Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Josh Hamilton, Scott Ellis, Gideon Glick, Sam Nivola, Alexa Swinton, Miriam Shor
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Netflix bio-drama directed and co-written by Bradley Cooper. Maestro (2023) centers on the complex love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between composer Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and his wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan).
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Best Quotes
“A work of art does not answer questions, it provides them. And its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein: [referring to Felicia] So to answer your question, yes. I carry her around with me quite a bit. I’ve often seen her in the garden working. Julia Vega swears that she’s at the top of the stairs every morning when she comes down to do the laundry, making sure she’s separating the whites and the darks. And our children are very jealous because they’ve never seen her. I miss her terribly.
Bruno Zirato: He loves the music, he doesn’t need rehearsal, he feels it so much. And after many years, he really wanted this, it has happened and I’m so proud. Carnegie Hall is so proud of you and New York is proud of you. Leonard Bernstein.
Leonard Bernstein: I’ll tell you fellas, I don’t remember a thing after that downbeat rest. I must’ve blacked out, and then when the audience applauded I came to.
Leonard Bernstein: Hello. I’m Lenny.
Felicia Montealegre: Hello. Felicia.
Leonard Bernstein: Bernstein, like that one.
Felicia Montealegre: Montealegre.
Leonard Bernstein: Montealegre?
Felicia Montealegre: Montealegre Cohn.
Leonard Bernstein: Cohn? Montealegre Cohn. Well, that’s an interesting marriage of words.
Leonard Bernstein: You, my dear, are very similar to me.
Felicia Montealegre: How?
Leonard Bernstein: Because you had to take all the pieces, all the bits of you that are scattered across these varied landscapes and form, create the veritable person that stands before me now.
Felicia Montealegre: And how is that similar?
Leonard Bernstein: You just asked me, and I just told you.
Leonard Bernstein: So I had no choice but to become a composite of adopted speech, manner and outlook on life, a composite, which enables me to be many things at once. And that’s why, we, you and I, are able to endure and survive, because the world wants us to be only one thing, and I find that deplorable. I find you very attractive, Felicia.
Felicia Montealegre: I rarely stay up past nine.
Leonard Bernstein: Well, hold on a sec. You made an exception for me?
Felicia Montealegre: I thought maybe you were worth making an exception for.
Leonard Bernstein: Oh. Well, I hope it doesn’t cost you too much.
Felicia Montealegre: There are many things stopping me, Lenny, but fear isn’t one of them. I wouldn’t be standing here in front of you, I wouldn’t even be in New York City if fear got the better of me. It’s just not that easy. We’d be fools not to think that luck plays a part as well as talent and determination.
Leonard Bernstein: I’m a perfect example of that.
Felicia Montealegre: Oh, you must be joking.
'Life is not that serious. Honest, it isn't. What age are we living in? One can be as free as one likes without guilt or confession.' - Felicia Montealegre (Maestro) Share on X
Felicia Montealegre: And don’t forget, you are a man.
Leonard Bernstein: I never do.
Shirley Bernstein: Dick is rehearsing his new Broadway show with Eva Gabor, and he is not long for this marriage, and, well, I think he is your type.
Felicia Montealegre: What type is that?
Shirley Bernstein: Same as mine, unavailable.
Leonard Bernstein: [as they’re sitting back to back to each other] So how long do we have to do this for?
Felicia Montealegre: Well, we need to build up a very strong connection.
Felicia Montealegre: I’ve never seen you sit still for so long. Are you itching to move?
Leonard Bernstein: No, I’m not.
Felicia Montealegre: Oh, good.
Leonard Bernstein: Actually at all.
Serge Koussevitzky: Lenny, you are responsible on account of your gifts. He can be the first great American conductor. But he would have to conduct his life in such a way that when he comes out on stage to lead his orchestra, he can truthfully say to himself, “My life and my work are clean.”
Felicia Montealegre: Why would you ever want to give this up. It’s so wonderful.
Leonard Bernstein: It’s not serious music, is it?
Felicia Montealegre: Well, what does that mean?
Leonard Bernstein: Well, it means, he thinks I could be the first great American conductor.
Felicia Montealegre: Is that what you want?
Leonard Bernstein: I want a lot of things.
'I love people, and I love music. I love music so much it keeps me glued to life even when I'm most depressed.' - Leonard Bernstein (Maestro) Share on X
Leonard Bernstein: I have a game we can play. Envy and Secrets. You know that game?
Felicia Montealegre: No.
Leonard Bernstein: We both tell each other a secret, then we both tell each other something that we’re envious of, and then we become closer.
Felicia Montealegre: But I feel pretty close already.
Leonard Bernstein: Well, you certainly seem closer than twenty minutes ago. I saw different sides of you that I’ve only sort of dreamt about.
Felicia Montealegre: You don’t even know how much you need me, do you?
Leonard Bernstein: I might.
Felicia Montealegre: [to Bernstein] Oh, life is not that serious. Honest, it isn’t. What age are we living in? One can be as free as one likes without guilt or confession. Please, what’s the harm? I know exactly who you are. Let’s give it a whirl.
Leonard Bernstein: I guess I’d have to say that my primary occupation is musician. Anything that has to do with music is my province, wouldn’t you say? Whether it’s composing it, or conducting it, or teaching it, or studying it, or playing it. As long as it’s music, I like it, and I do it.
Edward Murrow: Lenny, what’s the big difference in the life of Composer Bernstein and Conductor Bernstein?
Leonard Bernstein: Well, I suppose it’s a difference. It’s a personality difference which occurs between any composer versus any, or any creator versus any performer. Any performer, whether it’s Toscanini, or Tallulah Bankhead, whoever it is, leads a kind of public life. An extrovert life, if you will. It’s an oversimplified word, but something like that. Whereas a creative person sits alone in this great studio that you see here, and writes all by himself, and communicates with the world in a very private way, and lives a rather grand inner life rather than a grand outer life. And if you carry around both personalities, I suppose that means you become a schizophrenic and that’s the end of it.
Leonard Bernstein: [to Felicia] I’m sad, darling, and I don’t know why.
Leonard Bernstein: Summer sang in me a little while, it sings in me no more. Edna St. Vincent Millay.
'If the summer doesn't sing in you, then nothing sings in you. And if nothing sings in you, then you can't make music.' - Felicia Montealegre (Maestro) Share on X
Shirley Bernstein: There’s a price for being in my brother’s orbit, you know that. As much as he’d love to believe the opposite is true.
Felicia Montealegre: I suppose I do understand what you mean.
Felicia Montealegre: Well, it’s very strange, but I do believe there is that in everybody. One wishes to make adjustments to oneself. But having this imposition of a strong personality, it’s like a way of death. Really. Yet the moment I see that that is making him suffer, well, I realize it’s not worth it. No. What for? It isn’t going to kill me really. And if it was going to give him pleasure, or stop him from suffering, and it’s in my power to do it, then what the hell? You know? But one has to do it completely without sacrifice. And if there’s going to be a sacrifice, then I disappear.
'It's so draining to love and accept someone who doesn't love and accept themselves.' - Felicia Montealegre (Maestro) Share on X
Leonard Bernstein: Where do you live? Who are you?
Tommy Cothran: I’m from San Francisco.
Leonard Bernstein: Oh, so you’re from Earth?
Tommy Cothran: Originally, yes.
Leonard Bernstein: Actually, when you add it up, there’s not much that I’ve created. Music is, I know this is going to sound strange, it was the most important thing I could do, and a great source of dissatisfaction that I haven’t created that much at all. I mean, when you add it up, it’s not a very long list.
Leonard Bernstein: I feel like the world is on the verge of collapse. That’s what I feel like. I’m quite serious. The diminution of creativity, which has come to a grinding halt. I mean, not scientifically. That has exploded. But as we sit here, I find it very difficult to think that whether I’m a conductor or a composer, of any note, has any bearing on anything. Or that my existence is even worth talking about for this book.
Leonard Bernstein: [referring to Felicia] I think she has a keen sense of futility.
John Gruen: I sense that too about her. I had no idea, because, you know, I had this feeling of her first, you know, incredibly, which she is, vivacious, and marvelously alert, and aware, and a happy person. But something in her seems crushed.
Leonard Bernstein: She said to me in Vienna last month, “I want to get off. I want to stop the bus and get off.”
'As death approaches, I believe that an artist must cast off anything that's restraining him. And an artist must be resolute in creating, whatever time he has left, in absolute freedom.' - Leonard Bernstein (Maestro) Share on X
Leonard Bernstein: I have one or two saving factors, John. One is it that I love people, and I love music. I love music so much it keeps me glued to life even when I’m most depressed. And I can get very deeply depressed. But I have a work ethic, and that keeps me afloat. And the other is that I do. I love people so much that it’s hard for me to be alone. Which is part of my struggle as a composer.
Leonard Bernstein: I mean, can one really believe that man is just this trapped animal. He’s a victim of his own greeds and follies. And either one believes in the divine element in this or one doesn’t. And as long as I believe it, which I assume is why I love people so much, then I have to believe that in some remote corner of my soul there is a way out.
Leonard Bernstein: [to Jamie] Now, I don’t know what happened, or who said what, or where, but I can only imagine that it was spurned on by jealousy, darling. Jealousy of whatever it is that I do that has plagued me all my life, and I apologize for plaguing you now.
'All you need, all anyone needs is to be sensitive to others. Kindness. Kindness. Kindness.' - Felicia Montealegre (Maestro) Share on X
Felicia Montealegre: There’s a saying in Chile about never standing under a bird that’s full of s**t. And I’ve just been living under that f***ing bird for so long, it’s actually become comedic.
Felicia Montealegre: You want to be sleepless, and depressed, and sick. You want to be all of those things, so you can avoid fulfilling your obligations.
Leonard Bernstein: What obligations?
Felicia Montealegre: To what you’ve been given. To the gift that you’ve been given.
Leonard Bernstein: The gift comes with burdens. Do you have any idea? I’m sorry to just admit it, but that’s the truth.
Felicia Montealegre: Oh, the burden of feigning honesty and love. That above all you love people, and from that wellspring of love the complications arise in your life.
Leonard Bernstein: That’s exactly right.
Felicia Montealegre: Hate in your heart. Hate in your heart and anger. There’s so many things, it’s hard to count. That’s what drives you. Deep, deep anger drives you. You aren’t on that podium allowing us all to experience the music the way it was intended. You are throwing it in our faces.
Leonard Bernstein: How dare you?
Felicia Montealegre: How much we will never be able to ever understand, and by us witnessing you do it so effortlessly, you hope that we will know, really know, deep in our core how less than we all are for you.