Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic is stranger than you’d expect, filled with ambitious filmmaking and showy performances—some of which work, all of which are ponderous.
is its ambition and energy, the way it isn’t afraid to try things out. So an early one-shot—in reality a composite of different viewpoints—finds Bernstein sitting on his bed, talking on the phone, for what seems an eternity, framed in almost total obscurity by daylight framing a curtained windowpane.
Here, the camera whizzes around the atrium, before zipping back to Cooper as his good face radiates delight. This is fairly high-wire filmmaking, a little bit showy and perhaps trite in the way it signifies its intentions—but the showmanship works, because it is matched to a man who was as outsized as this.
There’s more: ballsy time-hopping scene transitions; an explanatory dance sequence; a finely written argument filmed in one-take, featuring an unexpected cameo by Charles Schulz’s Snoopy, and a few audacious musical sequences that take their merry time, demanding commitment from the viewer. Throughout, in fact,tests audiences’ staying power, particularly with a number of dialogue scenes filmed with a fixed camera, some of them at a startling distance from the action.
One disagreement between Felicia and Leonard is filmed from something like fifty meters away, their faces partly obscured by bits of garden: Why? What is intended here? Spectators can make up their own minds, but undoubtedly there’s a stubbornness at play here; a desire to do things differently. For instance, what a bizarre decision it is to foreground Bernstein’s heterosexual relationship: It pays off, eventually, but it feels like arriving at the character from an oblique angle.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' Is a Beautiful Tribute to Leonard BernsteinDespite what you’ve heard from the Twitterati, Cooper’s film about Bernstein and his wife Felicia’s relationship is an absolute marvel
Read more »
‘Maestro’ Makeup Designer Kazu Hiro Responds to Bradley Cooper Nose Backlash: ‘I Wasn’t Expecting That to Happen’“Maestro” makeup designer Kazu Hiro has responded to backlash over Bradley Cooper’s nose prosthetic in the upcoming film, in which he portrays iconic conductor Leonard Bernstein. …
Read more »
‘Maestro’ Review: Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan Make Beautiful Music Together in Cooper’s Haunting Leonard Bernstein BiopicCooper, in the second film he has directed (after “A Star Is Born”), places himself on a high wire and carries it off. In “Maestro,” he works with a pointillistic intimacy t…
Read more »
‘Maestro’ Review: Carey Mulligan and Bradley Cooper in a Moving Portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s Complex MarriageIn his second project as director, Cooper makes good on the promise of ‘A Star is Born’ with a Netflix bio-drama as stirringly symphonic and emotional as the subject’s music.
Read more »
‘Maestro’ Review: Bradley Cooper’s Triumphant Turn As Leonard Bernstein Is A Love Story On More Than One LevelHollywood has had a very spotty record in telling the complete truths of some of our great musical geniuses. 1946’s Night And Day, an attempted, but really fictionalized, biopic on the life o…
Read more »