outside the lines when it came to music and romance; he was groundbreaking when it came to music yet he was heartbreaking when it came to affection for others. The relationship between Leonard and Felecia is a unique one that’s hard to sparse out. Maestro makes no argument against the fact that Leonard didn’t treat Felecia as well as she deserved, yet the movie also makes the man an infectious, magnetic, gravitational talent.
A major reason Maestro works is because of the passion erupting from Bradley Cooper. Ironically, much of the discord around the movie comes at Cooper’s expense, saying he went and is going too hard promoting the performance. People are clinging to the argument that Maestro was made for Oscar bait, which, to be frank, is a silly argument to toss around.
Sure, Cooper would love awards for his work. Anyone would. Everyone who will be on the floor sitting at those golden encrusted tables at the Oscars will be wanting to win an award. Frankly, to make a crude comparison to current pop culture, Cooper’s passion towards Maestro can be seen as equivalent to Taylor Swift fans getting passionate about her relationship with Travis Kelce.
You have a lot of society that is angry that Kelce and Swift are being shipped so heavily. You have the football diehards angry their clean-cut league is being poisoned by someone outside their culture attending their games. Oh heavens, the gall for a person to attend major events of someone she cares about. How could she?!
I draw a scribbly line from that current culture event to certain areas of movie discord being upset that Cooper is caring so much about this project. They are getting tired of his stories of being a kid and practicing conducting.
I say fuck it, let them care. Let everyone care. Let people have passion for something and let them be excited about it. You can choose to look away or scroll past the PR campaign. Just let people care about what they want to care about.
Speaking for myself, the passion of Maestro is what makes it so intoxicating. Cooper is giving his all, and his Oscar-worthy moment comes when Leonard Bernstein is conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral.
It is the emotional climax of Maestro, and it is an emotional summit for Cooper. He tells the story in numerous interviews about how Leonard’s performance at Ely Cathedral was the basis for his performance as a conductor. He studied that scene like a madman and practiced it endlessly and it came down to one final take to get the version he wanted. It’s hard not to get swept up in that.
So while my tear ducts are getting damp writing about this seven minute scene, I learn that the orchestral piece Cooper is conducting is Mahler’s Symphony no 2, which is titled Resurrection. Knowing the title of the music, and adding that onto the emotional onslaught of Felicia being there for Leonard, and him running into her arms at its conclusion…well fuck guys. I am getting emotional here. I am a sappy sap.
While I am over here spewing my very personal and subjective thoughts on this word doc, I may as well state that the introductory shot of young Leonard Bernstein in the black & white color palette at the start of the film is the best visual shot of any movie I saw released in 2023. This one shot was enough to garner a cinematography nomination in my books, and thankfully the Academy agreed. It is a still shot that uses the frame like a stage, telling the audience something about the character and their mindscape through the simple yet all-important landscape the character is in.
The same touch with the camera is applied during one of the most important scenes of Maestro. Unlike the dramatic unveiling aforementioned, the Thanksgiving Day parade tirade between Felicia and Leonard takes place in a standard single wide shot. The scene has some of the harshest dialogue of the entire film; Feleicia is throwing verbal punches with a fervor that’s been pent up for longer than even she knows. The wide space of the room at first appears roomy yet by the end of the feud, the audience feels as if they just watched a trapped animal escape capture. It’s the first time that Leonard’s had his actions thrown directly in his face without a hint of acceptance. After years of selflessness, Felecia finally had to yank on the leash to keep her marriage from floating away.
Carey Mulligan has been nominated for talents in Maestro. She now has three Oscar nominations with An Education (2010) and Promising Young Woman (2021).
I had an interesting conversation with a friend about Maestro. I don’t know if he wants his name used because he is a respectable man who molds the minds of the youth, so we shall call him Bob.
Bob texted me about Maestro asking if I liked it, to which I replied that yes I very much did.
Bob was lukewarm on the movie, though he acknowledged that Carey Mulligan was great. Bob’s first hangup was that he didn’t like Leonard as a character and found him unlikeable. He followed up by saying that he was waiting for something to happen, perhaps something to Leonard, but he felt like nothing transpired.
Bob is not alone in his line of thinking. There is a strong discourse around the movie, most of which surrounds the felt over-earnestness on the part of Bradley Cooper. If I can speak for Bob, I don’t think he is surrounded by people complaining that Bradley Cooper is campaigning too hard for an Oscar.
While I really enjoy Maestro, it was nice to hear someone dislike the merits of the movie and not public relations.
Bob didn’t get emotional in the movie, meanwhile Bob’s wife and myself are weeping at Leonard conducting in Ely Cathedral. That is not the fault of Bob. Some people, like myself, cry more watching movies than real life.
The most interesting part about Bob’s take on Maestro was that he loved the musical components, but when it came to Leonard Bernstein the character, there was no redeemable personal traits. Bob cites, and not incorrectly, how Leonard lied to everyone and didn’t care who he hurt. I pointed out how Felicia knew the truth, to which Bob states he felt as if Leonard treated her like shit for the middle stretch, which is indeed a fair reading of the story.
I have a slightly different take where I don’t think Felicia’s ire towards Leonard in the middle portion came from his actions, but rather his lack of awareness of their impact. This is one of Leonard’s flaws without a doubt, and she shown a bright spotlight on it, but I didn’t read her anger toward their partnership as being rooted in his extracurricular activities.
Is that naive of me to think? Perhaps. But this is why movies are great, we can agree to disagree!
And the last bit of Bob’s lukewarm take on Maestro was that he found it creepy how old Leonard was teaching a young student to conduct and then going out and partying with him at the club. I didn’t read that as creepy, I read it as rather sad. Leonard has an incurable disease to be loved by everyone around him and that hunger puts him in awkward scenarios where sometimes finds himself isolated emotionally.
Bob, being a teacher, really disliked the power imbalance between a teacher and student, and how that definitely could be an “icky” (his word) feeling stemming from his occupation. Who am I to argue with that? It makes sense and the reading is true in his eyes, and hell it may be to Cooper and fellow screenwriter Josh Singer.
It was a lovely chat between Bob and I. It’s nice to disagree on a movie but see where the other point of view is coming from.
Ah, intellectual disagreements over movies. I am such a nerd.
Maestro is nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup & Hairstyling, Best Original Screenplay. Best Picture and Best Sound.
Cooper has now been nominated for 12 Oscars, all of which have come in the last decade. His run of critical praise began back in 2013 with his Best Actor nomination for Silver Linings Playbook (2013). After that he got nominated for American Hustle (2014) and American Sniper (2015). In 2019 Cooper garnered three nominations for A Star Is Born, and then had his name on the producers line for Joker (2020) and Nightmare Alley (2022). Cooper is nominated for three awards when it comes to Maestro.
Maestro is streaming on Netflix.
STANKO RATING: A
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