Two geniuses, but sadly only one good film

Napoleon Ridley Scott ***   Maestro Bradley Cooper*****

Watch a trainee teacher give an early lesson. The career of Napoleon, perhaps. They try to throw everything in. Tick all the boxes-because it was interesting, because the trainer’s watching, and because they are caught in that agonising cleft between showing off how much they know, and not wanting to put a foot wrong. So it is with Ridley Scott‘s Napoleon, which attempts to cover the entire life of that famous man from his early days as a junior officer to a failed genius on St Helena. Twenty six years of the most tumultuous years of human history? No problem, bring it on! Toulouse. Plots in Paris. Some bird called Josephine, who shows up intermittently to look into Boney’s eyes. The Coup of Brumaire. Imperial Coronation. Austerlitz. Where Napoleon gives orders, cannons boom and extras fall in thousands, We never find out why those particular orders he gave were better than anyone else’s. No matter, let’s get on. Tilsit. That tall blonde bloke is the Czar of Russia. Or maybe the Tsar. Later on he chats up Josephine. Briefly. On to Waterloo, where, ironically, we learn more about why Wellington was a good general than we ever do about the Boy from Ajaccio. Brilliantly filmed, crafted and acted. . Sorry, but there’s just far too much much in this film to ever let it rise above the illustrations for a history book. [1]

Leonard Bernstein was a genius too. And, by focussing very tightly on his relationship to his wife Felicia Montealegre, Bradley Cooper (writer, director, lead actor) lets the learning points (like how absolutely, mind-blowingly, breathtakingly good Bernstein was at music) just drip off the lesson plan of Maestro. Like most geniuses, Bernstein could make life excruciatingly hard for the loved ones around him. We wonder how much of his long suffering wife’s final illness was due to his many infidelities, mostly of the male kind. Leonard Bernstein was extremely good at being Leonard Bernstein; but his redemption comes conducting the Resurrection Symphony in Ely Cathedral, where his ecstatic, total immersion Mahler’s genius is manifest. But for us. the real privilege was a glimpse of true world leaders at the very top of their profession, which ordinary mortals are rarely vouchsafed. Bernstein is teaching a conducting class; and in a single comment shows a nervous ingenue exactly the right point in the bar at which to lead his orchestra to the next passage. The tiny turning point between awful failure and true success. In must be like that in the studios of Steven Spielburg and Martin Scorsese. From the look of Maestro, Bradley Cooper is getting set to join them.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_(2023_film)

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(2023_film)

#ridley scott #napoleon #bradley cooper #maestro #leonard bernstein #history #film