MAESTRO

"So I had no choice but to become a composite of adopted speech, manner and outlook on life, a composite, which enables me to be many things at once. And that's why, we, you and I, are able to endure and survive, because the world wants us to be only one thing, and I find that deplorable." - Leonard Bernstein

R.E.M. 's ‘It’s The End of the World As We Know It’ blares through car speakers in high school parking lots and travels miles during amphitheater shows. Nonsensical lyrics with a list of unconnected names leave the tongues of young concert goers, with one in particular coincidentally yelled slightly louder than the rest; Leonard Bernstein. A composer, pianist and music educator, he is considered one of the most important conductors of his generation. Bradley Cooper, utilizing his directorial debut while also starring as Bernstein himself, created a film around the orchestral pillar so that modern generations never forget the man who carved the American conducting name into international opera halls. Maestro follows the life of Leonard Bernstein in a more myopic sense, focusing less on his achievements in music and more on the one personal relationship he held dearest; his wife, Felicia Montealegre Bernstein. 

Modern biopics saturate the industry with derivative, regurgitated promenades of a well decorated life. The curse of this genre presents itself as a soulless, episodic recital that provides a rehashing of trauma and google-able historical dates while making no effort to connect with the audience. Maestro rages against the proverbial grain and takes notes from Pablo Larrain’s Spencer by sharpening the narrative’s scope to one aspect of Bernstein’s life. Timelines are inevitable, a narrower focus of events sacrifices important accomplishments and defining moments in the name of exploration and true understanding. Cooper anchors the film around a feature of the composer's life that allows room for him to operate freely. The allowance of smaller narrative spaces gives characters room to breathe and react in ways far more revealing to their nature than a whirlwind of bullet pointed lifetime achievements and scandals. 

Lenny’s marriage to Felicia (Carey Mulligan) was integral in his development as a person and as an artist. The film is as much an ode to him as it is to her, because as Cooper so beautifully translates, you can’t have one without the other. Dazzling cinematography and costume/set design unravel a life through love and connection, the artistry of the film running parallel with the artistry of the man highlighted within it. Black and white morphs to technicolor over the years as museum worthy screenshots dance across the screen and the film creates its own stream through time with era-accurate colorized filming. Rather than two separate entities that work well together, both script and cinematography go hand-in-hand producing a symbiotic, single-minded organism that aids and works solely with the other’s presence. Sometimes a beloved industry actor steps into the director’s chair with something to prove and an Oscars-bait offspring finds its way onto the operating table. However, it takes all of one frame to institute Maestro as a technical and visual steamroller and one conversation between Cooper and Mulligan to attach a bleeding heart to it.  

The film introduces Bernstein’s antics and lifestyle immediately. A neurotic, high-strung, charismatic gay man who composes music in his bathroom with the door open so that he never feels alone, weaves across the threshold like wind in a field and influences the people around him like blades of grass. His eccentricism and sexual tendencies are never shied away from as he attends dinner parties surrounded by friends and kisses former lovers and their wives in warm welcomes in the streets. Lenny was a force of intellectual magnitude and artistic valiance that started his career as a substitute for the New York Philharmonic. An early morning phone call and one sick mentor later and Lenny finds himself conducting for the first time, and without rehearsal he adds emphatically, at Carnegie Hall with a standing ovation. Small indications of his successes and milestones like this are peppered throughout the film, including award winning Broadway musicals and film scores. These achievements are not at the forefront of the narrative because his greatest accomplishment in life was not a symphony or musical or the numerous awards he could fill a room with, but rather, his marriage to Felicia. 

The black and white early years show an idyllic courtship through dance numbers and countryside giggles after Lenny and Felicia meet at a dinner party. Their banter about life and self-discovery bleeds into unequivocal comfort and a procession of introductions. Felicia introduces her world of acting as the two romantically recite a script by a single lamp on stage. Lenny introduces his stern family, a man with many unspoken pressures, as his father begs him to change his Jewish last name to a more palpable American one and urges him to leave behind his unserious musical works and embody a clean lifestyle. Upon Felicia’s request, Lenny introduces an old composed piece to her, representing an intimate unraveling of his inner self. The music rings out as he bares himself to her and his happiness dances across his face and the stage. She asks him, possibly for the first time ever, what does he want? These scenes flash by like memories in a dream because to them that’s exactly how they feel. 

Mulligan molds herself into an adoring wife and becomes the supportive second half of a musical genius. Her appreciation and fervor for her husband emanates in every broad smile and side-long glance in these early years of their relationship. But nothing compares to her verbal acceptance of Lenny in his entirety. A woman of her own talent, beautiful and well connected, chooses a man she knows plays for both teams, and asks him to navigate life with her anyway. This relationship, while pragmatic and based on mutual respect, might be the true definition of love. The allowance to flourish with sexuality and self, to see a man’s brilliance and love him despite the rest, including society’s opinion of it, is why this film’s entire run-time is devoted to her and their relationship. As children are born during these blissful moments in their first years of marriage, Felicia stands backstage watching Lenny conduct. His large shadow splays across the stage and fully engulfs her small, lit-up frame. Looking reverently at her husband, the camera shot could be a beautiful representation of her embracing a life consumed in his shadow. We quickly learn, unfortunately, that is a hard burden to bear. 

A quick transition launches us years into the future as saturated colors bloom across the screen. Immediately the splendor of their infectious love gets zapped away despite the rainbow hues. Felicia’s tautness and fatigue etch along her face and in her body language, reprimanding Lenny, a seemingly regular occurrence, for his sloppiness with younger men. Arguments ensue at dinner parties and in their home about the agreement, nay about Felicia’s admittance, for discretion in terms of Lenny’s sexual desires. But the starving wife of the greatest American conductor knew how much attention her transient husband could feed her and accepted no pity or assistance from anyone watching her wilt. Camera shots linger, drawing out scenes, creating space during arguments for words left unsaid and emotions to fill the silence. Felicia’s sacrifice for Lenny’s individuality fosters our deepest sympathies, and while we ache for her we somehow simultaneously defer none of the blame to her husband. Cooper hones in on intimate conversations and hovers on fading facial expressions to create a drama that exposes Lenny and Felicia’s true intentions and desires, rather than a shallow, popularized version of them. 

Maestro overcame the biopic curse not only because of Carey Mulligan’s performance, but mainly because of Bradley Cooper at the helm and as Leonard Bernstein. A man of ambition and uncorked magnetism commands the screen, disentangling his desires and unapologetic lifestyle due to the woman who gifted it to him. Cooper’s dedication to his craft presents itself during a six minute recreation of Bernstein conducting the Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral. In one unending shot, the camera glides over the orchestra and the audience, capturing the echoing boom and lingering brilliance of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony. Bernstein is captured drenched in sweat, making arching arm movements with closed eyes and a broad smile plastered on his face; this is happiness, this is what makes Leonard Bernstein tick. As the notes crescendo into the closing movement, as he loses himself in song and creation, the music crashes to an end and the camera silently snags on Felicia’s face. Wonder, awe, love, guilt, all smeared across her face, whispers of a life she would do over again a thousand times. Turning to face his audience as they stand in ovation, he stumbles over to his wife and crumbles into her arms. “There is no hate in your heart,” she whispers in his loving embrace. This legendary musical pioneer filled with summer and bursting with light bows to the woman who blessed him with the humanity to be unflinchingly authentic… and if that doesn't bring you to ugly tears, nothing will.