Uneven Leonard Bernstein Biopic Maestro Masterfully Conducts Its Performances
Bradley Cooper has already drawn attention (or disdain, depending on your propensity for internet discourse) regarding the visual decisions which make up his sophomore directorial effort Maestro. While his prosthetic nose has fueled endless thinkpieces, there is a more meaningful creative decision that the biopic coils around, revealing its outlook with emboldening confidence. As Felicia (Carey Mulligan) watches her husband, renowned composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein (Cooper), accept a post-concert round of applause, the camera holds on her back, rigidly observant and loosely balancing a cigarette. Suddenly the film lurches forward in time, but the camera is once again behind her, capturing the same raised shoulders, posture tipped forward towards the streetlamps. This marks the moment when Maestro switches from stark black-and-white to full color.
No doubt such a decision will be dismissed as unnecessarily flashy (a critique that could undoubtedly be leveled at Cooper in other instances, particularly the more emotionally manipulative flashbacks intercut through both of his feature films), but it actually draws attention to Maestro’s gentle and lovely musings on the nature of marriage, celebrating the different stages that constitute a long-term relationship. Felicia and Leonard’s relationship is initially swooningly romantic, lit by the warmth of a single stage light or a sitting room lamp; two moths attracted to the same flame. The early stage of their connection is soaring and earnest, preceding a more complicated moment, where their mutual understanding is tested and rendered meaningful in its new shades. It is the fulfillment of Leonard’s initial assessment, a kind of technicolored prophecy: “The world wants us to be only one thing and I find it very deplorable.”
Maestro is about this famous couple, the way their passions and careers braid into something knotty and beautiful. Its understanding of marriage is oddly advanced, arguing that their love was something which underwent trials and reassessments, seeing them choose to spend the waning minutes of their marriage together—a decision born from their genuine care and interest in the other, unconcerned with the seemingly non-issue of infidelity, now consigned to the past.
Late in the film, Bernstein passionately conducts an orchestra at the L.A. Cathedral to rousing success. The scene is lengthy, enamored with the conductor’s joyous involvement, before pulling back to show us that it has all been filtered through Felicia’s perspective, returning to her husband after a lengthy separation. When Maestro revels in their relationship, playing with the facets of Mulligan and Cooper’s endearing chemistry, it sings.