Maestro

It's an old (and unanswerable) question: to what extent is it possible - or desirable - to separate the art from the artist? Is it possible to appreciate the art simply as art, and not to delve into the (sometimes tawdry) details of the artist? Or are the art and the artist so inextricably entwined that you cannot understand the one without knowing the other?

I very much lean towards separation. I fell in love with Bernstein's music the first time I saw West Side Story mumble years ago at an impressionable age; which is why I was disappointed that there was so little West Side Story in this film. Surely a biopic of a composer should feature that composer's music pretty heavily?

Of course, we all know that beneath every great artist is a human being - usually with a collection of human flaws. But does this matter? Well, it matters here. What we mostly get is a film about Leonard the man, and his complicated marriage to Felicia Montealegre. Much of this was new to me. I knew that Bernstein was bisexual, but didn't care. I find that I also don't care about most of the other details of his life which were revealed to me - although if the film was truly about the man, not his music, his record as a human rights activist should probably have been at least touched on. But never mind that: I came for the music, and didn't get enough.

Not that this film is without merit. Bradley Cooper's performance is first class - there's one sequence in which he truly shows us the passion of a great conductor - and Carey Mulligan is as riveting as ever. Cinematography and sound are both excellent.

Overall, this is a good film, but ultimately a disappointing one.

Think of a biopic of a famous person as like a complex cake - you can carefully dissect one slice of it to examine the contents, or you can bravely try to examine the whole lot to see what it's made of.

This biopic of American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein is like looking at only the surface of the cake through a slice of Swiss cheese - a lot of loosely connected vignettes with no depth. If you don't know much about the man, you would leave the theatre with no great insights about him.

The film jumps around in time and gives you snippets of the man's life and work. There are scenes about his bisexuality and penchant for men, his role as a conductor and composer, his drug addictions and his relationship with his daughter, but none of these are examined in any depth at all. His bipolar relationship with his wife and her later death from cancer are given the most screen time, but still feels unfulfilled and lacking in substance.

Bradley Cooper directs in a rather disjointed style. The first half is shot in black and white, then we change to colour for no good reason except maybe historical chronology - it doesn't work. Neither does the curiously tight aspect ratio, which again inexplicably opens up to full screen near the end. Some scenes are beautifully shot but too often Cooper relies on the slow zoom in and the very long takes, which don't always seem to match the scene. The film also could have ended perfectly with the penultimate scene, but inexplicably ruins the moment with one extra shot that completely fails to land.

Carey Mulligan is excellent as Bernstein's wife but Cooper as Bernstein doesn't quite work for me. He tends to overact, gives you little insight into the man himself, and the nasal voice starts to grate after a while - maybe it was inevitable with the prosthetic nose he was required to wear.

Even the grand concert scene in the cathedral, conducting his beloved Mahler, didn't quite generate the depth of feeling it could have - contrast this with the Tchaikovsky concert scene in the French-Russian film Le Concert, which takes emotion (actors and viewers) to a much higher level.

All in all this is not a bad movie, and to be fair it does engage the viewer a little more in the second half. But it tackles too many themes with a disturbing superficiality, giving very little substance to almost any. It could have been a lot better. No doubt however it will get lots of Oscar nominations, but then the Academy lost the plot years ago and succumbs to hype more than merit.

The acting is superb and particularly Carey Mulligan who is astonishing, as usual, and Bradley Cooper's transformation is incredible. The look and feel throughout is very polished. But, and this isn't a minor quibble -- I found it really hard to understand the dialogue! Characters speak so quickly, in a mumble, that I actually considered putting on subtitles. Anyway, it wouldn't have made a difference, I thought the movie was so empty and plotless and uninteresting. There was really no tension in the wife's dealing with her husband's bisexuality, no real exploration or understanding of Bernstein's conflicts, and no delving into his achievements or their context, so there wasn't much left!

Maestro (2023) seems a very flimsy "biography" of Leonard Bernstein. We learn just about nothing of his life. Music. Wife. Boys on the side. Other than that?

The film stars Bradley Cooper and a fake nose. He (Cooper, not the nose) also co-wrote, directed, and produced and is being hailed for his work and artistic ambition. Coincidentally, I'm reading Barbra Streisand's new 970-page memoir and in her section on Yentl, she recalls the reviews that lambasted her colossal ego to star in a film she also co-wrote, directed, and produced.

Anyway, I found Cooper's performance to be hysterically hammy (yes, I know Bernstein was flamboyant) and Mulligan's wife just plain annoying. Such self-centered people who were always "on." They were exhausting to watch ... but that's the whole film. There's no background material, Just them swanning about like characters out of Auntie Mame screaming "I was never in the chorus!"

This will likely reap a slew of Oscar nominations and Cooper will probably beat of DiCaprio and Cillian Murphy for best actor. Wry. Hold the ham!

I was very excited when I heard Maestro was coming out. With all this filmmaking firepower, it would have to be worthy of its subject. Now I've seen the movie and am stunned by the wasted talent and energy expended for what turned into another movie about rich, talented people who appear to have it all, but get sad and emotional just like the rest of us. They just talk about it a LOT more.

The film is beautifully photographed, but I have no idea what the format change and the black and white to color change accomplished. The acting was good, but rather than being shown that the characters are going through something emotional, we are told, All these immensely talented people seem to talk about is their feelings, not their motivations, plans and aspirations.

Leonard Bernstein wrote and conducted some of the most memorable music of the 20th century. He singlehandedly (with help from Bugs Bunny) kept interest in classical music alive when jazz and rock were kings. But we learn nothing of this in this film. Bernstein's talents and accomplishments are presented as facts, without exploration. What a waste.