A Cigarette in Every Scene
The Manic Life of Leonard Bernstein
Movie Review: Maestro, available on Netflix
In every scene and at every stage of his life, Bernstein has a cigarette in his mouth. Whether conducting, talking with his children, or lying in bed after sex, the ubiquitous cigarette is a prop that extends his already bigger-than-life personality.
Ordinarily, when I think of Leonard Bernstein, the musical West Side Story comes to mind. Particularly striking in the movie Maestro, is the realization that Leonard Bernstein accomplished so much more. A kind of renaissance man musician, he excelled in many areas. He was a well known composer and conductor. He was a pianist. He wrote symphonies, ballets, opera, and musical theatre. He was also a teacher, a role he relished.
Bernstein’s fame and influence spanned decades. As arguably the best known American composer and conductor, he brought classical and orchestral music to the otherwise unexposed masses. He also raised the bar in musical theatre, to where it had to be taken more seriously.
Maestro celebrates the vastness of Leonard Bernstein’s talent and depicts his vigorous life and career, his relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn (Carey Mulligan) threading it all together.
After opening with an older, grieving Bernstein sitting at a piano, the film cuts to a black and white past depicting young Bernstein leaping out of a bed occupied by another man, and sprinting seamlessly into a packed auditorium where, substituting for regular conductor Bruno Walter, he enthusiastically conducts the New York Philharmonic to euphoric applause. He is 25 years old.
The youthful Bernstein powers an atmosphere that whips up other young artists such as Aaron Copeland, who sit around half-dressed in robes or t-shirts, before slipping into martini-drinking high society parties of glittering arts patrons.
The characters move seamlessly from bedroom to concert hall to cocktail party, as if it’s all in one house. It’s like they move from stage to stage, with no separation between real life and performance.
It’s at a snooty party hosted by Lenny’s flamboyant sister Shirley Bernstein (wonderfully played by comic Sarah Silverman), that he meets Felicia, an almost equally fervent artistic personality well known for her own stage performances and later, television roles.
The pair easily befriends with witty banter and theatrical role playing. An unstoppable romance flares into a passionate marriage where they continue to breeze through a glamorous social whirlwind.
Early on, Felicia doesn’t seem to mind that Lenny is physically, almost sexually, demonstrative with male friends and strangers at parties in her presence.
His long-time intermittent lover David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), a musician colleague, is equally nonplussed when he sees Lenny and Felicia together.
An older admirer echoes a common refrain that Bernstein could be, “the first great American conductor.” The comment is followed by general agreement that to be accepted in the mainstream, he should change his name from the Jewish sounding Bernstein to Burns, and foster a slightly calmer public image.
Bernstein ignores this advice and in fact, popularity unaffected by his Jewishness, he’s equally unconcerned by rather open bisexuality.
The epitome of glamour, their fast-paced dialog sparkles. Lenny’s native New York accent contrasts beautifully with Felisha’s high class, slightly European speaking which cloaks every word in extra sophistication.
Throughout the movie, in every scene and at every stage of his life, Bernstein has a cigarette in his mouth. Whether conducting, talking with his children, or lying in bed after sex, the ubiquitous cigarette is a prop that extends his already bigger-than-life personality.
The story is divided into black and white and color, reinforcing the contrast between youthful abandon and the adult trappings of success and unhappiness.
Lenny’s open bisexuality is fascinating. In one scene he tells a small child that, “I’ve slept with both your parents.”
Lenny is clearly bipolar, or in the parlance of the time, manic-depressive. In many scenes, he is hyperactive and doesn’t stop talking. He shows no restraint when hitting on younger men. But in a quieter scene, he sadly confides to Felicia, “I’m sad, darling, and I don’t know why … Sometimes I can’t seem to find myself.”
Felicia, meanwhile, shoulders the responsibilities of home and children, though intentionally not by compromising her own successful career. As she tells a friend, she’s happy to be a a wife and mother, but “completely without sacrifice. If one gets sacrificed, then they completely disappear.”
Sarah Silverman, as Lenny’s sister, is enthralling as a society hostess manipulating social strings. Her affectations as a pretentious, high class matron are delightful and I’ll bet she had a lot of fun spouting quips such as, “He’s not long for this marriage and I think he’s your type which is the same as mine. Unavailable.”
As portrayed, Leonard Bernstein loves deeply: his wife, his friends, his children. But it’s conducting that most exhilarates him, his primary source of life and energy.
I really like this movie. It made me like Leonard Bernstein as a person as well as an artist, flawed though he may be, and even though there’s no mention of West Side Story.
This review also appears in Movie Buff, a column for Circling, the Jonathan’s Circle newsletter (subscription only, no link).
