2023-11-26 00:52:25
Carnegie Hall employees even got used to it. For much of 2018, it was common to see actor Bradley Cooper roaming the halls and distributing smiles. He even invited the people to watch A Star Is Borna production in which he shared the spotlight with Lady Gaga, who had just debuted in the country.
The actor’s journey was part of the laboratory to embody his next project on screen: a biopic of conductor Leonard Bernstein.
The starting point of Maestro (United States, 2023), which Netflix premieres on December 20th – although it has already been shown at film festivals around the world – is precisely Carnegie Hall, whose rooms and corridors Cooper has visited a lot.
It was there that, in 1943, the young Bernstein replaced the ill Bruno Walter as head of the New York Philharmonic, without the right to a single rehearsal and conducting by heart. The performance of the young 25-year-old commander was hailed by the New York Times.
Fifteen years later, he would take on the role of artistic director of the orchestra and become not only one of the great names in 20th century conducting but also a composer of concertos and symphonies, Broadway musicals, thinker, educator and established figure of high society, the which earned her the nickname “Radical Chic” given by writer Tom Wolfe.
Cooper, in addition to starring, directs. The script was shared with Josh Singer (from Spotlight – Secrets Revealed) and more than Bernstein’s rise, it focuses on his relationship with his wife, Costa Rican actress Felicia Montealegre, played in all her splendor by Carey Mulligan.
The two met at a party held by Shirley Bernstein, Leonard’s sister. The meeting and flirting scene is one of the great moments of Maestro: all filmed in black and white, it shows the couple at first sharing a cigarette and then gradually moving away from the noise of the guests.
Black and white, more than just an evocation of the past, is used as a great creative resource. As the maestro becomes a superstar, sobriety is exchanged for an explosion of colors. As if Cooper wanted to take Bernstein’s excesses beyond the screen.
English actress Carey Mulligan plays Felicia with immeasurable dignity, aplomb and talent. She, at first, turned a blind eye to her husband’s permanent priapic state, eager to collect male lovers. The situation, of course, reaches a limit. During a Thanksgiving party, she explodes and throws years and years of frustration in her husband’s face. Bernstein’s relationship with his wife sometimes confuses viewers who expect a formal biography of the maestro. But this is also one of the film’s greatest strengths.
Cooper’s idea is to show a man torn between two of his greatest passions: music and the understanding woman who always supported him – and who he supports in his final moments (Felicia died in 1978; Bernstein, in 1990).
Maestro arrives preceded by the controversy over the prosthetic nose that Bradley Cooper used to get closer to Bernstein’s features. But it’s a silly complaint, which diminishes the actor’s dedication to the role. Cooper assimilated the conductor’s nasal voice, as well as Bernstein’s flamboyant way of commanding the orchestra. The scene in which he leads a symphonic group in a church, with wide gestures and pouring cascades of sweat, is more than enough to put aside the fact that he is “not very Jewish” to take on the role.
Leonard Bernstein (“pronounced Bernstáin, not Bernstin”, he was quick to correct) was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and was the son of Ukrainian immigrants. His achievements in the musical universe are endless. He led the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969, where he encouraged educational programs and fostered new authors such as Aaron Copland and William Schumann and Charles Ives.
Passionate about the work of the Austrian Gustav Mahler, he was one of the main people responsible for its revitalization among the public in the United States and Europe (in short, it was up to him to show the greatness of the composer, who had been forgotten in concert halls).
An attentive author, he shone both as a classical composer and in the world of musicals. One of his greatest achievements is West Side Storywhich brought a new way of composition and choreography to the Broadway stage.
Bernstein was also a major civil rights activist and actively protested the Vietnam War. Many of these activities – for example, your membership of the rock’n’roll – pass by Maestro. Still, it is a production that does justice to one of the great names of conducting of all time.
Foto: Jason McDonald/Netflix
Sergio Martins
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