Bradley Cooper returns to directing with a biopic about a famous musician, this time focusing on a famous, real life figure. Maestro chronicles the rise of famous composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) as he builds his musical legend alongside his longtime wife Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan). The two deal with balancing Bernstein’s busy career and the other side of his romantic personality as their family grows and Felicia tries to accommodate her famous husband as long as she can.
Maestro has been billed as a biopic of the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, and it is very much that, but the story of his rise as one of the best musicians in American history is one that is told on the periphery of a larger tale about love, marriage, and self actualization. Specifically, the film explores various questions about the nature of love and the extent to which one should go to support someone they love. Maestro painstakingly shows the audience that Bernstein’s wife Felicia goes to great lengths to support her husband’s proclivities, even at the expense of her own feelings. She gives Leonard space to explore his same sex attractions without jealousy or demands for her own time, even as it slowly deteriorates her own mental well-being and ultimately their marriage. The arc of their love affair which plays out over the majority of the film, calls into question both how much one should sacrifice for love and in Leonard’s case, at what point does embracing yourself fully become detrimental to your partner? Cooper and Mulligan’s performances do well in painting a picture of the emotional push and pull of trying to balance love for another and love of self while not fully satisfying either.
While Maestro is a powerful and emotional examination of love and its limitations, and while the weight of its themes are substantial, the film’s initial pull is its awe-inspiring visual flair and the supplemental visual storytelling that Cooper does from his director’s stance (he famously eschews chairs on his film sets) alongside his director of photography Matthew Libatique. Cooper and Libatique utilize multiple aspect ratios and color grading to give each stage in the chronology of Bernstein’s life its own unique look, starting with a classic 4:3 aspect ratio and black and white coloring for young Bernstein in the 1950s to full color and a more modern 1:85:1 aspect ratio toward the end of Bernstein’s life closer to our current era of how film’s are presented onscreen. The dynamic visuals not only serve as markers for the story’s various time periods, they work to strengthen the immersion and realism of the different era’s of Bernstein’s life, transporting the audience directly into the story. Maestro is a film that feels very much alive in part due to elements of how its cameras are deployed in service of its cinematography. Perhaps the best example of this is at the beginning of the film as we follow young Bernstein arriving for his date with destiny as he ascends Carnegie Hall to make his debut as conductor for the New York Philharmonic without any rehearsal or forewarning. The camera glides throughout the venue, moving up the balcony and along the aisles until we focus just on Bernstein standing at the podium, ready to enter history. It’s a breathtaking shot that sets the visual panache for the rest of the film’s runtime alongside the numerous swiping match cuts and other creative transitions we are treated to.
The other element of Maestro that aides in making the film come alive onscreen is its judicious use of Bernstein’s music, giving it a musical theater feel that works. This is partly attributable not just to Cooper’s direction, but the amount of work he put into embodying Bernstein as the film’s lead actor. The years of preparation in studying the conductor’s catalogue, learning how to conduct actual orchestras, and even learning how to channel Bernstein’s voice over his decades of aging and smoking in order to accurately sound like him at each stage of his life all contribute to Cooper’s performance in Maestro being one of the best of the year. Despite the fervor that arose upon the release of the first image of Cooper as Bernstein, he managed to embody the legendary composer without coming across as a caricature or impressionist all while simultaneously providing impeccable direction. It’s a feat for which the laudits he is currently receiving during film awards season are entirely earned. This culminates in a stirring scene that features a full length orchestral performance conducted by Cooper as Bernstein; a sight to behold and listen to that resulted in audience applause not just in my screening of the film, but in others nationwide according to multiple audiences. His performance is joined by Mulligan’s towering performance of her own as his devoted but suffering wife Felicia. It’s a portrayal that could have easily descended into a stereotypical, dour wife who suffers in silence, but both the script and Mulligan’s talents are able to provide Felicia with enough agency to provide a look into her own motivations and emotions surrounding the complicated love she and Leonard shared for one another. In the depiction of complicated love, Felicia embodies the complicated portion of the equation and thus makes up much of the emotional core of the film and establishes Bernstein’s complexity as a beloved figure.
Maestro is a technical marvel that also packs an emotional punch as a marital drama that pulls no punches in showing love’s full spectrum, warts and all. The execution of this complicated romance tale combined with a virtuoso performance and perhaps the best cinematography of the year make the film a monumental feat for Bradley Cooper as an artist. His performance both in front of and behind the camera would each be notable on their own, but coming simultaneously in the same film is laudatory beyond measure. Carey Mulligan’s performance is equally stunning providing much of the film’s emotional core. This film is a technical marvel that with a story that also resonates, making it one of the year’s best.
Image: Netflix
