Five years after his triumphant A Star is Born world premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Bradley Cooper is back on the Lido with Maestro. Except, the director and star is only here in spirit owing to the SAG-AFTRA strike. That didn’t stop the film that recounts the story of legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) and his 25-year marriage to Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan) from being warmly greeted with nearly 10 minutes of a salute during its Sala Grande screening.
At the close of the film this evening, members of Bernstein’s family kept the beat going:
The Bernstein family conducted the end credits of ‘Maestro’ at #Venezia80 pic.twitter.com/1NtnbJ6tdh
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) September 2, 2023
Maestro is Cooper’s directorial follow-up to A Star Is Born, centering on Bernstein’s decades-long relationship with his wife, Felicia, who is played by Carey Mulligan.
Set to debut on Netflix after the Venice and New York Film Festival premieres, Maestro has faced some controversy over prosthetics, something which was addressed by make up artist Kazu Hiro at the film’s Venice press conference today.
In his review, Deadline’s Pete Hammond called Maestro “a complex story of a man who can’t quite define the intersection of his art and personal life but seems to thrive on the ambiguity, a bigger than life and towering personality not at all sugar coated in this compelling take.”