The fact that both Bernstein (Cooper) and his clarinetist boyfriend for a time, David Oppenheimer (Matt Bomer), married women and had children yields a wry laugh but also sadness when Lenny steps outside his apartment and runs into David and his family on Central Park West. The common practice - even in the artsy and relatively broad-minded midcentury Manhattan culturati scene depicted here with intoxicating flair - of queer men taking wives for the sake of appearances and out of the desire to start a family was often less a matter of deceit than necessity. A gay Jewish American stood even less chance. But Maestro builds additional complexity by investigating the challenges faced by a prodigiously talented man angling to head up a major orchestra at a time when Americans were not generally considered equal to the great European conductors.
The difficulties of balancing fame and love are a theme shared by both movies Cooper has directed. It makes for an unofficial companion piece to Tár, whose fictional protagonist, Lydia Tár, was a Bernstein protégée. Coincidentally, Maestro also marks the second film in a year to focus on a celebrated classical music conductor with a vigorous presence both on and off the podium, a messy personal life and a passion for Mahler. It’s intended as no slight to Cooper’s A Star is Born remake, his impressive first turn in the director’s chair, to say his follow-up is a considerable leap in terms of accomplishment. Screenwriters: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer 20 streamingĬast: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Josh Hamilton, Scott Ellis, Gideon Glick, Sam Nivola, Alexa Swinton, Miriam Shor, Michael Urie Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition) There’s possibly no cheesier word in the Valentine’s Day greeting card section than “soulmates.” But it seems a fitting distillation of what kept virtuoso conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, together through 27 often strained years of complicated marriage, as depicted in Bradley Cooper’s transfixing biographical love story, Maestro.Īmplifying its force with thrilling use of the subject’s music, this is a layered examination of a relationship that might be grossly over-simplified today as that of a closeted gay man and his “beard.” But Cooper and co-screenwriter Josh Singer dig deeper to depict a unique union, fraught with conflicts yet unbreakable - even when it’s broken.
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