A movie about the life of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein has been released in theaters. Maestro, directed by and staring Bradley Cooper, is also available to stream at home.
Scott Pohl talks with WKAR music host Linda Kernohan about the film.
Interview Transcript
Movie Clip: Hello, I'm Lenny. Hello. Felicia.
Scott Pohl: And I'm Scott Pohl, and that's Linda Kernohan. Hi, Linda.
Linda Kernohan: Hi, Scott.
Pohl: Good to have you here. I know that you have seen Maestro, the new biopic about Leonard Bernstein, and I went to see it this week, too, so we both get to talk about it a little bit here. Very basic first question for you is if you recommend the film.
Kernohan: I really do. I thought it was really well done. I've seen several biopics about classical musicians. Many people will know, you know, Amadeus, Immortal Beloved. Classical musicians are always going to be very picky and dissatisfied about them, I think, because they take dramatic license. They're not 100% historically accurate. But to me, this film really captured some things about classical musicians that I haven't seen before.
One of them is, it captured what it's like to be a composer in a way that I have not seen on film before. It's a very lonely process, and at the same time, it's paradoxical, because when you write music, it's for people to play and for people to hear, so it's eventually going to be shared. So there's this tension between the solitude you have to enter into to write the music and the communal aspect of it when the finished project is presented.
So if you're an introvert composer like me, you enjoy that solitude, but at the same time it gets very lonely because you know that you want that music to eventually go out into the world. If you're an extrovert, as I think Bernstein was, then it's a very lonely process to have to go into that solitude to create the music, and they didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, but they showed that really effectively, I thought.
Pohl: I do want to point out for people that it's more of a personality study if you ask me, than it is about the music. It's about him and his wife, and his sexuality is a big part of the story, so I wanted to ask you about that for movie goers and viewers online who maybe enjoy biopics but are maybe a little leery of this one because they're not knowledgeable about classical music or don't particularly enjoy classical music. Is there still something here for a viewer like that?
Kernohan: I would hope so. It's hard for me to say because I do love classical music so much, and I think that whether you're familiar with the music or not, hopefully you will see the passion that he brought to it in the way it really was his life's mission to bring this music to the world.
He, the character, says in the movie, you know, I love people, I love being around people, and that was really clear as well. And of course, there was some frothiness with that because of his relationships and the time he lived in and how his sexuality had to be, you know, attenuated in various ways. So that was very poignant, and the way that they portrayed that was really interesting.
So, of course, the film centered on his relationship with his wife, Felicia, and it also touched on some of the relationships he had before and during that relationship. And the fact that he was, [it’s] slightly unclear whether he was gay or bisexual, but he had relationships with men and with women, and the way that his relationships with men was portrayed was, I thought, very poignant. They didn't spend a whole lot of time on it, and some people have criticized that. But the way it was shown, you know, very brief scenes, but without any dialog.
For example, he has a meeting with [musician] David Oppenheimer after they've had a relationship previously, but then they're both married to women and they barely say anything to each other. They just sort of look at each other and touch each other a little bit, and it's all done with the facial expressions, and you can just kind of see you know, the pain of it, but it's unspoken. It truly is the love that dare not speak its name, right? So, they couldn't say everything there was to say, but you could see that they were thinking of, thinking about it. It was very touching to me.
And there was one other moment where he's sitting with [composer] Aaron Copeland, and it's out in the country. They're sitting on a little tree swing, and Leonard Bernstein is holding one of his infant children, and he sits down next to Copeland and they're kind of looking at the baby, and to me, it was kind of saying this is what it might have been like in a different world where he could have been in a relationship with who he really wanted to be with, although also, he did love Felicia. So, it was a very rich portrait of a life, I think.
Pohl: One thing that struck me while watching the movie about a man like Leonard Bernstein and the music he was so famous for was the long stretches where you heard no music at all. Musical silence underneath really important stretches of dialog. To me, it made the dialog all the more powerful to not have a soundtrack playing underneath it.
Kernohan: It's really interesting, because I think the use of music was very intentionally done, when it was there and when it wasn't there. And for me as a musician, when there's music playing, it's like I almost have to pay attention to that, so I appreciate when there's silence so that I can focus on the sound that is there, because music just captures my brain in a way that it's hard to put it in the background for me.
Pohl: I think it's fair to say that the musical highlight of the film is a performance of Mahler's Resurrection, which is being praised for the preparation that Bradley Cooper put himself through to get ready for that. It seems to have been shot in one continuous shot. I've read that people who know what they're talking about say that he looks like he knows what he's doing in leading this performance. Did you see it that way?
Kernohan: I really did. I understand that he studied with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Bernstein was very mannered in his conducting. He had a very intensely physical style that some people might or might not like, but it seems to me that Bradley Cooper really captured that. I thought it was very powerful. I don't remember one moment where I was distracted by a conductor [who] wouldn't really do that.
Pohl: He seemed to capture the flying silver hair and the sweat leaving him, his body, and the physicality of that performance.
Kernohan: He really did, and of course, the absolute love and passion that he had for the music. And it's interesting, there is a video of the real performance of that Mahler Two, and they got so many of the details right. The physical setting, the costumes, the hairstyles of the musicians, the people in the choir and the people in the orchestra all the way down to the dresses that the solo singers were wearing, standing out in front of the orchestra. It was amazing to me. It was really well done.
Pohl: The new biopic of Leonard Bernstein's life is called Maestro. It's in theaters. It's available online starting this weekend. I've been talking with our music host, Linda Kernahan, about the film Maestro. Linda, thank you.
Kernohan: Thank you, Scott.
Pohl: For WKAR News, I'm Scott Pohl.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
