This sublime performance convinces Montealegre of her love for her husband, strained as it has become over the decades by silent mistrust and vituperative arguments. It is a shot-for-shot remake of footage of the real-life concert, but that doesn’t make it any less exhilarating to see Cooper embody the conductor in his athletic performance, sweat plastering his graying hair to his forehead as he leads the chorus in singing about the triumph of life over death. The film’s showpiece comes as Bernstein leads the London Symphony Orchestra in the finale of Mahler’s “Symphony No. Later, a brilliant shot by cinematographer Matthew Libatique shows Montealegre standing backstage as Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic, his batoned silhouette looking over her shadowed figure in a dazzling spectacle of lighting. Reality dissolves into art, and when Montealegre and Bernstein’s relationship is inserted into the narrative of “Fancy Free”-Jerome Robbins’s ballet, for which Bernstein wrote the score-it becomes the vehicle through which Montealegre is confronted with the difficult reality that she will always have to compete with men for her husband’s affections. Similar to “Amadeus,” a film about Mozart, Bernstein’s compositions and conducting are woven into the texture of the story. The film’s best scenes are, fittingly, those centered on his music-making. His music allows Bernstein to communicate the nuances of himself that regular speech sometimes can’t-and likewise allows his wife to understand him. The best scenes in "Maestro" are, fittingly, those centered on Leonard Bernstein's music-making. In the film, Bernstein laments how the music he has written for the stage (which would go on to include “West Side Story” and the operetta adaptation of Voltaire’s Candide) was, to him, unserious Montealegre counters that his primary goal should be to compose. Things get more complicated as Bernstein’s and Montealegre’s three children come of age, and Bernstein must decide between telling them the truth about his sexuality or maintaining appearances for the sake of family harmony.Īll the while, Bernstein attempts to redefine himself away from his primary identity as a composer to focus instead on his career as a conductor. (“Bisexual” might be a more accurate term to understand Bernstein’s sexuality, but that is not settled.) Montealegre accepts this about her husband, whom she calls “Lenny,” and allows him to have liaisons with men, as long as he keeps it discreet.īut over the ensuing decades, it becomes harder for Montealegre to be at peace with this tenuous arrangement, as Bernstein becomes less reserved about his dealings with men. At the relationship’s core is the acknowledgment that Bernstein is a homosexual. “Maestro,” written by Cooper and Josh Singer, charts Bernstein’s and Montealegre’s marriage from their first introduction in 1946 to Montealegre’s death in 1978. In the case of Leonard Bernstein, more visibly than any other classical musician of the 20th century, the art was inseparable from the artist. It paints this portrait through the lens of his marriage to Montealegre-a marriage made particularly complicated by the fact that Leonard Bernstein was gay.Ĭooper shrewdly recognizes that this seeming mismatch of husband and wife will inevitably hover over any discussion of the composer’s career. In the case of Leonard Bernstein, more visibly than any other classical musician of the 20th century, the art was inseparable from the artist.īeyond the lifelike recreations of Bernstein and his family and friends, the film offers a portrait of a soul struggling to navigate the world of classical music. But throughout the film, viewers can be excused for lapsing in their suspension of disbelief: Cooper and Carey Mulligan (who plays Bernstein’s wife, Felicia Montealegre) so completely embody their roles that it’s easy to forget that this is a dramatic performance, not actual footage of the couple. True, there are some elements of a million-dollar game of dress-up. It is easy to deride them as yet another symptom of Hollywood’s current lack of imagination and its greediness for existing intellectual property.īut “Maestro”-the new motion picture about Leonard Bernstein, directed by and starring Bradley Cooper-transcends these baser tendencies. In one sense, they are contests to see which production company can hire the best makeup and costume artists, and-if you’re lucky-actors who can perform good enough voice impressions of historical figures.
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