After the success of his first production, A Star Is Born (A star Is Born), Bradley Cooper is back with Maestro (VF), a film also with a strong musical content. And for good reason: it is a biography of the spouses Leonard Bernstein, legendary composer and conductor, and Felicia Montealegre, very well-known Broadway actress in the 1940s and 1950s. Co-written, directed, produced and performed by Cooper, Maestro is the fruit of a long gestation. During a talk held in Los Angeles and at which The duty was invited, the filmmaker and actress Carey Mulligan returned to this adventure which has occupied them since 2018.
For the record, Leonard Bernstein is the composer of the musical show West Side Story, adapted twice for cinema, most recently by Steven Spielberg. He is the author of operas, film scores… From 1958 to 1969, he was the very influential musical director of the New York Philharmonic. However, when they fell in love with each other in 1946, Felicia Montealegre was the more famous of the two.
“Through my research, I discovered this wonderful duo: Leonard and Felicia, their relationship […] They were two such powerful personalities! And they were inseparable. People always said “Lenny and Felicia” when talking about them, never “Lenny and his wife”. It was clear that they had both made a deep impression on anyone who had been around them,” explains Bradley Cooper, who took over the project in late 2017.
Initially, Martin Scorsese was to direct the film, but he gave it up in order to devote himself to The Irishman (The Irishman). Steven Spielberg considered taking over and giving the title role to Bradley Cooper, but after a private screening of A Star Is Bornhe instead asked the actor-filmmaker to make Maestro his second achievement. Scorsese and Spielberg remained as producers.
Screenwriter of Spotlight (Spotlight. Special edition), Oscar for best screenplay and film, Josh Singer was associated with Maestro for these earlier versions focused more on Leonard Bernstein.
“I asked Josh if he wanted to explore this new narrative avenue with me, because it had become in my mind a film about marriage,” Cooper says.
Singer agreed. To the co-writers, the couple’s children granted full access, from official archives to boxes of personal memories.
The nuclear factor
In addition to this change in narrative focus, one of Cooper’s first decisions was to offer the role of Felicia to Carey Mulligan. Recognized for her immense talent thanks to Shame (Shame) or even to Inside Llewyn Davis (Being Llewyn Davis), the actress had not yet even shone in the extraordinary Promising Young Woman (A young woman full of promise).
“Bradley approached me in 2018,” she recalls. In 2019, we participated in the takeover of Candid [opérette composée par Bernstein en 1956], in Philadelphia. »
This, under the direction of conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, technical advisor to Bradley Cooper on Maestro.
“Every time I was in LA, I would go to Bradley’s house and we would read a new version of the script,” continues the actress.
No wonder the bond between Cooper and Mulligan is palpable in the film: they nourished it for years, like their performances.
“I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to find Lenny’s voice,” confides the actor. But I have an incredible coach linguistics, Tim Monich, with whom I have collaborated since American Sniper [Tireur d’élite américain]. I was also able to count on Kazu Hiro, for the design of the makeup and prosthetics. We did tests for years to refine Lenny’s look. »
Asked about the approach of the man who was both her director and her acting partner, Carey Mulligan replies:
“Bradley directed me not through words, but through the way he played Lenny, which in turn was partly dependent on the way I played Felicia. Because Bradley worked so hard to become Lenny, once filming came around, he could allow himself to go with his instincts. Our collaboration was therefore really at the level of our performances. »
“Carey was the nuclear factor of the project,” intervenes Bradley Cooper. In A Star Is Bornit was [Lady] Gaga and her voice. This time it was Carey and Leonard’s music. I had no right to screw up. »
While he was designing MaestroBradley Cooper collaborated, as an actor, with prestigious filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson, in Licorice Pizza (Dream big), and Guillermo del Toro, in Nightmare Alley (Nightmare Alley).
“I learned a lot from them. Paul, for example, allowed me to witness the different stages of pre-production so that I could see how he prepares. Guillermo, he taught me the workings and potential of the Technocrane. »
In fact, this telescopic crane, with almost infinite possibilities of movement, saved Cooper towards the end of the filming of Maestro. Indeed, during the dramatic apotheosis, the reconstruction of a legendary concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted at Ely Cathedral, nothing worked: Cooper was unable to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra to his satisfaction despite almost six years spent rehearsing the relevant Mahler work.
Early the next morning, he returned to the scene, alone, and had the idea of radically changing his staging and filming this passage, yes, at the Technocrane in a single sequence shot. The result ? A moment of grandiose cinema.
“By doing this, rather than cutting the sequence, Bradley deliberately deprived himself of any form of exit. He forced himself to conduct the orchestra continuously for the entire six minutes of the scene,” notes Carey Mulligan during a subsequent exclusive roundtable.
Truly inseparable
During the same interview, the actress returns to Leonard Bernstein’s bisexuality and the openness shown by Felicia Montealegre towards it. Aware of the matter from their first meeting, Felicia showed total acceptance… until she felt eclipsed by one of Leonard’s lovers.
“We see it during the premiere of mass [théâtre musical de Leonard Bernstein créé en 1971]. When Lenny takes Tommy’s hand [Gideon Glick]something breaks, because, until then, it had always been her hand that Lenny took,” summarizes Carey Mulligan.
Regarding this famous premiere which, in the film, constitutes a dissonant movement in the marital symphony, the costume designer, Mark Bridges, gives a revealing anecdote during another conference.
“I pointed out to Jamie [Bernstein, la fille aînée du couple] that there were only two photos of his mother that evening. And she doesn’t look happy on either one. Jamie said, “Not happy, no.” Just look at what she chose to wear for this premiere of her husband’s creation [une robe marine sobre et un brin funéraire] to understand where she is in her life at this precise moment. »
To continue Carey Mulligan:
“I’ve read period reviews of Felicia’s performances, some of them harsh… She was a good actress, but she didn’t have, in her field, the genius of Lenny. He had a gift like one comes across once in a generation, and again […] When you share your life with someone like that without having this extraordinary level of talent yourself, it must be difficult sometimes. Felicia was an actress, she painted, but gradually she made Lenny her art. It became her own masterpiece. And suddenly, for Lenny to seek elsewhere this comfort and this support that until then she had been the only one to provide him, it was a betrayal. »
However, the separation that followed did not last, nor did the lover, because “Lenny and Felicia” were indeed inseparable.
“It was such an unorthodox relationship; a mysterious, very open, funny, melancholic relationship… That’s really what convinced me to make the film,” concludes Bradley Cooper.
Faced with the result, we can only agree with him.
The film Maestro released in theaters on 1er December then on Netflix on December 20. François Lévesque was in Los Angeles at the invitation of Netflix.