NYFF 2023: ‘Maestro’ is a masterful exploration of Leonard Bernstein
In a strikingly ambitious work, Bradley Cooper embodies the great American composer, in a film that very much transcends its multiple pre-release controversies.
Back in June of 2022, right around the time the first images were released of Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in the movie Maestro, I wrote an op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer in which I argued that the time to judge such a film was once it was actually completed, rather than when the first images were released from the set of a project which, for all intents and purposes, did not exist yet. Similar controversies were raised each of the times, throughout this year, that teasers and trailers were released for the film.
Having now seen Maestro, at its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival, I can say the time for judgment has arrived: The movie is quite great.
Bradley Cooper, in his second time out as director, has made a meticulous biopic of the master composer, paying impeccable attention to detail when it comes to everything from clothes to the designs of rooms to the actual composing and conducting. It’s an absolutely beautiful motion picture — using black and white photography early on and adding color gradually — well-shot, written, and acted.
The film, co-written by Cooper and his fellow suburban Philly native Josh Singer, follows Bernstein’s career over the course of about five decades. We see the musical highlights, but the primary focus is on the composer’s complicated marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan.) Bernstein, throughout, had numerous affairs with men, with his wife’s knowledge though not quite her approval, yet the two for the most part stayed together and had three children.
Bernstein’s children are completely on board with the project and have participated in its promotion, including defending Cooper and the film throughout various controversies. The eclectic group of producers, meanwhile, includes both Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.
Leonard Bernstein is introduced in nothing less than a brilliant tableau- we see him sleeping in front of what very much looks like the stage of a concert hall, until his phone rings and we realize it’s the curtains on his apartment window.
We’re shown some of the key moments of his career, from his composing of “MASS” to his conducting of Mahler at Ely Cathedral, in which Cooper did his own conducting of the musicians (Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra and several other top institutions, was the film’s conducting consultant.) The film is by no means exhaustive, leaving out most of West Side Story as well as the Tom Wolfe/Radical Chic affair, but it also comes in at just over two hours.)
But more than that, the film is about Bernstein’s relationships with his family, including when his children (with Maya Hawke as his oldest daughter, Jamie) start to suspect the truth of his double life.
(There seems to be some question over whether the screenplay should be considered original, or an adaptation of daughter Jamie Bernstein’s memoir Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein, something I expect to be adjudicated prior to awards season.)
The premiere was held last week at David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, a complex abutted on one side by Leonard Bernstein Place, and also where Bernstein conducted in residence for many years. Due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, Cooper was not permitted to appear on stage or promote the film, although he was, we were told, given permission from the union to be in the audience to watch the film.
It was the first film shown following the installation of top-of-the-line Dolby Vision and Atmos systems in the theater, and while I realize most people who watch it will be doing so through Netflix, I would recommend viewing Maestro on the best setup you have available (and not, for instance, on your phone.)
So, about those controversies: I’m long on the record as believing that acting is acting and that a religious test should not be placed on movie casting. The test should not be “Is this actor playing a Jewish role Jewish?,” it should be “Is this actor believable in the role?”
That is a test that Cooper absolutely passes. He believably embodies Bernstein’s look and voice, playing the part when Bernstein was at an age where he was much younger than Cooper’s 48 years, as well as much older. As for the infamous nose, I stopped noticing it after about five minutes. Having seen plenty of pictures and footage of Leonard Bernstein in the run-up to watching the film, it’s just what the man looked like.
It’s also worth noting that Sarah Silverman, one of the loudest voices against such casting, and even the person who coined the term “Jewface,” is herself in the movie, as Bernstein’s sister.
The same, by the way, extends to the casting of Felicia: The real Felicia Montealegre was born in Costa Rica, to a Jewish American father and Costa Rican mother, and spent much of her youth in Chile. By the casting standards some would like to implement, should Felicia have only been played by an actress of that exact ethnic makeup? Is there even such an actress?
And not that the Oscars are the be-all and end-all of everything, but Cooper may very well go up for Best Actor against Cillian Murphy from Oppenheimer, another non-Jewish performer playing a Jewish role. And just as the inter-Jewish relations between the real-life figures were a key part of Oppenheimer, Maestro does nothing to soft-pedal Bernstein’s Jewishness. In one scene, he rejects out of hand the suggestion that he change his last name. In another, he’s shown wearing a sweatshirt that says “Harvard,” in Hebrew letters. Either way, I couldn’t imagine any fair person watching either film concluding that while the performance was strong, that doesn’t matter because the actor was the wrong religion for the part.
Speaking of Awards, a perception was created, especially at the time of his A Star is Born film, that Bradley Cooper is excessively thirsty to win an Oscar, something he has not yet done. I don’t necessarily believe this is such a bad thing, but at the same time, Cooper has given a major acting showcase to Mulligan, his co-star. She not only gets more memorable monologues than he does but is given a protracted death sequence, while Cooper is not.
Maestro will play the Philadelphia Film Festival as a Centerpiece in late October, lands in theaters on November 22, and then on Netflix on December 20. This one film in which, believe it or not, I’m looking forward to the discussions and discourse, which are bound to be more illuminating than the ones 18 months before the movie was released.