Maestro (2023)
What’s the point of making movies about famous historical figures if you’re not going to focus on the reason we care about them in the first place? Maestro continues an unfortunate trend in Hollywood of biopics and historical films concentrating on the personal relationships of their subjects at the expense of anything else. The same problem marred Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, which gave inordinate attention to the relationship between Napoleon and Joséphine. But Maestro, about the relationship between composer Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), takes that approach to an extreme. The film is so focused on the romance and marriage between these two individuals, and Bernstein’s sexuality in particular, that it virtually forgets their artistic achievements or any other aspects of their lives.
It’s a sad missed opportunity, because there’s much to admire about Maestro. Cooper, who directed the film and co-wrote the script with Josh Singer, has created a technically impressive film, which covers Bernstein’s life from 1943 to the late 1980s. The tone and cinematography parallel filmmaking styles throughout this period, as James Berardinelli describes in his review:
The early portions of Maestro, which focus on the 1940s and early 1950s, are represented in black & white with the “Academy” 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Actors are filmed with the gauzy, glamorous look of the time — Carry Mulligan’s first appearance is that of a movie star. By the late 1960s and 1970s, Cooper opts for the American indie style, keeping the 1.33:1 aspect ratio while trading in the b&w for color. When the timeline gets into the ’80s, the picture expands to widescreen. It’s an evocative and mostly effective way to move the story across the 45-year span it encompasses.
The lead performances by Cooper and Mulligan are excellent. Cooper clearly put in a lot of work to be able to perform Bernstein’s music and other compositions on piano. The scene in which Bernstein conducts Gustav Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony at Ely Cathedral in England captures the excitement of classical music performance at its best, with Cooper channeling Bernstein’s physically expressive conducting style. Mulligan embodies a glamorous actress of the postwar period complete with mid-Atlantic accent, then brings powerful emotion to scenes of marital strife and Felicia’s battle with a serious illness. The two actors have decent chemistry.
But what does all this filmmaking craft and strong acting mean if the central narrative isn’t compelling, and if we don’t care about these characters? Maestro fixates so much on the relationship between Bernstein and Felicia, and Bernstein’s identity as a gay or bisexual man, that it forgets to show us why Bernstein was such a significant figure in 20th century music. Take away a few scenes of Bernstein conducting or composing music at the piano, a dance sequence for his musical On the Town, and a single scene of Felicia onstage during a play, and the movie is almost entirely about their relationship. Cooper subjects us to scene after scene after scene of people smoking and making small talk at parties. It’s tiresome and dull.
Even more egregious than what the film devotes most of its running time to is what it leaves out. The Wikipedia entries for Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre include a lengthy list of professional accomplishments — the former as a musician, the latter as an actor on stage and screen — that this film largely ignores. In many cases, it commits the cardinal sin of telling us information rather than showing us. One scene depicts the Bernsteins sitting down for a TV interview in which the host lists a long list of Leonard Bernstein’s musical accomplishments, including composing the score for On the Waterfront, the operetta Candide, and the music for the classic West Side Story. That’s all very interesting — much more interesting than endless scenes of people smoking and talking. Why didn’t Cooper focus more on Bernstein’s artistry rather than his personal life?
Maestro completely ignores another major aspect of the Bernsteins’ life together: their commitment to social and political activism. Both were highly active in the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. Leonard Bernstein’s support for left-wing causes led the FBI to monitor his activities “for his ties to communist organizations” and maintain a file on Bernstein more than 800 pages long, which the composer was able to see in the 1980s through a Freedom of Information Act request. Bernstein was an active supporter of nuclear disarmament and raised money for HIV/AIDS research and awareness. So important was social activism to the lives of this couple that Bernstein created a pioneering Amnesty International fund in honour of his wife to support human rights campaigns. By not even mentioning any of these activities, Cooper presents a distorted image of who these individuals were.
If Cooper wanted to devote so much of his film’s running time to parties, he could have included the 1970 fundraiser Montealegre hosted at the Bernsteins’ home to raise money for families of the Panther 21, members of the Black Panther Party jailed for nine months on trumped-up charges of planning coordinated bombing and rifle attacks on police stations. The trial eventually collapsed and all charged were acquitted after suspect Ralph White, actually an undercover agent, admitted under oath that he and two other agents had organized most of the illegal activities. Writer Tom Wolfe penned an article on the Bernsteins’ fundraiser for New York magazine, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s”, which coined the term “radical chic”. Montealegre was so angered by such responses to the fundraiser — and justifiably so — that she wrote a letter to The New York Times saying: “The frivolous way in which it was reported as a ‘fashionable’ event is … offensive to all people who are committed to humanitarian principles of justice.” By depicting the Bernsteins as “frivolous” and “fashionable” partygoers unconcerned with larger social and political issues, Cooper insults them the same way Wolfe did.
On the subject of social activism, it’s noteworthy that Sarah Silverman has a supporting role in the film as Bernstein’s sister Shirley, who again does little more than smoke and gossip at parties . Silverman recently made public comments supporting Israel’s genocidal policies against the people of Gaza. In an Instagram post, Silverman backed Israel cutting off Gaza’s water and electricity supply. A backlash followed and Silverman claimed she was “stoned” when she made the post. Nevertheless, Silverman suffered no adverse professional consequences of any note — unlike actors such as Melissa Barrera and Susan Sarandon who made public statements in solidarity with Palestine. Silverman’s presence in Maestro is another example of how this film fails to reflect the solidarity with the oppressed that was such a major part of who the Bernsteins were.
To the degree that Maestro manages to holds the audience’s attention, it’s through the performances, cinematography, and music. But the film’s technical strengths can’t compensate for the fact that it is fundamentally misguided in its approach to the lives of its two lead characters. The film is so disinterested in Bernstein’s musical achievements, it becomes a chore to watch, undermining even the focus on Bernstein’s relationships and sexual identity that is Cooper’s main concern. That Maestro has been so critically acclaimed, being named one of the top 10 films of 2023 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute, only reflects the obsession of liberal critics with identity politics. Cooper should have just made a film about a fictional couple loosely based on the Bernsteins. Considering the film he actually made, it wouldn’t have made much difference.
4/10
