Maestro

 

Bradley Cooper's Maestro is a marvel not just because of the extraordinary work of the film's two leads -- Cooper as Leonard Bernstein and Carey Mulligan as his wife / muse Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein -- but the astuteness of Cooper's cinematic vision and the smartness of his approach.

In some ways -- perhaps its main way -- Maestro is a subversive love story in the age of MAGA revisionism. Bernstein, who was bisexual, is depicted as loving Felicia deeply but always continuing his intimate relationships with men (Matt Bomer, then Gideon Glick).

Felicia, an insightful woman who nonetheless lacks personal emotional awareness, tells Leonard during their courtship that she knows the kind of the man he is and is willing to "give it a whirl." She asks only that he be discreet, no doubt anticipating the hay the press would make of such a discovery. It seems apparent that those in Bernstein's circle are aware of his sexual proclivities, none more than his sister Shirley (Sarah Silverman), who warns Felicia about life in Lenny's "orbit."

Leonard and Felicia marry and have children and Bernstein builds his legendary reputation as a brilliant conductor/composer/teacher, principally in New York City but eventually all over the world via television broadcasts and tours. (On a personal note, Bernstein was among my first music teachers through his engaging Young People's Concerts of the '60s.) Felicia becomes a renowned stage actress and manages the Bernstein household and her husband's complicated life but grows increasingly unhappy about his indulgences. It's in this growth that Mulligan does her most remarkable work, simply captivating with pain and understanding.

It is in the interactions between the Bernsteins that Cooper and Mulligan (a celebrated actress seen most recently in a small part in Saltburn but nominated for her lead work in Promising Young Woman) offer a masterclass in focus and shared space. Their chemistry is phenomenal; the characters love and lash out at each other with alternating tenderness and anger, which makes their last screen appearance all the more heartbreaking.

As a visual artist, Cooper seems at the top of his game; the opening section of the film, when a 26-year-old Bernstein gets a morning call he'll be conducting the New York Philharmonic that afternoon, is stunning, as the camera tracks along with Bernstein, breaking through walls and ceilings as he bursts into the balcony at Carnegie Hall. It's a thrilling opening that sets the bar amazingly high for the rest of the film.

Cooper doesn't disappoint, as the picture is loaded with such cinematic moments -- the staging of the sailors' dance from Fancy Free early in the picture and the extended scene of his conducting Verdi's Requiem in London near the film's conclusion are simply wonderful. Throughout, Cooper wears prosthetic features that bring him within a hair's breadth of the real Bernstein. (Some have taken issue with Cooper's choice but I feel the effect is brilliant; I guess that's an individual call.)

Cooper shoots most of the film in black and white, reflecting the memory aspect of the tale, and the more contemporary parts -- primarily the opening and closing -- in color. Like the use of the facial prosthetics, the choice of black and white stock is artistic privilege that I think in this instance might also suggest those passages have the qualities of memory -- selective and romantic, comforting and bruising.

I think that pretty much describes all of Maestro, too -- a tough but riveting, loving tribute to a legend.