Not-So-Masterful Maestro

Well, I was certainly hoping for better than that. We finally watched Bradley Cooper's much-celebrated Maestro on Netflix the other night, and let’s just say the schnoz was the least of the problems. Three stars, and it's only that high since Cooper did manage to bring forward some emotional resonance by the end of the film. Fundamentally, he bit off more than he could chew, and that led to the viewer being placed at a remove from what was happening and what was at stake for too much of the time. Specifically, this meant that both his musical self and gay self were glossed over and presented in semaphore, to say nothing of all the expository "conversation." We are meant to take it on faith that he was a brilliant musician and a person who lived a significant portion of his life outside the confines of his marriage. 

Cooper's argument, as well as that of the film's admirers, is that these were not the point of the film; the point was to examine his marriage. Which is why I think the movie should have been called The Understanding, and not Maestro. The truth is that you could have had the same movie without the male protagonist being famous or an historical figure at all. I guess they would have to be someone who inspires people to forgive and "look the other way," like a CEO or genius scientist or something, but it needn't have been Lenny. That said, in my view, what should have been done, was to have handled this as a five-part limited series. Let's look at what was sacrificed in terms of his music and his gay life by treating Bernstein in the ways that Cooper chose.

From the start, I knew something was amiss in regards to the music. First, to have his ascension to primary conductor presented as if it were a fantasy sequence was deeply disappointing. It was meant to be joyous but I felt nothing. No emotion or connection with him was earned there. Then when he took the podium to conduct for the first time I thought we might get a sense of how he came to succeed and see some play of emotions on his face as he realized that it was going well. But instead, suddenly the performance was over and everyone was applauding and his career as "Lenny" was launched. This, however, is where we should have gotten an extended conducting and performing sequence; not toward the end of the film as Cooper structured it. This way we could have experienced his passion for music and understood why he was so revered, instead of being told so. If we had a mini-series format, we could have had sequences and conversations that let his relationship to music blossom and our understanding of it deepen. I am sure that there are many who love Bernstein so much that they simply brought all their own passion to the film and were content to see all of his rise in the music world presented in montage form. But that's not me. And, again, if the music is going to play second fiddle in the film, why call it Maestro?

In terms of his sexual life and identity, this, like the music part, was simply treated as a given. It is hinted at, but not really shown, that his relationship with the lover from the opening of the film was more than just a sexual thing. I saw an article written by someone who knew Lenny from the gay part of his life and he contended that in so many ways this is where the real Lenny, or at least a very, very important part of him, was in full flower. In terms of drama, there could have been some really great dialogue in which his lover and he engaged in some very emotional back and forth about what was happening with Lenny's life choices -- had there been the time or space for it. Surely these conversations happened. Given the centrality of this both to his life and to the point of the film, it seems like so much was lost by treating it as "That's just Lenny being Lenny, chasing all those guys." As with the music part, a significant part of the audience came preloaded with empathy, given their own experiences, as to what it meant for a gay man to make his way as a public figure in the mid-20th-century. For me, however, this aspect of the film wasn't personal, so I very much would have appreciated it being treated in more detail and depth.

Because of this superficial treatment, when Felicia finally confronts Lenny about his promiscuity, it seems to come out of nowhere. We see him being indiscreet once, and boom, the big knock-down drag-out. It should be noted, that it is only here that the film takes on emotional resonance. It's good that this happens, but this should have been happening the whole time, in one form or another. Nevertheless, this scene does provide us with the raw material for the emotional high point of the film. When, during their fight, she accuses him of having only hate in his heart, we recognize the way that a lover who feels that they have been wronged reaches for the very thing that might hurt their partner the most. So, after the great, extended performance sequence of Mahler, when she says to him, "you don't have hate in your heart," this was when I was genuinely moved, perhaps for the only time in the movie. It shows us what might have been, had Cooper made other choices. Maybe there was no other way to do the Bernstein story in 130 minutes, as the film’s many fans would tell us. For me, however, this means the film was set up from the very start to fall short.