Those of us who grew up in the 1950s will remember Leonard Bernstein as the best music teacher we ever had. When I was clumsily gravitating toward classical music, Bernstein blew the doors wide open for me. I enthusiastically walked on through.
In his Omnibus telecasts, and later the Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, he was charismatic and inspirational – a handsome young American so in love with music that he made you love it too. I saw him in countless concerts, leading the Ravel Piano Concerto from the keyboard in Toronto, and conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Washington, D.C. to name a few. As a composer, meanwhile, Bernstein dazzled audiences with On the Town, Wonderful Town, West Side Story and Candide. Bernstein passed away in 1990 at the age of 72, yet for many of us his legacy has endured, and grows ever larger.
Maestro is all about Bernstein – or at least purports to be. Directed by and starring Bradley, it is a valiant but misguided attempt to bring a hugely talented, deeply flawed man to life, in a two hour movie.
Bradley Cooper has given us a film not about Bernstein the public figure – the conductor, composer, pianist, educator, political activist – but rather, the private man. It tells the story of Bernstein’s lifelong love affair with Costa Rican-born actress Felicia Montealegre, from the time they met at a party, through their troubled marriage, to the day she died of cancer at the age of 56. It is a complex story – Bernstein, who was bisexual, had many affairs with men prior to meeting Montealegre, through their courtship and marriage, and after her death. Simply stating these well-substantiated facts is to have serious doubts about Bernstein’s moral center. The film is less about a great musician and more about an interesting woman’s tragic life, and her deeply-flawed celebrity husband.
Montealegre was a talented actress who had substantial careers both on stage in New York, and on television. She was also a mother who raised three children, two daughters and a son. In the movie, she is depicted as a part-time companion to a busy celebrity musician, and a long-suffering helpmate. The musical climax of the movie is Bernstein conducting the ecstatic conclusion of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in Ely Cathedral, while its dramatic arc places emphasis on Montealegre’s agonizing battle with cancer, and her ultimate death. It is almost unbearable to watch her suffering. Although Bernstein is depicted as supportive through her last days and deeply moved by her passing, he soon returns to his extramarital activities. According to those who were there at the time – see Charlie Harmon’s book On the Road and Off the Record with Leonard Bernstein: My Years with the Exasperating Genius – this is exactly what happened.
Carey Mulligan is superb as Montealegre, and Bradley Cooper makes a pretty good physical representation of Bernstein on screen. With the help of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s guidance, he even manages to approximate Bernstein’s conducting style. The better sides of Bernstein somehow got lost in the writer’s room, however. The film omits any depiction of Bernstein in those legendary Omnibus programs about conducting and jazz, or his Young People’s Concert with the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall. West Side Story is barely mentioned, despite it being one of the most successful musicals of all times, and one of Bernstein’s greatest successes.
In his later years Bernstein developed a close association with the Vienna Philharmonic, where he was beloved and worked on several projects. There is a huge library of stunning videos by Bernstein and the VPO, performing the complete cycles of the Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann and Mahler symphonies, as well as Fidelio, Der Rosenkavalier and Falstaff. As is the case with many of his musical milestones, though, the film fails to mention this important phase of his life.
What’s more, Bernstein personally wrote every word of the scripts for his Young People’s Concerts. He had a gift for talking about music, and often put pen to paper to express his ideas and insights. There are two excellent books that bring together his most important essays and analyses: The Infinite Variety of Music, and Findings. Bernstein was also the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. In 1976, he gave the Norton Lectures at Harvard under the title The Unanswered Question. It was an astonishing intellectual tour de force. Using Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theories as a point of departure, Bernstein offered a detailed defense of the importance of tonality in Western music. Again, the movie failed to address these reflections.
Then there is the question of religious faith. Bernstein was Jewish and proud of it. He thought long and hard about his faith throughout his life – see his Kaddish Symphony and Mass, among other works – and it was at the very core of his existence. He had a close connection to the Israel Philharmonic, and was famously there when they needed him. He first conducted the orchestra in 1947, and returned a year later to conduct an open-air concert for Israeli troops in the middle of the desert during Israel’s War of Independence. In 1967, he raced back to Israel after the Six-Day War to conduct the Israel Philharmonic in excerpts from Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, in the Roman amphitheater on Mount Scopus. There is no mention of Bernstein’s relationship to his faith in the movie.
Both Bernstein and Montealegre were social activists, which is also missing from the film. They publicly opposed the Vietnam War, raised money for the Black Panthers and spoke out frequently on political issues. In 1939, the FBI opened a file on Bernstein for his alleged ties to communist organizations. He was temporarily blacklisted from CBS television in 1950, and in 1953, the State Department refused to renew his passport. In 1972, Montealegre was arrested during an anti-war protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building. Bernstein’s last musical, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, was a critique of slavery and racism. Bernstein had major personal failings, but he took social and political responsibility seriously.
Maestro fails to provide a complete representation of Leonard Bernstein, the man and the musician. What we see on the screen is arguably the worst of him. While there is truth in the story told by the film, it lacks significant information about the man, his life, his love of music, and what he contributed to the American cultural landscape. He deserves better.
The most authoritative and thorough Bernstein biography remains Leonard Bernstein by Humphrey Burton (Doubleday, 1994). For a loving, but honest family memoir, I recommend Famous Father Girl by Bernstein’s daughter, Jamie Bernstein (Harper, 2018).
Maestro is in theatres now
www.maestrofilmofficial.com
