I'm saving my review for next week's Home Viewing report on Cinema Sight, but I have to say that I was not impressed with Cooper's handling of the baton.
I have been mimicking Bernstein's conducting style since I was a child. It's great exercise, but it's not all that difficult to do.
Maestro reviews
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Big Magilla
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Re: Maestro reviews
There are some very impressive things about Maestro. The problem for me is that Cooper seemed to be trying so hard in every frame to be impressive that as a viewer I was unable to fully immerse myself in the story or the characters. In fashion dresses are often criticized for being overdesigned. Maestro is an overdesigned film.
There are some beautifully shot scenes, and then there are some shots that are distracting because the camera angle is just so contorted. That whole scene shot a far distance from the main characters was annoying, but also seemed in line with the flashy filmmaking that pretty consistently kept the audience at a distance from the characters. This was ostensibly a study of an unconventional relationship but I never felt like I felt a sense of what connected them. The individual characters were also somewhat lost on me. Cooper’s Bernstein was most impressive in his physical acting, effectively capturing Bernstein’s effusive conducting style, especially during that Mahler piece in the church. That scene showed the potential of Cooper as a filmmaker. It took its time and was just beautiful. I’m not sure if it was the makeup, but Cooper often had these strange facial expressions that made the character hard to read. Carey Mulligan comes off much better, especially in the second half.
Bradley Cooper is clearly a talented guy, and seems to have a lot of support within the industry, as evidenced by both Scorsese AND Spielberg signing on as producers. I hope someone tells him to tone it down a bit, as I think he has the capacity for greatness.
There are some beautifully shot scenes, and then there are some shots that are distracting because the camera angle is just so contorted. That whole scene shot a far distance from the main characters was annoying, but also seemed in line with the flashy filmmaking that pretty consistently kept the audience at a distance from the characters. This was ostensibly a study of an unconventional relationship but I never felt like I felt a sense of what connected them. The individual characters were also somewhat lost on me. Cooper’s Bernstein was most impressive in his physical acting, effectively capturing Bernstein’s effusive conducting style, especially during that Mahler piece in the church. That scene showed the potential of Cooper as a filmmaker. It took its time and was just beautiful. I’m not sure if it was the makeup, but Cooper often had these strange facial expressions that made the character hard to read. Carey Mulligan comes off much better, especially in the second half.
Bradley Cooper is clearly a talented guy, and seems to have a lot of support within the industry, as evidenced by both Scorsese AND Spielberg signing on as producers. I hope someone tells him to tone it down a bit, as I think he has the capacity for greatness.
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Mister Tee
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Re: Maestro reviews
Most people are going to end up watching this at home -- Netflix pretty much openly discourages theatre attendance, pushing even films (like this) that are drawing big audiences out of prime venues. (My afternoon show yesterday at the midtown Paris was packed, but the film was scheduled to lose the house today.) And this is a real shame -- first of all because any movie is better viewed in a theatre -- but, in particular, for this film, because the euphoria delivered by the music simply can't measure up in living-room viewing. The film's several extended musical pieces -- the Fancy Free ballet, Make Our Garden Grow, the church-set Mahler -- are high points. I even enjoyed sitting to the end of the credits, reveling in the Candide overture.
The film has more to offer than that, though it's not without its issues. It starts off with a bang: a whirlwind black-and-white trip through the 1940s world of Broadway and the NY Philharmonic, with a courtship saga on the side. I don't remember all that much distinctive about Cooper's visual style in Star is Born, but here it's hard to miss. This part of the film may not work for everyone -- there are show-offy moments, and I can imagine Damien groaning "Look at me, I'm directing" -- but I found it pretty intoxicating. (I sat there thinking, God, I love movies.) A whole lot is set into motion over this stretch, largely centered on the Bernstein/Felicia relationship, but also significantly dealing with Bernstein as singular character: a man who, in the phrase, contains multitudes -- possibly, the film suggests, too much for any one person to contain without damaging both himself and those around him.
Those damages -- only hinted at in the first half of the film -- come to fruition in the second hour. It'd be too glib to say I liked the black and white movie but had problems with the color one...but it was about the time of that visual transition that I felt the film started to slack off. The limitations of the biopic -- conceding that the film's structure is dependent on the events of its subject's life rather than narrative demands -- began to take hold. Also, as Sabin gets at, it at that point became clear the subject for most of the rest of the way was going to be, basically, how Lennie (despite the understanding they've had from the start) made Felicia unhappy time and again. This portion of the film has its moments -- the West Side Story-scored arrival of the unwelcome guests; the surprise meet-up with ex-lover/wife/child on Central Park West; the painful "I'm lying to you, we both know it, but it has to be done" scene with his daughter -- but an overall lack of tension in the storyline sent my mind wandering. For me, the film didn't really pick up again until the Thanksgiving Day argument, and then Felicia's Palm Court lunch with Shirley. From there -- most emphatically including dealing with Felicia's medical issues -- things got back on track, and I was grabbed till the final moments.
We live in an ostensibly more enlightened age, and tend to view pre-1970s stories of gay men who married for cover as strictly sad, bordering on soap opera. Certainly, today, we expect most such characters to give up the pretense and simply live open gay lives. This movie, though, takes the somewhat atypical premise that, despite the deep compromise involved, and the toll it took on everyone, the marriage/family that resulted from a closeted situation could still contain a good deal of genuine love. People tend to think those marriages were simply a way to conceal sexuality -- but they were also, till far more recently, the only way gay men could create families. And by all accounts, from both the film and testimony of those involved, Bernstein loved his children and vice versa -- something he'd have been denied without this arrangement. I'm not trying to argue for this as idyllic situation -- the drawbacks are all over the screen -- but it seems to me the film is arguing for a more nuanced view of how people negotiated their options back in the before times.
There's also the clear possibility Bernstein was legitimately bisexual -- he does speak of having slept with both Matt Bomer and his wife. This is of a piece with Bernstein's entire personality as articulated by the film: he's the extrovert who wants everyone's attention, and the creative artist who needs his solitude to finish his work; he wants to follow his mentor's advice, toss aside the pop stuff in favor of the serious classical arena -- but then laments he hasn't done enough composition, which is the thing that will endure. The film suggests that Bernstein was bound to discombobulate others' lives simply because his appetites and wishes were too much to be satisfied by anyone or anything.
We can see all of this in Cooper's performance, which has the physical transformation thing going for it, but also the enthusiasm Bernstein seems to have engendered in those around him. It's an exuberant, physical performance, perhaps reaching its peak in the moment after the Mahler when he races to embrace Felicia, but also full of small and effective moments all along the way. Mulligan matches him -- her intelligence, wit and perceptiveness let us see instantly why he couldn't let this woman go...but we also see that perceptiveness is going to eventually catch up with her, make her life unsustainable. She, unlike the film, grows stronger as the running time proceeds, her two most powerful scenes coming late in the game. I have to wonder if Cooper let her down a bit with his staging of the Thanksgiving Day argument -- holding the framing ostentatiously in long-shot, while the material seemed to cry out for a close-up of Mulligan at some point in the proceedings. It was a clear choice -- one of many director Cooper made throughout the film -- but one of the few I questioned for undercutting impact. Mulligan's other big scene -- her rueful recognition of how she's made her bed -- works much better (and her Cafe Carlyle line got the big laugh of the day from my audience). I'll have to see the full field before I decide who I'd vote for in the lead Oscar categories this year, but the two of them clearly rate nominations.
I'm also not sure if this film would ultimately make my top ten list...which, in a way, is great news. After several years when I'd have had to reach to fill out such a list, it's a pleasure to have a movie I like this much just among the also-rans.
By the way: the film is also beautifully shot.
The film has more to offer than that, though it's not without its issues. It starts off with a bang: a whirlwind black-and-white trip through the 1940s world of Broadway and the NY Philharmonic, with a courtship saga on the side. I don't remember all that much distinctive about Cooper's visual style in Star is Born, but here it's hard to miss. This part of the film may not work for everyone -- there are show-offy moments, and I can imagine Damien groaning "Look at me, I'm directing" -- but I found it pretty intoxicating. (I sat there thinking, God, I love movies.) A whole lot is set into motion over this stretch, largely centered on the Bernstein/Felicia relationship, but also significantly dealing with Bernstein as singular character: a man who, in the phrase, contains multitudes -- possibly, the film suggests, too much for any one person to contain without damaging both himself and those around him.
Those damages -- only hinted at in the first half of the film -- come to fruition in the second hour. It'd be too glib to say I liked the black and white movie but had problems with the color one...but it was about the time of that visual transition that I felt the film started to slack off. The limitations of the biopic -- conceding that the film's structure is dependent on the events of its subject's life rather than narrative demands -- began to take hold. Also, as Sabin gets at, it at that point became clear the subject for most of the rest of the way was going to be, basically, how Lennie (despite the understanding they've had from the start) made Felicia unhappy time and again. This portion of the film has its moments -- the West Side Story-scored arrival of the unwelcome guests; the surprise meet-up with ex-lover/wife/child on Central Park West; the painful "I'm lying to you, we both know it, but it has to be done" scene with his daughter -- but an overall lack of tension in the storyline sent my mind wandering. For me, the film didn't really pick up again until the Thanksgiving Day argument, and then Felicia's Palm Court lunch with Shirley. From there -- most emphatically including dealing with Felicia's medical issues -- things got back on track, and I was grabbed till the final moments.
We live in an ostensibly more enlightened age, and tend to view pre-1970s stories of gay men who married for cover as strictly sad, bordering on soap opera. Certainly, today, we expect most such characters to give up the pretense and simply live open gay lives. This movie, though, takes the somewhat atypical premise that, despite the deep compromise involved, and the toll it took on everyone, the marriage/family that resulted from a closeted situation could still contain a good deal of genuine love. People tend to think those marriages were simply a way to conceal sexuality -- but they were also, till far more recently, the only way gay men could create families. And by all accounts, from both the film and testimony of those involved, Bernstein loved his children and vice versa -- something he'd have been denied without this arrangement. I'm not trying to argue for this as idyllic situation -- the drawbacks are all over the screen -- but it seems to me the film is arguing for a more nuanced view of how people negotiated their options back in the before times.
There's also the clear possibility Bernstein was legitimately bisexual -- he does speak of having slept with both Matt Bomer and his wife. This is of a piece with Bernstein's entire personality as articulated by the film: he's the extrovert who wants everyone's attention, and the creative artist who needs his solitude to finish his work; he wants to follow his mentor's advice, toss aside the pop stuff in favor of the serious classical arena -- but then laments he hasn't done enough composition, which is the thing that will endure. The film suggests that Bernstein was bound to discombobulate others' lives simply because his appetites and wishes were too much to be satisfied by anyone or anything.
We can see all of this in Cooper's performance, which has the physical transformation thing going for it, but also the enthusiasm Bernstein seems to have engendered in those around him. It's an exuberant, physical performance, perhaps reaching its peak in the moment after the Mahler when he races to embrace Felicia, but also full of small and effective moments all along the way. Mulligan matches him -- her intelligence, wit and perceptiveness let us see instantly why he couldn't let this woman go...but we also see that perceptiveness is going to eventually catch up with her, make her life unsustainable. She, unlike the film, grows stronger as the running time proceeds, her two most powerful scenes coming late in the game. I have to wonder if Cooper let her down a bit with his staging of the Thanksgiving Day argument -- holding the framing ostentatiously in long-shot, while the material seemed to cry out for a close-up of Mulligan at some point in the proceedings. It was a clear choice -- one of many director Cooper made throughout the film -- but one of the few I questioned for undercutting impact. Mulligan's other big scene -- her rueful recognition of how she's made her bed -- works much better (and her Cafe Carlyle line got the big laugh of the day from my audience). I'll have to see the full field before I decide who I'd vote for in the lead Oscar categories this year, but the two of them clearly rate nominations.
I'm also not sure if this film would ultimately make my top ten list...which, in a way, is great news. After several years when I'd have had to reach to fill out such a list, it's a pleasure to have a movie I like this much just among the also-rans.
By the way: the film is also beautifully shot.
Re: Maestro reviews
All week, I've been telling my buddy that I thought Cillian Murphy would probably end up winning Best Actor for Oppenheimer. He told me "You haven't seen Maestro yet." I did and he told me "You still think Murphy is winning?" I told him that Maestro was a feature-length Best Actor reel. If Cooper wins, that's why. If he loses, that's why.
I liked Maestro, probably more than A Star is Born. It's plain to see what attracted Cooper's theater kid energy to this film. It's a gorgeous-looking film full of exciting filmmaking, Mid-Atlantic (ish?) accents and patter, with a Life's a Party mentality. There's no plot, which is just one reason why I don't think it'll end up winning Best Picture. It's about the inner lives of these two people who come into each others' orbits (or her into his) and we skip through the decades of their relationship. Occasionally, that means we're watching something shallow but it allows for a pretty nervy span to the story. That span is a double-edged sword because it doesn't really allow us to get into enough conflict. I like the fact that it doesn't want to boil down their marriage into just one problem but Maestro tells us constantly about Leonard Bernstein's problems: he's split, he loves people too much, he loves music too much, he's closeted, he's too free... I think Bradley Cooper is using the opening quote as a hedge: "A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers." This results in a film that wants to go after them all and tackle them all but in an episodic fashion. I think a most satisfying film would've managed to wrangle them into something more unified. By the end, I wanted to be bowled over by the vastness of two lives. I wasn't bowled over but it worked for me quite a bit here and there. I can't imagine this film working as well on the small screen.
EDIT: a friend of mine pointed this out about Bradley Cooper. His big problem as a director and a storyteller is he's really great with character work but frequently that takes the place of narrative storytelling and the result are two films now that spend a good deal of their time explaining their characters rather than telling their stories. To be honest, I'm not totally clear about anything about Leonard Bernstein's career, what he did, what he didn't do, etc.
I liked Maestro, probably more than A Star is Born. It's plain to see what attracted Cooper's theater kid energy to this film. It's a gorgeous-looking film full of exciting filmmaking, Mid-Atlantic (ish?) accents and patter, with a Life's a Party mentality. There's no plot, which is just one reason why I don't think it'll end up winning Best Picture. It's about the inner lives of these two people who come into each others' orbits (or her into his) and we skip through the decades of their relationship. Occasionally, that means we're watching something shallow but it allows for a pretty nervy span to the story. That span is a double-edged sword because it doesn't really allow us to get into enough conflict. I like the fact that it doesn't want to boil down their marriage into just one problem but Maestro tells us constantly about Leonard Bernstein's problems: he's split, he loves people too much, he loves music too much, he's closeted, he's too free... I think Bradley Cooper is using the opening quote as a hedge: "A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers." This results in a film that wants to go after them all and tackle them all but in an episodic fashion. I think a most satisfying film would've managed to wrangle them into something more unified. By the end, I wanted to be bowled over by the vastness of two lives. I wasn't bowled over but it worked for me quite a bit here and there. I can't imagine this film working as well on the small screen.
EDIT: a friend of mine pointed this out about Bradley Cooper. His big problem as a director and a storyteller is he's really great with character work but frequently that takes the place of narrative storytelling and the result are two films now that spend a good deal of their time explaining their characters rather than telling their stories. To be honest, I'm not totally clear about anything about Leonard Bernstein's career, what he did, what he didn't do, etc.
"How's the despair?"
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Big Magilla
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Re: Maestro reviews
He's got two up now. One is his review; the other is his comparison between Maestro and Oppenheimer. They're both hilarious.
Re: Maestro reviews
I'm not going to post Jeffrey Wells' rave for Maestro because there isn't a paragraph where he doesn't look/sound kinda insane but the dude loved it.
"How's the despair?"
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Mister Tee
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Re: Maestro reviews
As I understand it, Venice, like Cannes, has a rule that the grand prize winner (here, Volpi Cup) can't win any other awards. So the debate may be Poor Things/Mulligan vs. Maestro/Stone.
Or, that's being totally US-centric, and Bonello or Hamaguchi films still to come will blow past both.
Re: Maestro reviews
Let's see... film about a musical genius... jury president is notorious band geek Damien Chazelle... I think we found our Golden Lion winner for sure.
"How's the despair?"
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Mister Tee
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Maestro reviews
ON EDIT: Day-um. These are VERY enthusiastic. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a best picture nominee, with two nominated performances (and possible winners).
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235575970/
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/maes ... 235705193/
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/ ... 234817371/
https://deadline.com/2023/09/maestro-re ... 235533133/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/s ... gdnculture
https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/mov ... 234901970/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/mae ... bernstein/
https://www.timeout.com/movies/maestro-2023
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie ... 235575970/
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/maes ... 235705193/
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/ ... 234817371/
https://deadline.com/2023/09/maestro-re ... 235533133/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/s ... gdnculture
https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/mov ... 234901970/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/mae ... bernstein/
https://www.timeout.com/movies/maestro-2023