[You might put Maestro high on your holiday viewing list. And you
might enjoy the film as a well-paced, sometimes heart-wrenching
portrait of a troubled marriage. But this writer found the film about
Leonard Bernstein to be deeply disappointing.]
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HOLLYWOOD’S MAESTRO DOES DISSERVICE TO A GREAT MUSICIAN AND
EDUCATOR  
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Karl Nerenberg
December 20, 2023
rabble.ca
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_ You might put Maestro high on your holiday viewing list. And you
might enjoy the film as a well-paced, sometimes heart-wrenching
portrait of a troubled marriage. But this writer found the film about
Leonard Bernstein to be deeply disappointing. _

Leonard Bernstein seated at piano, making annotations to musical
score, (Credit: Al Ravenna / Library of Congress)

 

It is the holiday season and folks might be looking for worthwhile,
recent movie releases. That’s one excuse for temporarily abandoning
my watch on politics.

Another is the excruciating nature of world news, these days,
especially from Gaza. 

Since October 7, I have written some words about the brutal war taking
place between Hamas and Israel, but not too many. 

The death toll in Gaza is so staggering that even countries such as
Canada, which normally take Israel’s side, cannot stomach it. Canada
has now, belatedly, joined almost the entire world in calling for a
ceasefire. 

Tragically, the current Middle East conflict does not appear about to
end anytime soon. I fear there will be more than a few occasions to do
more reporting on it in the New Year.

For now, I am inclined to take the advice of the philosopher Ludwig
Wittgenstein, who ended his _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus _with
the words: _“__Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man
schweigen__”_ – “Whereof one cannot speak, one must remain
silent.” 

Big budget, Oscar bait

And so, to the world of film. It is a world where there is lots of
action and emotion. But it would be unwise to confuse that world with
reality.

The motion picture in question, for today, is the much-ballyhooed
Hollywood blockbuster, _Maestro._

This big budget project, starring and directed by über A-lister
Bradley Cooper, purports to tell the story of composer, conductor and
music educator Leonard Bernstein. 

The internet giant Netflix produced_ Maestro_, but distributed it in
theatres before making it available online. The film has done well in
movie houses. It is Netflix’s most successful and profitable
theatrical release.

Hollywood insiders describe flashy productions that feature big,
bankable stars – such as_ Maestro – _as Oscar bait. And if
winning awards has been the producers’ goal, they’re scoring big
so far. 

The film has been nominated for about 60 awards, among them four
Golden Globes, including Best Dramatic Film. Success at the Golden
Globes often foreshadows wins at the Academy Awards, which will name
its nominees in 2024.

The critics have been similarly favourable to _Maestro._ Websites
that aggregate reviews give the picture_ _a better than 80 per cent
positive rating.

All that could motivate you to put _Maestro_ high on your holiday
viewing list. And you might enjoy the film as a well-paced, sometimes
heart-wrenching portrait of a troubled marriage between two talented
people, Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre.

In the latter role, the preternaturally talented British actress Carey
Mulligan steals every scene she’s in.

But notwithstanding Mulligan’s truly Oscar-worthy performance, this
writer found the film to be deeply disappointing.

Here’s why.

A childhood hero who made music exciting 

As a kid, not yet a teen, I watched a good many of Leonard
Bernstein’s live, black-and-white television shows with rapt
attention. 

The composer of _West Side Story_ and conductor of the New York
Philharmonic had a knack for explaining musical concepts in a way that
was not at all dry, complicated or technical, but never simplistic or
dumbed down.

In those TV shows, Bernstein mostly covers classical music – but not
exclusively. I remember well one show where he explains what makes
jazz tick, and another where he recounts the origins and history of
the Broadway musical.

The lessons I learned from those programs have stayed with me for more
than 60 years. 

In his show on jazz, Bernstein starts by saying he does not intend to
take the familiar historic approach. He will not repeat the cliché-ed
story of how jazz moved up the Mississippi from New Orleans to take on
the world.

Instead, Bernstein will “examine the musical innards of jazz, to
find out, once and for all, what sets it apart from all other
music”. 

Bernstein “loves jazz”, he says, because “it is an original kind
of emotional expression, never wholly sad or wholly happy.”

“Even the blues,” Bernstein tells us, “have a robustness and
hard-boiled quality that never lets it become sticky sentimental, no
matter how self-pitying the words.” 

About 25 minutes into that TV show, after explaining the blues scale,
musical colours, and other concepts, Bernstein gets to what he calls
the heart of jazz: improvisation.

Unexpectedly, but very much in character, he uses a well-loved piece
of _classical _music to demonstrate the idea: Mozart’s variations
on the simple tune “_Ah, vous dirai-Je Maman” _better known to
most of us as _“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”._

Bernstein wants to show what it means to take a tune and use it as the
basis for multiple, new, original tunes. Unlike Mozart, jazz musicians
create their solos – or, to put it differently, they compose their
new tunes – in real time, live.

On the TV show about Broadway musical theatre, the eminent conductor
explains how the modern musical evolved out of the vaudeville-era
variety show.

Originally, way back in the early 20th century, Bernstein tells us,
musicals had the flimsiest and silliest of plots, and their songs were
only loosely related, if at all, to the story lines. 

Then, in the 1940s, the Broadway musical became a lot more like grand
opera, with compelling stories, recurring music motifs, and songs that
advanced the plot and helped establish characters’ personalities. 

Bernstein cites such modern musical theatre examples as _The King and
I_, _Showboat_, and _South Pacific_ – shows that are frequently
revived to this day. He might have also cited his own contributions to
the genre: _On the Town_, _Candide_, and, most of all, _West Side
Story_. 

The persona the _real_ Leonard Bernstein projects in those long-ago
broadcasts is warm, generous, intelligent but not condescending,
erudite without being pedantic, and, above all, passionate about
music. And one meets very much the same person in Bernstein’s essays
and books. 

That person genuinely wants his audiences and readers to love,
appreciate, and understand music as deeply as he does. 

Reducing an artist to his flaws 

Bernstein’s knowledge and enthusiasm had a significant impact on a
very young me, as it did on many others.

But that inspiring persona is almost entirely absent from the Bradley
Cooper version of Bernstein we meet in _Maestro._

_Maestro’s_ Leonard Bernstein seems more caricature than
characterization. He is self-centred to the point of narcissism,
borderline cruel to those he claims to love, duplicitous,
self-pitying, and, overall, thoroughly unlikable.

Some mid-20th-century television personalities, most famously Edward
R. Morrow, heedlessly puffed away on cigarettes during their live
broadcasts. Bernstein did not. Yet, in_ Maestro _there is hardly a
scene in which Cooper’s Bernstein is not chain smoking to beat the
band.

Off camera, Bernstein was, yes, a person of his time, a time when
smoking was entirely de rigeur. I remember that time – I coughed and
wheezed through much of it. 

But to tell a compelling story, was it really necessary for the
filmmakers to rub our noses in Bernstein’s tobacco addiction, to the
point where some viewers might develop psychosomatic symptoms of
COPD? 

The omnipresent smoking was a distraction from the film’s action and
dialogue. As was the artistic choice to resort to a kind of faux
naturalism, whereby multiple characters frequently talk over each
other – to the point where it was impossible to hear what anyone was
saying.

Much of the film is dedicated to Bernstein’s promiscuous sex life
and the tragic impact it had on his marriage. At one point, Cooper’s
Bernstein goes so far as to say to a toddler in a stroller he meets in
Central Park: “I slept with both of your parents!”

Now, the fact is that there are many people out there with complicated
personal lives. And there are plenty, as well, who take advantage of
the trust and adoration of those close to them. 

Some of those folks are accountants or factory workers or plumbers or
bus drivers or nurses or shop clerks. Maybe, today, someone,
somewhere, is making a film about one of those folks.

However, Leonard Bernstein is not a good subject for a film because of
his many imperfections. 

What makes Bernstein worthy for portrayal on screen is his creative
genius as a conductor, composer, and public educator.

Precious little of those attributes makes it into this film, however,
and more’s the pity. 

Progressive politics and a fascination with Mahler

One had the right to expect that _Maestro’s_ screenwriters and
Cooper would have at least been interested in Lenny and Felicia’s
well-documented political radicalism. 

The couple famously held a fundraiser at their Upper West Side
apartment for the Black Panthers. Journalist and author Tom Wolfe
sarcastically coined the phrase “radical chic” to describe that
event.

But this film has no time for politics, just as it has very little
time for the amiable and friendly Bernstein who brought the complex
world of music alive for millions.

Toward the end of _Maestro, _the filmmakers partially redeem
themselves with a long scene in which Bernstein conducts the London
Symphony Orchestra performing a choral passage from Gustav Mahler’s
Second Symphony, _the Resurrection_.  

It was a beautiful six minutes. And six minutes of unedited classical
music is an eternity for a mainstream, commercial Hollywood
production. 

It has been reported that Cooper worked on learning Bernstein’s
mannerisms on the podium over a period of years. The film credits
Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin as a “conducting
consultant”.

The real Leonard Bernstein devoted much time and effort to the works
of the great romantic composer Mahler. 

Bernstein often said he felt a strong affinity with the composer of
the _Resurrection Symphony_. Perhaps that was because Mahler, too,
was a Jew. As well, like Bernstein, Mahler had been a conductor of the
New York Philharmonic (from 1909 to 1911).

You will not learn any of those facts from the film,
however. _Maestro_ expends no effort to help us understand its main
subject’s fascination with the composer of the music that serves as
its finale 

The screenwriters would have no doubt considered it uncool and
old-fashioned in the extreme to work such expository information into
their script. 

They were almost exclusively focused on over-the-top emotion and
sexual escapades.   If that approach to storytelling is your cup of
tea, you will love _Maestro_.

_Karl Nerenberg joined rabble in 2011 to cover Canadian politics. He
has worked as a journalist and filmmaker for many decades, including
two and a half decades at CBC/Radio-Canada. Among his career
highlights are stories on: civil war in Central America, the crisis in
South Africa’s Apartheid system, and the fight for Indigenous
self-government in Canada. _

_We are an award-winning, independent, community-driven media. Among
the first digital journalism organizations in Canada, and the first to
incorporate as non-profit, rabble.ca has been at the forefront of
reporting on national politics with a progressive lens that centres
issues of social movements, of labour, and of grassroots
activism.  _

_rabble.ca exists thanks to the support of individual and
organizational supporters. Our sustaining and supporting partners
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media. If independent media is important to you, please consider
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* Leonard Bernstein
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* Music
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* Jazz
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