‘Maestro’ review: Dir. Bradley Cooper (2023)
thehollywoodnews.comThe life of Leonard Bernstein would be a daunting prospect for any filmmaker with the ambition to commit to screen. The larger-than-life American composer and conductor was a man with a deservedly renowned talent, who put his fame to good use through humanitarian work in between conducting great masterworks and composing his very own for orchestras, stage and screen.
He lived large and loved many, and to condense all his life, his triumphs, his relationships and his complexities is no easy feat. Martin Scorsese considered it, as did Steven Spielberg, but both ultimately passed, all the while staying on as producers for the final piece, which has come courtesy of director and star Bradley Cooper.
The man who formerly crashed weddings and dealt with a mighty hangover has had something of a reawakening as a performer across the last 10-15 years of his career, becoming a more dramatically inclined actor, before then taking the leap into feature filmmaking with his 2018 version of A Star Is Born.
With an emotional drive and tactile style of filmmaking, Cooper seemed to emerge fully formed as a filmmaker with a keen grasp of the craft, as well as turning in one hell fo a performance in his directorial debut.
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