Another barbaric spouting here: Guess I won't see "Maestro" - am listening to MAHLER

[UTUSN]

Have spent the past 1-2 years anticipating the Napoleon and BERNSTEIN movies. Went to Teh Napoleon and was disappointed by the narrow focus, was impressed by the fantastic staging of the city scapes, battles, and costumes (is all that "cinematography"? ). Now have seen a dozen or more clips of Maestro and the lack of awards wins and have seen SPIELBERG and COOPER interacting and there is that same narrow focus on the marriage. I guess it's a fun twist for the wife to tell him he was going to end up "a tired old queen." The counterpart would be how Josephine at least danced, or perhaps did more, with the Russian tzar, big slap at Napoleon.

So today's kicker is MAHLER. I'm not Deep or Broad, am shallow (not COOPER "Shallow" ), saying it more nicerly am a Generalist, get the gist of something and pass my judgment and go on. So, BERNSTEIN for me was the communication of his dramatic conducting and his interpretations of the Standards of the most popular repetoire sounding *definitive" and his wonderful lectures. I always heard his verbal references to how highly he rated MAHLER, but purposely stayed COMPLETELY AWAY from MAHLER with my unfounded impression that he was some kind of atonal Modernist.

Now in the reviews of Maestro, there have been approving references to COOPER's conducting a significant swatch of MAHLER's Resurrection symphony. I still didn't bite until today, so decided to put it on in the background while I scraped out the bottom of the lawnmower. What I heard was first of all nothing atonal, which is a gigantic plus for me. But then, while stuff was all harmonious, there was no coherent melodic somethings. Like swatches of different fabrics. Just a mish mash of different climaxes, some string pluckings interspersed, and doubtlessly superb musicianship performances. I'm ignorantly guessing that anything else of MAHLER will just be more stitchings of many more swatches. I wasn't looking at Lenny, was scraping the lawnmower.

*** Now, I will bow my head should anybody unleash violent schooling on me about MAHLER. I care less about MAHLER now than I did before without *any* exposure. I don't care how sophisticated or difficult the technicalities of a composition are, only whether it is sweepingly melodic in a coherent whole with the climax being mainly at the proximity of the culmination.

*** As for Lenny, I don't know what would draw me to a biopic - the musical career and accomplishments, the sexual intricacies, the politics that got him labeled "limousine Liberal" or all of it. When I think about it, what has always and only marked him out for me were the dramatic conducting, lectures, and definitive interpretations - this last one being the main one, since my prime exposure was and continues to be my listening to the music of the Standards, not watching him conduct that much - seen a bit of conducting and you've fairly much seen it all. Did COOPER really need six years of being taught conducting to wave arms, hop around, and sweat?!1 - Another ignorant suspicion of mine here, I suspect an orchestra can play itself after some coordinating rehearsals, perhaps with earpiece metronomes.

As for COOPER, now with this added to the Shallow Star Is Born, he seems to be chasing Oscars based on vehicles that somebody else broke ground with, proven vehicles not his. And with SPIELBERG's remake of West Side Story, the two of them seem to be re-doing things that don't need to be re-done. At least SPIELBERG left the WSS music intact. What COOPER is lacking in his quest for an Oscar is putting something together that is his own unique vision.

[Ocelot II]

1. I liked it.

[UTUSN]

2. O.K. Fine with me!

[UTUSN]

3. Here's a more erudite exposition. (I didn't see it before my spouting. )

[mucifer]

16. Lenny and Felicia were civil rights activists. There was not one word about it in the film. That was so

disappointing. I didn't want a "white savior" movie. But, they could have at least acknowledged that they did work on civil rights.

[UTUSN]

17. As the movie's fans will tell us, it isn't a full biopic, just about the marriage and his Gay relationships.

[mucifer]

18. But, a sentence or two acknowledging it could open the door that he might not have been

quite so self absorbed.

I know his family loved the movie.

It's just my opinion. I wish they just briefly mentioned it somewhere.

[Voltaire2]

4. I thought Maestro was brilliant.

It was a cinematic treat to both the ears and the eyes. The pacing was intentionally frenetic, as was its subject, and the decision to view Bernstein from his wife's perspective brought a depth to the movie that was unexpected. For me it quite successfully evoked the post war New York era, the 'highbrow' view in contrast to Madmen's 'lowbrow' view, but the same level of integrity. What it was not intended to be was simply a 'biopic', and the opening magical-realism scene of his conducting debut with the philharmonic made that quite clear.

Also you are just wrong about Mahler.

[UTUSN]

12. I can live with being wrong about MAHLER.

[debm55]

5. I liked it too. And Cooper was great in his other films too. Especially the film where he does Ballroom Dancing with

Jennifer Lawerence. He was great in that. Sorry, Have a brain freeze and can't remember the title.

[UTUSN]

6. No worries: I'll accept brain freeze as being induced by COOPER!1

[Ocelot II]

7. The movie wasn't about conducting Mahler. It was mostly about Bernstein's personal life,

especially his fraught marriage and his gay relationships. It didn't even spend a lot of time on his performances as a conductor; he was also trying to make a name as a composer of music other than "theatre" music like West Side Story, his best-known work. Not liking Mahler isn't a very good reason for deciding not to see it, since it's not at all a movie about conducting Mahler. My main criticism is that it sometimes seemed kind of choppy and made some very large leaps in time that were a little confusing to me. Overall, though, I thought it was a very good presentation of aspects of the life of a cultural icon - circumstances that affected his art but that few people saw.

Also, Mahler can be very lyrical. He's not my very favorite composer but he has his moments:

[UTUSN]

11. Well, "conducting MAHLER" was a feature in a few reviews plus Lenny's many mentions of him.

And this MAHLER angle was about the only little hook left for me to entice me to see it. I get that the "fraught marriage and relationships" are mostly what the movie is about (what I said about the "narrow focus" ). I'm not interested in BERNSTEIN for the marriage or relationships. Or in Napoleon for his, either. And can hear MAHLER elsewhere.

My take is just mine and have no interest in changing it on this topic. And I'm not trying to convert anybody.

[Ocelot II]

13. As the assistant conductor of the NY Philharmonic, Bernstein got his big break

when the chief conductor, Bruno Walter, fell ill and Bernstein stepped in at the last minute to conduct a Mahler symphony, and got rave reviews. That's why the Mahler piece was featured at the beginning of the movie. But if you're not interested in either Bernstein or Mahler I suppose there's no reason for you to watch it.

[UTUSN]

15. I really knew about his spectacular debut, had zero info about what piece was in the debut.

Over decades the thought has crossed my mind, in a musing non-suspicious way, that Maestro WALTER's illness might have been arranged to stage the spectacular debut.

I've been starstruck with BERNSTEIN (I break the disrespect of calling him "Lenny", which he didn't like, sometimes) for 77 minus15 years, so I don't see how I can NOT be interested him. This is about the movie. It's the emphasis of this specific movie I'm talking about. I provided an extensive rationale for *my* opinion from the get-go and say, forsooth, that I'm not being irrational about it all. I, along with everybody else here, am not being right/wrong about whatever. Neither am I being unfriendly about it.

As for the MAHLER, it's a side issue, about my own non-exposure to his music in the face of those decades of hearing Lenny praise him to the skies.

[soldierant]

8. I think the term is

"production value" rather than "cinsmatography" but I could easily be wrong.

[UTUSN]

14. Only wrong about " 'cinsmatography' " but nothing to worry about.

[soldierant]

19. Oops. I never claimed to be able to type accurately

and aging is onlt making it worse.

[hatrack]

9. Re. Mahler - pick a symphony - Resurrection, 3rd, 5th, whatever - and listen to it five times

I don't mean have it on in the background, but really pay attention. Things will start to come together and make sense.

His symphonies are so big and change keys and directions so many times it take a while to get a handle on them. I'm still trying to make sense out of his 10th Symphony, and I've listened six or eight times to it.

FWIW, I'd suggest the 6th or 9th, but just my two cents' worth.

[UTUSN]

10. Thanks, but as I said, am not interested in the techical difficulties. Am 77 & not spending 5 times on it.

[TexasBushwhacker]

20. FWIW - Spielberg was originally set to direct Maestro

but when he watched "A Star Is Born" he told Bradley he should do it.

[UTUSN]

21. I had heard that. I guess when I admit my general ignorance, it gets pegged as *total* ignorance.

All the context I usually provide for some of my spoutings-off doesn't seem to allay the perception that I'm pulling everything I say out of thin air - that is, talking totally irresponsibly. I don't know what clip I saw of SPIELBERG and COOPER I saw, but they struck ME (my impression, not an On-High dictum) as giddy and frivolous. This vid/below is not what I saw, which was just a snippet.

SPIELBERG here says, "This is not a biographical Leonard BERNSTEIN stirt , it's an anatomy of a marriage and also a looking into yourself..." COOPER says that in his research, there was so much documentation as to who Lenny was, there was no need to do the biographical approach, which is why he zeroed in entirely on the marriage.

[UTUSN]

22. Duplicate of #21, Deleted

Last edited Mon Jan 29, 2024, 02:37 PM - Edit history (1)