Maestro

So the only thing I have heard about the movie Maestro was controversy over the film's decision to put Bradley Cooper in a prosthetic nose. This was a wildly racist decision on behalf of the production, especially considering the fact that Copper’s actual nose looks very similar to Bernstiens on its own and did not need cosmetic enhancement. The whole Jews have big noses thing was not at all necessary to include in the film and there are about 1000 ways to make it clear Berstien was a jewish man without the nose. That said, I never got around to seeing the movie…until now. Biopics of prominent figures have always felt a little Oscar-baity so I really don’t have a strong desire to watch this film whatsoever. But I promised that I would watch and review as many films released in 2023 as possible, especially the Oscar contenders so here we are. The formal review of Maestro, now on Netflix.

Choosing to put the entire movie in black and white was definitely…a choice. It is something that should definitely be reserved for specific stories and I don’t think it was really necessary in the telling of this story. Nothing was added to the narrative or tone by putting it in black and white. I get that they wanted there to be a tone shift between talking to Bernstein in the present and him remembering I just think that it would feel less detached from reality if it were still in color. Like an older faded out color grading like we were watching it through the eyes of an old camera. “Remembering” things in black and white just separates them a little too much for me, it no longer feels connected.

The staging was very much like a stage play. The camera work is very creative and lent itself to the fact that we were watching a man fall in love with music and musical theatre and creating in general. I loved that it felt like I was watching something on stage and I think that did fit the narrative very well.

I loved that we used some of the West Side Story score in the film. Obviously that's one of the most iconic things he’s done and the fact that it was the opening number when the Sharks and the Jets start tussling was also a great choice as this was playing as Leanord brought one of the men that wants to fool around with into his wife's house.

The other important thing to note is that they made Bernstien’s sexuality very clear. At no point did they straightwash him. His affections and attractions were very clear but the other thing that was very clear was other people’s expectations of him.

The movie seems to kind of wander aimlessly through Bernstien’s life. There is no real rhyme or reason to the moments that we are seeing. It skips just massive swaths of his life. We go from his first time conducting publicly to him being married with kids. It's not until an hour into the film when there is any kind of tension.

It's also upsettingly long. We spent an hour and a half on the last 10ish years of his life and the whole movie was over 2 hours long. And heres the thing Bernstien did some great things for music…that doesn’t warrant him a film. Biopics, especially fictionalized ones that are meant to be seen on the big screen, need to be about interesting people. And if we were able to skip nearly his entire actual life then maybe he wasn’t interesting enough to get a film made about him. The only other option is that the film is just poorly written. So you choose I guess.

Overall the movie just screamed Oscar bait with no actual substance. I think Bradley Cooper was fine but nothing spectacular, despite that I do think he will get a very undeserved nomination. As will the film as whole even though it really did nothing for the industry, or really the man that it was about. There didn’t feel like there was any connection or heart in the story and if you are going to produce a movie about a person's life I need to feel like I knew that person personally by the end of it and Maestro just didn’t do that. I know his actual kids liked the movie but heres the thing, they have a deep emotional attachment to the actual man, the film needed to give that deep emotional attachment to the audience and quite frankly it failed.