Maestro
How do we keep the artist separated from the art? Ken describes some important context to consider as audiences go to theaters to see the upcoming biopic “Maestro.”
Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” copyright Netflix 2023
Maestro, the biopic about Leonard Bernstein starring Bradley Cooper, is due in theaters Nov. 22, but there’s plenty to see before, in preparation. If you know nothing-to-little about the man who was arguably the single most important American classical musician of the 20th century, you need to see or re-see at a minimum the following:
The 1961 film of West Side Story, Bernstein’s groundbreaking musical
Excerpts from LB’s Candide, culled from various productions and viewable on YouTube; look for those featuring Kristin Chenowith and Paul Groves
Any number of interviews with the maestro on YouTube, and
As much of Bernstein’s Harvard lectures, also on YouTube, as you can watch
The ambitious will also add Bernstein-led performances of Mahler’s 2nd and 5th symphonies.
The reason I suggest doing this prior to seeing the movie is that Maestro clearly focusses on Bernstein’s private life, and an artist’s private life all too easily detracts from his artistic output. Don’t get me wrong: the trailer for Maestro gives me more tingles than any ASMR video could possibly supply. As Bernstein, Cooper bears an uncanny resemblance, thanks to an incredible make-up job and his considerable acting skills. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 booms in the background, as a montage of scenes suggests the film’s story line: Bernstein’s marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre, and the subsequent shadow cast on their marriage by his bisexuality, which favored relations with men.
This is par for the course for a Hollywood movie: the focus must be on sex, for how can you make a film about a conductor, even a spectacularly successful one, if all you show is your subject waving a baton? Bernstein was also a composer, and that is an even less likely subject for moviemaking. “We see the composer at the piano, struggling to complete a phrase. As he raises a pencil to the pad of paper on the piano rack, we hear the voice inside his head, ‘Should that be a b-flat or a b-natural? Do I want to suggest the parallel major?’” Exciting stuff.
Nonetheless, it’s important to keep in mind that it is the art that matters to us, not the artist. (A subtler statement than you may think; more on it to come in a future blog entry.) One school of thought proclaims that the art of flawed artists is itself inherently flawed and should therefore be avoided. The classic example is Wagner’s hideous anti-Semitism, used as a “reason” to dump Tristan und Isolde and the Ring. But where does this stop? There is reason to believe Schubert had a penchant for little boys – there go the two-cello quintet, the B-flat major piano sonata, the Unfinished Symphony! John Lennon beat his first wife. Bye-bye Strawberry Fields, Come Together, and – just to be safe – the entire Lennon-McCartney catalog. Dig deep enough and you will find sins of one kind or another in the story of each man’s life. We are all flawed, and if this prohibits us from making art, then in the future the only art permitted will be made by sinless AI generators. Oh boy.
Bernstein closeted his sexuality for purposes of public image, cheating on his wife and even lying to his children about it when the press started picking up on his dalliances. It’s not a pretty story. Yet, somehow, throughout the self-torture he endured for maintaining this public deception, Leonard Bernstein gave us breathtaking performances of the classical canon, compositions of astonishing beauty and wit, and the single most important series of lectures about music ever delivered – the Harvard lectures of 1973. Prepare to see Maestro by reminding yourself of the art produced by this all-too-human artist.
- Kenneth LaFave, 2023