Leonard “Lenny” Bernstein (1918-1990) was memorialized with “Maestro”. The conductor and composer, including the musical “West Side Story”, is accompanied in the film (in selected cinemas since December 6th, worldwide on Netflix from December 20th) at various stages in his career. But above all, his relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (1922-1978) takes center stage; the classic biopic becomes a homage to a special love story.
Bernstein is portrayed by Bradley Cooper (48), who after “A Star Is Born” (2018) not only set the pace in front of the camera, but also directed behind the camera as a director and one of the producers and wrote the script with Josh Singer . Steven Spielberg (77), who handed over the direction to Cooper due to too many other projects, and Martin Scorsese (81) were also on the producing team. And to complete the line-up of big names, Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan (38) plays Bernstein’s wife.
Cooper worked on “Maestro” and his transformation into a music legend for six years. He also exchanged ideas with Bernstein’s children, who provided him with their father’s catalog of compositions and their home in Connecticut as a filming location. So the conditions for a successful performance were created, but can Cooper also deliver?
A great moment in the conductor’s life is placed at the beginning of the film: a coincidence led to Leonard Bernstein filling in for a colleague at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1943, stepping on stage and being able to demonstrate his talent as a conductor.
It was the beginning of a great career; Bernstein later became the first US music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1958-1969) and appeared as a guest conductor. The work of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) attracted particular attention and admiration. But he doesn’t just want to conduct, he also wants to compose. Stage works such as “On the Town” (1944) or “West Side Story” (1957) were huge successes. The term maestro not only stands for a great musician or composer, but can also mean master or teacher, which is fair to Bernstein, as he also passed on his skills as a lecturer.
However, it is not primarily the major breakthroughs in his career, but his relationship with the Chilean stage and television actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre that are examined in the film over the course of the film and over the decades. It quickly becomes clear: It’s not just the passion for music that makes the conductor and composer busy and restless. He also seems to enjoy his freedom in his love life and wants to distribute his great love of humanity to different people. Even when Felicia comes into his life, he doesn’t want to concentrate on his family. His wife realizes that she can’t stop him and accepts his homoerotic excuses from their marriage – on one condition.
In order to allow the decades in the couple’s life to pass in the picture, the film begins in black and white. The scenes about Bernstein’s first successes and the story of how the couple got to know each other become a pale memory and initially create a certain distance between the viewer and the characters. Only the change to color allows you to get closer to the characters and their intense relationship.
The visual changes that Cooper and Mulligan experience in their roles are also crucial for experiencing the different time periods in front of and on the screen. Using various prostheses, they skillfully adapt to the advanced age of their characters, so that Cooper in particular, as the aging Bernstein, increasingly disappears behind his role.
Bernstein’s daughter Nina Bernstein Simmons confirmed in an interview that the physical transformation was achieved in an authentic way: “I can remember a day when I got a FaceTime call from a number I didn’t recognize. I accepted the call and it was my dad. It was Bradley after the make-up and the styling and I couldn’t stop laughing. It was totally crazy. I saw him with a cigarette and glasses and it was all just really weird.”
Cooper, who also relied on a not uncontroversial nose prosthesis (“Jewfacing” accusation) and changing his voice in order to look as similar to Bernstein as possible, also strived for authenticity in the representation of the musician’s work. With full, sweaty physical effort and expressive facial expressions, he skilfully devoted himself to Bernstein’s typically wild style of conducting, which is particularly evident in the strong performance of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony in Ely Cathedral. The fact that Cooper had the works composed and conducted by Bernstein as a basis for scenes and as film music is a decisive factor in the film’s expressiveness.
Carey Mulligan’s acting is also expressive, as she is not at all overshadowed by Cooper. The actress, artist and activist Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein portrays her as a strong woman who feels a deep love for her husband and appears dissatisfied and hurt despite the apparent acceptance of his love affairs. In the end, she provides the most touching scenes in the film, which show her vulnerable soul particularly clearly.
The fact that the Bernstein marriage is the focus of the film means that deeper engagement with the composer’s work, such as the work on his musicals, falls by the wayside. His fluid sexuality is also discussed, but with few details or explicit scenes. In return, Carey Mulligan rightly gets more screen time and provides the emotional highlights in the film.
“Maestro” certainly doesn’t answer all questions and doesn’t show every facet of Bernstein’s life and his complex personality. However, the film sparks interest in him and his diverse art, especially among viewers who were previously less familiar with his works. In the vastness of the Internet, it is worth taking a look at old recordings, for example of Bernstein’s performance as the conductor of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony, which revive the film scenes and show how authentic Cooper’s performance really is.
