‘Maestro’ - AFI Fest
In his sophomore feature, Bradley Cooper continues to blend music and film in a cinematic memory of the domestic life between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre.
Maestro fully embraces the mannerisms of the Golden Age from its 4:3 aspect ratio in black and white to its rapid-fire dialogue scored by Bernstein’s music library to embody the spirit of the first great American conductor. Beginning with an older Bernstein looking back on his life with Felicia, Maestro unfolds into a love story full of complexity and nostalgia.
Bernstein and Montealegre’s early relationship is driven by kinetic energy matched with swooping camera movement into their intertwined professional and romantic lives. Cooper channels the style of a musical with even dance sequences to underscore the attention his work will always have on him within this relationship.
Maestro allows Cooper to flex his director techniques as he never stops short of delivering passion in every single frame. Cooper’s style more closely follows the calculation of classic filmmaking to fixate on the emotional highs of his central characters. Maestro is certainly a step up from his previous film feeling more confident in his role as a director as he makes sure his energy extends through every part of the filmmaking process. Maestro avoids the traditional biopic formula by emphasizing impressionist visuals to evoke emotions over Wikipedia headings.
Cinematographer Matty Libatique creates dazzling visuals in the black-and-white sequences that speak to the old Hollywood glamor of Cooper’s direction. These moments feel pristine around the man that is Bernstein where there is so much promise not only in the early days of his career, but his romance with Felicia. Cooper uses black and white to format this new exciting honeymoon phase of the duo, this is how he remembers them. It plays like a nostalgic memory that Bernstein considers appropriate to share with the world given the context of how the film is framed.
Color breaks through as time has jumped to the 50s shedding the allure of the glamourous sheen from their early days together. The visuals give the emotional understanding of these rich characters over these different periods of their lives. The second half of the narrative feels looser compared to its golden age predecessor, Cooper stops the steam to dwell on these moments of Bernstein’s family life as the cracks of their marriage shine through. Cooper and Carey Mulligan take on a grounded approach to these myths they play to inject realism back into the story.
Although color is brought back, this section of the film feels murky as if it never knows what to do with itself. It skips around pivotal moments between the couple looking for an ounce of emotion in its filmmaking. Cooper borrows from his previous film to stage his major argument sequences between him and Mulligan capturing their rage at a contained distance. This choice mirrors an older Bernstein recollecting and wanting to distance himself from the memory.
The stars of the show are the chemistry between Mulligan and Cooper through their physicality. Like an instrument, both actors are finely tuned into the psyche of the real people they play. The way Bradley writers Felicia and Leonard never feel one-note or fitting into a trope. He fleshes them out as complex individuals with Bernstein embracing his messiness and never placing blame on those around him. They work perfectly on their own, but together they are unstoppable. They move through sweetness and bitterness as they grow older with one another through a rhythmic melody always staying on tune for what the moment calls for.
They understand their movement and mannerisms and how Leonard and Felicia interacted. It is this hyperfocus on embodying these icons that makes their performances stiff and for the audience you can feel that this is a performance done by actors. These demanding roles require a lot of performing through their overlapping nature and completion of one another that Cooper and Mulligan stun. Mulligan as Felicia is the key to this film holding all of Bernstein and Cooper’s wild imaginations together to craft a beautiful love story of heartbreak and family. While their characters are never on the same page, both actors are to make these more tense and loving scenes work. Watching them onscreen is like watching energy meticulously move between two people. This is an actor’s performance.
While the family is a major focus of Bernstein’s life, the story always comes back to his love of music. Cooper illustrates this passion through the incredible Ely Cathedral scene where he actually conducted for six minutes live. He allows the shattering sound design and scope of the Ely Cathedral to consume the audience in order to communicate without words what music means for Lenny. It is the moment in the film where we understand Lenny and how music allows him to escape.
Maestro only feels like the beginning for director Bradley Cooper compared to the ongoing conversation that this is what his career has been leading up to. A Star is Born is loose and emotional while Maestro is rigid and bombastic, but both paint their subjects with empathy. Cooper has created two incredible films for the start of his filmography, but there is so much more left for him to give. Maestro demonstrates the respect Cooper has for the entirety of filmmaking and how the right combination can lead to a cohesive vision. There is real love Bradley has for Bernstein through making this film.