Posted on Nov 24, 2023
Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' fully captures Bernstein's charisma and complexity
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https://www.npr.org/2023/11/24/ [login to see] /maestro-review-bradley-cooper-leonard-bernstein
"We're in the thick of year-end movie season, or, as I've come to think of it, biopic season, when some of our finest actors line up to deliver their most Oscar-friendly feats of historical impersonation.
Right now you can see Rustin on Netflix, starring Colman Domingo as the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. This week also brings Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon, and next month, keep an eye out for Adam Driver in Ferrari, playing the founder of the Italian sports-car empire".
"We're in the thick of year-end movie season, or, as I've come to think of it, biopic season, when some of our finest actors line up to deliver their most Oscar-friendly feats of historical impersonation.
Right now you can see Rustin on Netflix, starring Colman Domingo as the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. This week also brings Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon, and next month, keep an eye out for Adam Driver in Ferrari, playing the founder of the Italian sports-car empire".
Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' fully captures Bernstein's charisma and complexity
Posted from npr.org
Movies
Actor/Actress
Acting
World History
Music
Posted 6 mo ago
Responses: 2
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."When the trailer for Maestro was first released, there was controversy around Cooper's decision to wear a prosthetic nose, raising questions about, among other things, whether non-Jewish actors, like Cooper, should play Jewish characters. That debate won't be resolved here, but it's worth noting that Cooper employs many cosmetic enhancements to play Bernstein over roughly five decades, and his performance is too rich to be reduced to just one detail. In the end, we believe Cooper not just because of any physical resemblance, but because he so fully captures Lenny's charisma, the way his love for music and for people seems to flow out of him.
We don't see him do much actual conducting until late in the movie, when Cooper re-creates a famous 1976 Bernstein performance with the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral. The piece is Mahler's Symphony No. 2, often known as his Resurrection Symphony — fitting for a sequence in which Bernstein, pouring sweat and waving his baton, really does seem to live again."
..."When the trailer for Maestro was first released, there was controversy around Cooper's decision to wear a prosthetic nose, raising questions about, among other things, whether non-Jewish actors, like Cooper, should play Jewish characters. That debate won't be resolved here, but it's worth noting that Cooper employs many cosmetic enhancements to play Bernstein over roughly five decades, and his performance is too rich to be reduced to just one detail. In the end, we believe Cooper not just because of any physical resemblance, but because he so fully captures Lenny's charisma, the way his love for music and for people seems to flow out of him.
We don't see him do much actual conducting until late in the movie, when Cooper re-creates a famous 1976 Bernstein performance with the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral. The piece is Mahler's Symphony No. 2, often known as his Resurrection Symphony — fitting for a sequence in which Bernstein, pouring sweat and waving his baton, really does seem to live again."
(7)
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