DAN WEBSTER (via phone):
Depending on how old you are, you’re likely to have a specific impression of who the American composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein actually was.
If you had been present in 1943 when he debuted at age 25 to rave reviews as a conductor for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, you might have thought of him solely as a skilled purveyor of classical music.
If you had watched the Omnibus series on television in the mid-1950s, you’d surely have seen him as a music educator, while if you’d attended the 1957 premiere of West Side Story, you might have considered him a popularizer of the Broadway musical.
And if you’d read Tom Wolfe’s 1970 essay Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s, you’d likely label him as another privileged artiste trendily associating with those spouting radically political ideas.
The thing is, all those aspects of Bernstein, each in its own time, are correct. And as Bradley Cooper’s movie Maestro—which opened last week at the Magic Lantern Theatre and which is now streaming on Netflix—shows, the man was much more as well.
Not that Maestro, which Cooper directed, co-wrote with Josh Singer, and stars in, is your typical bio-pic. Far from it. Yes, it captures much of Bernstein’s life, from that 1943 debut to just before his death in 1990. But the facts of Bernstein’s existence are far less important to Cooper and Singer than are the impressions that Bernstein left in his life’s wake.
And many of those impressions involve his near-three-decade marriage to the Costa Rica-born actress Felicia Montealegre (played by Carey Mulligan).
Maestro opens with a scene in which Bernstein—referred to throughout the film merely as “Lenny”—is seen lamenting the loss of Felicia. Only later do we see that his pining is being filmed as part of a TV interview. And just that quickly the point is made: Lenny has feelings, but they’re most important—maybe only real—to him when aired for others to witness.
This need of Lenny’s for attention is a theme that Cooper returns to again and again. From the moment that he first meets Felicia, Lenny is smitten. As is she. And why not? Though he seems always to be sucking on a cigarette, something that would be a factor in the real-life Bernstein’s death at the relatively early age of 72, Cooper’s Lenny is a quick-talking, thoroughly engaging character—full of himself, ambitious and always wanting more.
Snappy dialogue, along with some black-and-white cinematography, marks the first full half or more of Maestro, giving it the feel of a 1940s-era comedy-drama. Cooper adds to the tone by blending realism with fantasy, his camera at one point capturing an overhead shot of Lenny and Felicia running breathlessly from one set into a dream-heavy sequence in which Lenny stars in a production of Jerome Robbins’ ballet Fancy Free, set to Lenny’s music.
More than a bit of the dialogue matches the film’s overall frenetic pace, with Cooper—almost unrecognizable behind a faux nose and other makeup—affecting Bernstein’s clipped manner of speech, making what he says sometimes hard to understand.
That is, it does until the film’s tone changes, as it seems Lenny and Felicia’s marriage did. Not just because of his ego—which would have been impetus enough—but more so because of his attraction to men… as well as his tendency to be loose with the truth. One of the film’s most affecting scenes is shot like a one-act play, sequenced in a single take, with Felicia finally telling Lenny that she’s had enough.
But had she? The film makes it clear early on that Felicia was no mere hanger-on, no mere witness to Lenny’s greatness, but a full partner in their progressively messy relationship. She helped ground him, not just during his triumphs but at his lowest points as well. And whatever successes he managed to achieve, he ultimately realized that without her he was something less.
In the end, it’s a valid to ask just who, after all, was the maestro of their marriage? Given how tightly intertwined they were, does it even matter?
For Spokane Public Radio, I’m Dan Webster.
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Movies 101 host Dan Webster is a senior film critic for Spokane Public Radio and a blogger for Spokesman.com/7blog.
