Last updated on September 4, 2023
A film by Bradley Cooper
With: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Sam Nivola, Matt Bomer, Michael Urie, Gideon Glick, Miriam Shor, William Hill
A portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s singular charisma and passion for music as he rose to fame as America’s first native born, world-renowned conductor, all along following his ambition to compose both symphonic and popular Broadway works.
Our Review: ***
With Maestro, Bradley Cooper confirms that his approach to cinema is indeed, as seen in A star is born, that of an artist, interested not only in the formal thing but also in the human material that naturally comes to interact between an artist, his art and his life. As with A star is born, he explores what makes an artist great, what brings him to the top, his determination, his talent, his gifts, which he brings to the fore with brio and a remarkable attention to detail and precision (whether it’s the choreography, or the technical elements, such as the gestures of a conductor-composer) in contrast to what destroys him, drags him down, gnaws at him, his demons, his wanderings. In addition to portraying a man of great renown in the USA, Bradley Cooper strikes an interesting balance between the admiring exercise and the revelation of shadowy areas, working with an accuracy that makes us suppose that, like so many others before and after him, in speaking of another, he is speaking a little of himself, but also of ourselves. In addition to its obvious formal qualities, be they technical (photography, choreography, editing) or more artistic (inventive staging, very interesting work on transitions between scenes), Maestro surprises us with the quality of its writing, which appears here and there, at the bend of a couple’s argument, full of intelligence, literary quality, and eloquent unspoken words, or in its ability to avoid the recurrent pitfalls of trying to play with sensitive material: showing, supporting, underlining, suggesting in a clumsy way. However, as was already the case in his first film, by concentrating too much on certain aspects of his character, by wanting to suspend time on certain episodes and accelerate it on others, the film loses intensity once the setting and narrative intentions have been established. Since we know that the portrait will be neither black nor white, that the man’s image will trap him in a lie that’s difficult to accept, the second third of the film tends to tread water, while the effect of the formal mastery tends to fade. As is often the case, an impression of a lacking “little something” – and we’re certainly not talking about a WTF moment! – which prevents us from fully empathizing with the character and his environment, and from considering Maestro as a major work, a candidate for the highest honors. Perhaps as a result of this choice of subject, this American island (Bernstein, more American than universal pride)? Perhaps it has something to do with the ordinariness of talking about someone who has achieved success (rather than failure?)? Perhaps for failing to go beyond the mere “observation”, to offer a more staggering view, or precisely, for having chosen balance rather than imbalance?
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