Maestro: The Memorable and the Missing

Let me start with what I really liked about Maestro, the biopic about Leonard Bernstein that went up a few days ago on Netflix, after opening in theaters in November.

Bradley Cooper's performance as Bernstein was tour-de-force, an incandescent, stunning rendition of how music inhabited, animated, catapulted the composer and even more so the conductor.  I've never seen anything quite like it on the screen.  Memorable is really too weak a word to describe it.

But here's what was missing for me:  There was no mention of Bernstein's 1967 CBS special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution.  That TV program was a breakthrough in television and in popular cultural history.  The Beatles didn't need Bernstein to tell us how great and original they were.  Everyone with any ears worth having knew that already.  Same for Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones. The Byrds, The Left Banke, Janis Ian, and other recording artists Bernstein featured on the program.  We already knew them, too.  And if we had any knowledge and appreciation of classical music, we already had come to the conclusion that this kind of rock and folk rock music in some ways exceeded classical music as pathways to our hearts and souls.  And would continue to do so into the future. But, Bernstein's CBS special was a welcome and crucially important signal anyway.  It broadcast a statement that still feels fresh today: music does not need to be orchestral and written in the past to be eternal.

And yet there was no mention of this at all in the movie.  All the more surprising given that David Oppenheim, prominently featured in Maestro as one of Bernstein's male lovers, co-wrote Inside Pop with Bernstein and was its producer.

And that's not all.  West Side Story is recognized as one of the greatest musicals of the 20th century.  That one musical -- because of its lyrics as well as its music -- probably has had more impact on the world than most of Rodgers and Hammerstein's wonderful musicals put together.  You hear some of the instrumental riffs from West Side Story in the background at one point in Maestro, and the famous interview with Bernstein and his wife Felicia on Edward R. Murrow's Person to Person is portrayed in the movie with a brief mention of West Side Story and Stephen Sondheim (Sondheim was not mentioned nor was the name of the musical in the actual 1955 interview).  But that's it for Sondheim in Maestro.  No short scene of him writing the lyrics or discussing the words put to music in West Side Story with Bernstein. Sondheim is thanked by the producers of Maestro in the credits but has nearly zero presence in the movie. Why was that?

The movie is somewhat controversial in its depiction of Bernstein's bisexuality.  He is depicted as genuinely loving his wife, passionately kissing her as he rushes offstage after his tempestuous conducting, and siring their children.  But he also flirts with men all the time, seductively massages David Oppenheim's foot, and is seen in bed with a male lover at the beginning of the movie.  Other than the fact that he had children, who knows if all of those interactions were an accurate portrayal of Bernstein's sexuality, if he was equally at home with either gender in bed, and if not, which one had greater carnal appeal.  So I'll confine myself to saying the whole gamut was very well acted in the movie.

And I'll hope to someday see another biopic of Bernstein that explores and presents a fuller tableau of this genius's extraordinary contribution to the world.

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Limitless TV 1.2: Genghis Khan Gene

Limitless was a fine movie, released in 2011, starring Bradley Cooper as a guy whose intelligence is augmented to genius+ level by a drug NZT.   The movie was fast, funny, serious, and mainly featured Cooper's character Eddie Morra using his enhanced intellect to best a mobster, get back the love of his life, and turn the tables on a brilliant corporate exec played by Robert De Niro.

Limitless the television series, which debuted on CBS last week, shows signs in its first two episodes of being even better.  First and foremost, the series tells the story of Brian Finch, who also takes NZT, and his work with FBI, in particular with Agent Rebecca Harris, played by Dexter's Jennifer Carpenter.   The pace of the series is also fast and funny - Brian puts together a video compilation to help solve a crime, and puts in a little background music, because it's "cooler" - and takes on some cutting-edge issues, just the other side of the real into the realm science fiction (which makes sense, given that NZT is itself science fiction).   The story in episode 1.2, for example, features a virus designed to target descendants of Genghis Kahn, a prolific breeder.

But what makes this television series really notable is the way it integrates the movie.  The story of Eddie Morra - still played by Bradley Cooper, itself a real coup for television - indeed picks up on TV right where it concluded in the movie, with Morra a US Senator from the state of New York.   He supplies Brian with an injection that makes Brian immune to the destructive physical consequences of longterm NZT use, and proceeds to use that to run Brian.  But Morra's ultimate agenda is not yet clear in the TV series - which adds a layer of suspense and tension above the difficulties Brian has with his family and the FBI.

I can't recall a spinoff or sequel or remake ever set up or rolled out like this, and that alone would make me want to see how all of this develops.  But Limitless the TV series on its own is first-class viewing, and I'll be back with reviews throughout the season.  (Thanks to my Facebook friend Cie McCullough for calling my attention to the series.)

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