This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.
- Nominated for 7 Oscars
- 25 wins & 180 nominations total
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- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOf the scene in which Leonard Bernstein conducts the London Symphony Orchestra at the Ely Cathedral in 1976, Bradley Cooper said, "That scene I was so worried about because we did it live... I was recorded live. I had to conduct them. And I spent six years learning how to conduct six minutes and 21 seconds of music. I was able to get the raw take where I just watched Leonard Bernstein [conduct] at Ely Cathedral... And so I had that to study."
- GoofsThe day after Bernstein makes his wildly successful debut with the N.Y. Philharmonic in November of 1943, the story is carried on the front page of the N.Y. Times. One of his friends notes that the front page also includes a headline reading "Hitler Bombs Poland." Germany had bombed and conquered Poland in September, 1939, so the country had already been under German occupation for over four years at the time of Bernstein's debut concert.
- Quotes
Leonard Bernstein: Who abandoned Snoopy in the vestibule?
- ConnectionsFeatured in Chris Plante: The Right Squad: Episode #1.70 (2023)
Featured review
The Best Intensions. But Not the Best Result.
I had hoped to enjoy 'Maestro'. It is a film for adult audiences, featuring actors I appreciate (Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan) and directed by that same Bradley Cooper. It deals with a true American Icon (composer / conductor Leonard Bernstein) and deals with the 'man' inside that icon. In this time of Holiday Blockbusters it promised to appeal to an audience like me. And, in fact, it did. The theatre was two-thirds full; a first-time-since-the-Pandemic at this small art house.
The film, however, is something of a mess. It is confused about the type of picture it wants to be. In its first thirty minutes it takes on a flight-of-fancy aura; it is as though Bernstein and his soon to be wife are in a musical-comedy with the background stage settings changing as if by magic. The film's first half is in black and white; I imagine a testament to The Forties and early Fifties (the time period covered by those scenes) but, in fact, lots of color-films were made at that time.
Leonard Bernstein was bisexual. And that bisexuality is, in fact, revealed, but revealed in a coy, teasing, easy-to-misunderstand way. And then there is the background music, all of which was composed by Bernstein, but not all of which fits the scene it backgrounds. The selection from his 'West Side Story' is the most emblematic of this. But not the only example.
For me, the story belongs to Bernstein's wife Felicia (played by Mulligan). She is the wife of a bisexual man; a fact that is problematic enough. But he is a man who is always center-stage, and for whom she gave up a promising career to raise their children, support her husband, and who suffers in silence until she can suffer silently no longer. But even here (and though Mulligan has long been a favorite of mine), there is a smile on her character that (a) rings insincere and (b) is repeated so often that I wanted to scream, No more. But, sadly, there is more; the most cinematic, most hard-to-believe smile coming, in a hard-to believe scene, in London's Westminster Cathedral.
Finally there is the finale. I will give nothing away when I say that the film ends one scene too late, it is one scene too long. A scene in which Bernstein instructs a young orchestra conductor would be as appropriate an ending as one could hope for.
But then .....
The film, however, is something of a mess. It is confused about the type of picture it wants to be. In its first thirty minutes it takes on a flight-of-fancy aura; it is as though Bernstein and his soon to be wife are in a musical-comedy with the background stage settings changing as if by magic. The film's first half is in black and white; I imagine a testament to The Forties and early Fifties (the time period covered by those scenes) but, in fact, lots of color-films were made at that time.
Leonard Bernstein was bisexual. And that bisexuality is, in fact, revealed, but revealed in a coy, teasing, easy-to-misunderstand way. And then there is the background music, all of which was composed by Bernstein, but not all of which fits the scene it backgrounds. The selection from his 'West Side Story' is the most emblematic of this. But not the only example.
For me, the story belongs to Bernstein's wife Felicia (played by Mulligan). She is the wife of a bisexual man; a fact that is problematic enough. But he is a man who is always center-stage, and for whom she gave up a promising career to raise their children, support her husband, and who suffers in silence until she can suffer silently no longer. But even here (and though Mulligan has long been a favorite of mine), there is a smile on her character that (a) rings insincere and (b) is repeated so often that I wanted to scream, No more. But, sadly, there is more; the most cinematic, most hard-to-believe smile coming, in a hard-to believe scene, in London's Westminster Cathedral.
Finally there is the finale. I will give nothing away when I say that the film ends one scene too late, it is one scene too long. A scene in which Bernstein instructs a young orchestra conductor would be as appropriate an ending as one could hope for.
But then .....
helpful•8417
- levybob
- Dec 4, 2023
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Details
- Release date
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- Also known as
- Rybernia
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $80,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $383,532
- Runtime2 hours 9 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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