Maestro (Movie)

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      Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ Won’t Let Leonard Bernstein Fail

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      Bradley Cooper’s movie has an unrelenting focus on Bernstein’s marriage. What’s missing are his struggles as a musician.Three society women in cocktail dresses stare up at the camera, each with her right fist raised in the Black Panther salute. The cover line: “Free Leonard Bernstein!”This was New York Magazine’s issue of June 8, 1970, which led with Tom Wolfe’s gleeful 25,000-word evisceration of a party that had been held at Bernstein’s Park Avenue apartment that January. The purpose was to raise awareness of — and money for — the 21 Panthers in jail awaiting trial on charges of planning political violence.Their incarceration had become a cause célèbre among a certain set of well-off white liberals, of whom Bernstein and his wife, Felicia — the subjects of “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s movie about their troubled marriage, now streaming — were prime examples.The backlash to the party’s “elegant slumming,” as The New York Times put it in an editorial, was swift and brutal. Wolfe’s story, months later, was only the most expansive piece of anti-Bernstein criticism. Jewish groups incensed at some of the Panthers’ positions picketed his apartment building and booed him when he led the New York Philharmonic. “Radical Chic,” as the article was titled inside the magazine, was one of the loudest, bitterest scandals Bernstein ever experienced.It is also one of the many things that go unmentioned in “Maestro,” a depiction of a peerlessly multifaceted musician who was among the great cultural personalities of the 20th century. Bernstein (1918-90) was a composer, conductor, arranger, pianist, best-selling author and TV educator to millions. It can be hard today to imagine a classical musician being a glamorous mainstream celebrity, but that was Lenny. His tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic in the 1960s — which began as his “West Side Story” star was gleaming — is still considered the orchestra’s modern heyday.Absolutely digging: Donald Lee Cox, the field marshal of the Black Panther Party, speaking at the party at Leonard and Felicia Bernstein’s Park Avenue apartment in 1970.Associated PressEvery biopic is a selective version of a life, and Bernstein’s wide-ranging and eventful life is more in need of selectivity than most. But “Maestro” is unblinkingly focused on Leonard and Felicia’s marriage, its ups and downs caused in large part by his romantic desires toward men.For Cooper, Bernstein’s consistent struggle in his marriage is countered by just-as-consistent success in his art and career. The movie bursts open with the 25-year-old Lenny’s triumphant, last-minute debut with the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Broadcast nationally over the radio, it jump-started a half-century of renown.From there, it’s a parade of acclaim: the bright-toned early ballets and musicals, the stirring final chorus of “Candide,” a soul-shaking performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony, packed parties (not the political ones), broadcast interviews.There are some flies in the ointment. Bernstein long grumbled that he wished he could compose when all the world wanted was more of his conducting, and “West Side Story” burdened him as he sought fame for his more “serious” music. The film briefly alludes to this, with Bernstein’s manager trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of podium work. But on the whole, “Maestro” shows Bernstein the artist as perfectly satisfied (and perfectly acclaimed), while Bernstein the man is fatally flawed.His relationships with men after his marriage are portrayed as more glancing and casual than they were in reality. And his separation from Felicia in 1976 and ’77, when he tried to live openly as gay, is treated in “Maestro” as a selfish mistake. The most indelible showcase for Bernstein’s sexuality in the film is a late-in-life, almost Mephistophelean dance party — as sweaty as his calisthenic conducting, bathed in lurid red light — as he seduces a student.There’s lots of the man’s defects in “Maestro”; the artist’s are nowhere to be found. Missing entirely is “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” his flop of a musical with Alan Jay Lerner that closed after seven performances on Broadway in 1976. And missing are his three grimly unsuccessful symphonies, the kind of high-minded music he wanted to be remembered for instead of “On the Town.”Cooper-as-Bernstein conducting, with the singers Isabel Leonard, left, and Rosa Feola. Jason McDonald/NetflixBernstein plays a bit of it on the piano at the beginning of the film, but otherwise missing, too, is “A Quiet Place,” the serious opera he longed to write his whole career — and which some 40 years later is still being futzed with by his estate to try and make it work onstage. While a scene in “Maestro” is set at the premiere of his “Mass,” which helped open the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1971, we aren’t made aware of its mixed reception.And from that smash debut at Carnegie on, the film treats Bernstein as unimpeachable on the podium. But though he is today widely revered as a conductor of the music of others, that was hardly a universal opinion at the time. A 1967 Times review by Harold Schonberg, a longtime Bernstein skeptic, describes “an overblown and rather vulgar performance” of Mahler’s Second: “He took a terribly slow tempo, and that made his heavy-handed expressive devices — those pauses! those rubatos! — all but wrapped up in comic-strip balloons: Pow! Wham! Sigh!”But no one in “Maestro” nay-says Bernstein’s music making. This artificially heightens the contrast of his career with his marriage, distorting the viewer’s sense of him and his legacy. As an admirer of Bernstein’s work, warts and all, I was disappointed to find his life as an artist depicted as less complex — and less interesting — than his life as a husband.Cooper doesn’t pay much attention to Bernstein’s personal stumbles, either, if they don’t relate to the marriage. Most glaring is the “Radical Chic” affair, in which his critics seized on the contrast between Upper East Side progressivism and open radicalism, with Bernstein being quoted in The Times (unfairly, he said) as answering a Panther’s call to seize the means of production with “I dig absolutely.”It would have been an intriguing episode to include in “Maestro” since both Bernsteins were implicated in the blowback, which served to unite them in fiasco. But that would have been jarring because it’s so unlike the scenes preferred by Cooper, in which Lenny is the perpetrator and Felicia the victim. Omitting the whole scandal contributes to the film’s flattening not just of Bernstein’s life but also of Felicia’s, which was full outside the marriage, too. (She was active in the American Civil Liberties Union, the civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War.)“Radical Chic” was big news. But what I missed most in “Maestro” was a minor bit of Bernstein: the 1952 one-act “Trouble in Tahiti,” a deceptively peppy, stealthily devastating piece about a prosperous, unhappily married suburban couple.This was an autobiographically charged work; the main characters were originally named Sam and Jennie, the names of Bernstein’s parents, who fought bitterly through his childhood. (The wife’s was eventually changed to the more singable Dinah, the name of Bernstein’s paternal grandmother.)But the movie presents Bernstein as a fully formed genius, without an evident childhood or parents beyond a passing mention of his father’s cruelty. It would have made sense for Sam and Jennie to have been more present in “Maestro,” if only to offer some context for Bernstein’s own difficult marriage. The sense of history repeating itself might have relieved some of Cooper’s insistence on Bernstein and his sexuality bearing sole responsibility for his problems with Felicia.All these omissions lead to a rigid, either-or, black-and-white atmosphere. And for all Cooper’s well-practiced facsimiles of Bernstein’s galvanizing, perspiring, emotionally all-in style on the podium, that gives the film a stilted, brittle quality at its core. More

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      What to Know About ‘Maestro’: A Guide to Bradley Cooper’s Bernstein Biopic

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      Now on Netflix, the movie tracks the life of the American conductor and composer and his wife, the actress Felicia Montealegre, played by Carey Mulligan.Pop quiz: Who wrote the score for Bradley Cooper’s new Leonard Bernstein biopic, “Maestro”?Trick question: Bernstein. But you might not realize it, or learn of some of his more lasting accomplishments (“West Side Story” erasure!), even after watching the entire film, which focuses on the personal life of the prodigiously talented musician.Which is to say, the film — which Cooper directed and starred in, and which is now streaming on Netflix — does not hand-hold. It assumes some basic familiarity with one of America’s most storied conductors and composers. Here’s a guide to help you get up to speed.His careerWhat is Bernstein best known for?One of the rare virtuosos to compose for musical theater, write classical music and conduct august bodies like the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein is probably best remembered as the composer of the 1957 musical “West Side Story.”The Manhattan-set tale of urban gang warfare in New York City, based on “Romeo & Juliet,” includes standards like “Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty” and the aching, wistful “Maria.” The classic show, a collaboration with Arthur Laurents, who wrote the book, and Stephen Sondheim, who penned the lyrics, won two Tony Awards in its original incarnation.In his day, Bernstein was known first and foremost as an animated, passionate conductor. After his spectacular fill-in debut at the Philharmonic at age 25 in 1943 — on just a few hours’ notice, because the scheduled guest conductor fell ill — Bernstein would be affiliated with the orchestra for four decades and conduct symphonies around the world.He also wrote classical music, including three symphonies, “Jeremiah,” “The Age of Anxiety” and “Kaddish,” and made the classical realm accessible to ordinary Americans through his Young People’s Concerts. Those televised lectures, which ran on CBS for 14 years, covered a broad range of subjects including humor in music, and the composers Gustav Mahler and Igor Stravinsky.What is Tanglewood?Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its training academy in the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts, is where Bernstein studied with Serge Koussevitzky, then the director of the ensemble. The two met in 1940, when Koussevitzky selected a 22-year-old Bernstein as one of three inaugural conducting fellows for the Berkshire Music Center, now known as the Tanglewood Music Center.Bernstein went on to teach and perform there nearly every summer for 50 years, becoming the head of orchestral conducting at Tanglewood after Koussevitzky died in 1951. In 1990, Bernstein led the final performance of his life there — a gripping account of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.How much of the film’s score is Bernstein’s music?That cue you hear when Bernstein finds out he’ll be making his conducting debut at the New York Philharmonic? That’s from “On the Waterfront,” the 1954 Marlon Brando drama for which Bernstein wrote the music. That spiky, horn-filled composition that signals tension when Bernstein and a male lover arrive at the family’s Connecticut home? That’s the prologue from “West Side Story.”In fact, most of the music you hear was written by Bernstein. (Also see if you can spot classical excerpts from his ballets “Facsimile” and “Fancy Free,” his opera “A Quiet Place,” and parts of his second and third symphonies.)His personal lifeWas Bernstein gay or bisexual?Though he was married to his wife, the actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), for 26 years, he had numerous relationships — with both men and women — before and during their marriage, and after her death in 1978.The film focuses on two of them — his dalliance with the clarinetist David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), whose bottom Bernstein slaps at the beginning of the film, and the musician Tom Cothran (Gideon Glick), whom he steals kisses with at a party and brings to his Connecticut home.What was society’s attitude toward gay people at the time?Anti-gay prejudice was rampant in America in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Lavender Scare — a fear that homosexual people had infiltrated the federal government and were a threat to national security — led to the dismissal of gay and lesbian employees, and those assumed to be, en masse. Gay, lesbian and transgender people — particularly public figures — faced intense pressure to conceal their identities, and Bernstein worried that the public revelation of his sexual orientation would hurt his conducting prospects.Did Montealegre know Bernstein was gay or bisexual when she married him?Yes, according to a letter she wrote to him the year after they were married, which the couple’s children discovered after her death. “You are a homosexual and may never change,” she wrote, adding later, “I am willing to accept you as you are, without being a martyr.” She went on to tell him, “Let’s try and see what happens if you are free to do as you like, but without guilt and confession.”Was Bernstein open about his affairs with men?At first, he was discreet, heeding Montealegre’s request to not embarrass her publicly. But, as “Maestro” shows, he became “sloppy” later or, rather, decided that he no longer wanted to hide what he viewed as a fundamental part of himself amid society’s changing attitudes.In 1976, he briefly left Montealegre to live openly with his boyfriend, Cothran, though he returned to her a year later when she learned she had lung cancer and cared for her until she died at age 56.What did Bernstein say about his sexuality?Nothing, at least, publicly. But privately, he suffered through years of therapy, apparently in the hope that he could be “cured” of his attraction to men. That desire lasted a lifetime: “I have been engaged in an imaginary life with Felicia,” he wrote in a letter to his sister, Shirley, from Israel in 1950, “having her by my side on the beach as a shockingly beautiful Yemenite boy passes.”Did Bernstein love his wife?Bernstein was “a gay man who got married,” his “West Side Story” collaborator Arthur Laurents once said in response to the assumption that Bernstein, who had three children with Montealegre, was bisexual. “He wasn’t conflicted about his sexual orientation at all. He was just gay.”But what is clear, from their children’s memories and from Bernstein’s own letters, is that he and Montealegre had an abiding affection for one another, and that their relationship was built on tenderness and mutual respect.“Bernstein absolutely loved her — there was no question about that,” Paul R. Laird, the author of “Leonard Bernstein,” a 2018 biography, recently told Time magazine. “It was as sincere a marriage as you’re going to get between a male homosexual and a woman at a time when a lot of male homosexuals married women.”Bernstein’s oldest daughter, Jamie, has spoken about her parents’ friendship. “They were really great friends, and probably that counts for the most in the long run, that they could still make each other laugh,” she said in a 1997 PBS interview.How did Bernstein die?He had received an emphysema diagnosis in his mid-20s — he would struggle with addiction to cigarettes and alcohol for most of his life — and died on Oct. 14, 1990, at 72, of a heart attack caused by lung failure.He was often depressed in his later years, intimidated that he would be best remembered as a conductor, resigned to the fact that he could never live up to the success of “West Side Story,” and guilty about his wife’s death from cancer, which he held himself responsible for. More

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      ‘Maestro’ and the Fake Nose Hall of Fame

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      “Maestro” isn’t the first time a supersize sniffer set off a whiff of controversy. Here’s a look at the most notable schnozzes onscreen.In August, the first trailer for “Maestro,” a biopic of Leonard Bernstein, the composer of “West Side Story” and so much more, set off a backlash almost immediately: Bradley Cooper was wearing a prosthetic nose for the title role.Critics on social media accused the star, who is also the director, of playing into an antisemitic trope with the Size XL prosthesis — and asked whether someone who is Jewish would have been more sensitive about makeup choicesWhile Cooper and Netflix, where “Maestro” will begin streaming on Wednesday, declined to comment. In a statement at the time, Bernstein’s three children, who had been working with Cooper on the film, came to the actor’s defense, noting in a series of posts on X, “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose.” (The family declined to offer additional comment.)It’s hardly the first time an oversize septum has made an onscreen appearance or courted controversy. Here are 12 of the most memorable fake noses in cinematic history, sorted by size from dainty 🥸 to elephantine 🥸🥸🥸🥸🥸.Orson Welles, ‘Touch of Evil’🥸Universal PicturesLike Edmond Rostand’s poet and swordsman, Cyrano de Bergerac, Orson Welles was obsessed with his nose. (He believed his was too small; it was, of course, completely normal.) But instead of channeling his fixation into a healthy pursuit like, say, helping another man win the affections of his own beloved, he sported dozens of fakes over his career. One of the largest was the pugnacious pair of nostrils he wore as the corrupt police captain Hank Quinlan in the 1958 murder mystery “Touch of Evil.”Nicole Kidman, ‘The Hours’🥸Clive Hoote/Paramount PicturesNicole Kidman may have delivered a stirring performance as Virginia Woolf in “The Hours” (2002), but Denzel Washington joked that it was the prosthetic beak she wore that won her the best actress Academy Award. (“The Oscar goes to, by a nose, Nicole Kidman,” he joked when announcing her win.) Kidman wore a fresh one each day on set, though she told The Associated Press that she hung on to a silver one she was given when shooting wrapped.Ralph Fiennes, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’🥸Warner Bros.Is that thing even functional? Probably not; snakes don’t have noses — just nostrils — and smell with their forked tongues. We wouldn’t be surprised if J.K. Rowling’s reptilian baddie in this 2011 franchise finale had one of those, too. But at least we may finally have an answer as to what Voldemort’s unnaturally long fingers are good for.: Nose-picking.Meryl Streep, ‘The Iron Lady’🥸Alex Bailey/Weinstein CompanyLike Kidman, Meryl Streep rode the prosthetic nose she donned to play the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd’s 2011 biopic to an Oscar win (her third). But this time, the transformation’s genius was in its subtlety — when the first photos of Streep on set were released, the press made nary a peep about the nose.Laurence Olivier, ‘Richard III’ 🥸🥸Laurence Olivier as Richard IIILondon Film ProductionsUnlike Welles, Laurence Olivier didn’t habitually don a fake nose for his roles because of a perceived insecurity about the size of his own; rather, it was just one of the suite of theatrical accessories, including masks and wigs, that he, and many other actors, used transform into various characters. In “Richard III” (1955), which Olivier also directed, his character’s nose is, as one blogger put it, “majestically prominent.”Rudolph, ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’🥸🥸Rankin/Bass Productions and NBCWith a workshop of Santa’s elves nearby in this 1964 special, the best Rudolph’s dad, Donner, could do to help his son fit in at school was make a fake nose from mud? He won’t be winning any father-of-the-year awards for that effort.Margaret Hamilton, ‘The Wizard of Oz’🥸🥸🥸MGMMargaret Hamilton came by some of the goods to play the Wicked Witch of the West naturally: She was known for her overlarge nose, which her own father had encouraged her to have surgically altered. But she got the last laugh when she landed the role of the now-iconic villain in “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) — for which her nose was made even longer (and greener).Matt Damon, ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’🥸🥸🥸Warner Bros., via AlamySure, there are performers with bigger noses on this list, but Matt Damon might be the only one who planned a con around his. In this 2007 sequel, his character, Linus, dons the prosthesis — which Damon nicknamed “The Brody” in a nod to the actor Adrien Brody’s well, you know — in a bid to disguise himself and gain access to a case full of diamonds.Steve Carell, ‘Foxcatcher’🥸🥸🥸Scott Garfield/Sony Pictures ClassicsSteve Carell’s souped-up schnozz in this 2014 true-crime tale may have left some people scratching their heads — the real-life version of his character, John du Pont, the millionaire wrestling enthusiast-turned-murderer, wasn’t well known, so the attention to detail seemed excessive. But the nose did serve another purpose: It made audiences forget they were staring at Carell, who was known mainly for comedies at the time.Alec Guinness, ‘Oliver Twist’🥸🥸🥸🥸United Artists, via Alamy StockCharles Dickens wrote Fagin in “Oliver Twist” as a thoroughly antisemitic villain, and in the 1948 film adaptation, Alec Guinness, the non-Jewish actor who played the character, spoke in a droning lisp and appeared with hooded eyes and an enormous prosthetic hook nose. The nose was deemed “incredibly insensitive,” as The Jewish Chronicle wrote, and it provoked significant anger from Holocaust survivors.Billy Crystal, ‘The Princess Bride’🥸🥸🥸🥸20th Century Fox, via AlamyBilly Crystal was already so funny in “The Princess Bride” (1987) that the director, Rob Reiner, claimed that he had to leave the set during Crystal’s scenes as Miracle Max because he was unable to contain his laughter. Adding a bulbous tomato of a nose took Crystal’s physical comedy over the top. (Mandy Patinkin, who played Inigo Montoya, actually bruised a rib trying to stifle his own chuckles.)Steve Martin, ‘Roxanne’🥸🥸🥸🥸🥸Columbia PicturesYou could land a bird on that thing (which the director, Fred Schepisi, did.) Steve Martin’s five-inch appendage for the 1987 film took 90 minutes to apply every day and two minutes to remove. “God how I hated that thing,” he told The Washington Post. More

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      Watch a Thanksgiving Day Tirade in ‘Maestro’

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      The director Bradley Cooper discusses a one-shot scene involving an argument between conductor Leonard Bernstein (played by Cooper) and his wife (Carey Mulligan).In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.A couple reaches a heated turning point in this sequence from the biopic “Maestro,” directed and co-written by Bradley Cooper, who stars as the conductor Leonard Bernstein.The scene takes place on Thanksgiving Day in the New York apartment of Leonard and his wife, the actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). Soon after Leonard enters the room, Felicia’s criticism begins. As the moment progresses, her verbal attacks increase in ferocity and speed in a way that contrasts with the relaxed pace of the Thanksgiving Day Parade floats passing just outside the couple’s windows.“It is the scene of the film in many ways,” Cooper said in an interview. “The whole film builds to this scene and then the aftermath of it.”Felicia realizes that the compromises she has made in their relationship have eroded her emotional state and she can no longer contain her anger. Cooper said he had envisioned the sequence in one take and knew it needed to be shot that way. But he did have concerns. “My fear was that we wouldn’t be able to maintain this frame for the entire scene. But because Carey Mulligan is such an assassin actor, it was effortless.”Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      ‘Maestro’ Review: Leonard Bernstein’s Life of Ecstasy and Agony

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      As director and star, Bradley Cooper delivers an intimate portrait of the composer and his many private and public selves.“Maestro,” Bradley Cooper’s intimate portrait of Leonard Bernstein, takes flight with a terrific whoosh of exuberance. The young Bernstein (played by Cooper) has just gotten the phone call that will change his life. He’s been asked to step in for an ailing guest conductor and lead the New York Philharmonic; it will be his conducting debut. Overjoyed, Lenny, as he’s often called, jumps up, throws open a curtain and then sprints out of his apartment to race, bathrobe flapping, into his dazzling, very public future as an American genius.The real Bernstein was 25 and an assistant conductor with the Philharmonic when he took the Carnegie Hall stage on Nov. 14, 1943, to polite applause. The program opened with Schumann, ended with Wagner, and by the time it was over, the house, as Bernstein’s brother, Burton, put it, “roared like one giant animal in a zoo.” The next day, The New York Times ran a story about the concert on the front page. A few days later, The Times followed up on the concert with a small item that likened Bernstein’s debut to a young corporal taking charge of a platoon when the officers are down: “It’s a good American success story.”In “Maestro,” Cooper explores the definition — and brutal toll — of that kind of success with deep sympathy, lushly beautiful wall-to-wall music and great narrative velocity. In outline, it’s a familiar story of a classic American striver. Bernstein was the son of Jewish-Russian immigrants who escaped a dire fate in the family business (the Samuel J. Bernstein Hair Company) to become a 20th-century cultural force. He conducted and composed, wrote for the ballet, the opera and Broadway, and was a fixture on TV. He had gold and platinum albums, was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, and won slews of Grammys and Emmys.It was a big juicy life, one that Cooper — who wrote the script with Josh Singer — has condensed into two eventful, visually expressive hours. “Maestro” is as ambitious as Cooper’s fine directorial debut, “A Star Is Born,” but the new movie is more self-consciously cinematic. Some of the choices — different aspect ratios as well as the use of both black-and-white and color film — nod at the look of movies from earlier eras. The visuals also convey interiority, swells of mood and feeling, as does Lenny’s explosive, at times ecstatic physicality, the full-bodied intensity of his conducting style and the orgasmic rivers of sweat that pour off him.“Maestro” is a fast-paced chronicle of towering highs, crushing lows and artistic milestones, most delivered in a personal key. Cooper packs a lot in without overexplaining the era or its titans (Brian Klugman plays the composer Aaron Copland, one of Bernstein’s closest friends); years pass in an eyeblink, events slip by obliquely or go unmentioned. Cooper is more interested in feelings than happenings, though part of what makes the movie pop and gives it currency is how he complicates the familiar Great Man of History template. Bernstein is rightly the main event in “Maestro,” but crucial to the film’s meaning is his relationship with his family, especially his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (a brittle Carey Mulligan).Theirs was a fraught, decades-long relationship that begins in the 1940s when they meet at one of those fabulously glamorous New York parties that mostly exist in old Hollywood films or in biographies of very important dead people. There, amid a boisterous crowd of revelers wreathed in cigarette smoke and bobbing together on an ocean of booze, Lenny and his pals Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Mallory Portnoy and Nick Blaemire) are lighting up the room. Lenny and Felicia make their introductions, tuck into a quiet corner to flirt and laugh, their heads and bodies soon listing toward each other. By the time the night is over, they’re walking side by side, seemingly destined for a happily ever after.Cooper, who stars and directs, used different aspect ratios as well as both black-and-white and color film.Jason McDonald/NetflixIt didn’t turn out exactly that way for assorted reasons, including Bernstein’s overshadowing brilliance. He was also gay, though maybe bisexual; the movie nimbly avoids labeling him. (In her memoir “Famous Father Girl,” his daughter Jamie refers to him as both.) Instead, with roundelays of teasing and desiring looks as well as in asides and conversations (including a faithful restaging of an Edward R. Murrow interview), “Maestro” expresses the complexities of Lenny’s private and public selves. After Lenny receives that call to conduct the Philharmonic, for one, he playfully taps drumlike on the discreetly covered rear of his lover, David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer). And then Lenny rushes out the door alone.The opener introduces the idea of Lenny’s life as a performance, which becomes the film’s controlling metaphor. Cooper underscores this idea repeatedly, including when Felicia takes Lenny to the empty theater where she’s an understudy and where they playfully act out a love scene they seal with a Hollywood kiss. Sometime later, in an energetic swerve into surrealism, Felicia grabs his hand, and they sprint from an outdoor meal with friends and into another theater where three dancers in white sailor uniforms are waiting onstage. As with Lenny’s dash out of his bedroom and into Carnegie Hall, Cooper stages this sprint with the camera pointing down at the characters, as if it were running on an overhead catwalk.As Felicia and Lenny race into the theater, they look like performers hitting their marks and a bit like dollhouse runaways. The dancers start performing “Fancy Free” — Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’s ballet about sailors on shore leave in New York — then move into its musical adaptation, “On the Town.” With Felicia and Lenny watching, the sailors begin moving to the infectiously alive, jazzy music, their snaky hips and tight uniforms emphasizing the choreography’s muscular eroticism; and then a sailor beckons Lenny to join in the fun.Here and elsewhere, Cooper makes a point of showing Felicia watching Lenny first with what seems to be admiration, then love and later something darker, sadder and despairing. He’s already a name when they meet and already taking up a lot of room; soon, he is the star around which everything and everyone orbits, including Felicia and the three children they have together. He’s a bigger-than-big personality (flamboyance is a favorite adjective of Bernstein biographers), with a buzzing, heady vitality that feels like a life force or a painfully addictive high. It’s easy to see why she’s pulled in, but the exhilaration that initially lifts the film is a harder sell once Felicia and Lenny begin to fall in love.The movie makes the case that their love was genuine, even if Cooper and Mulligan never convincingly sync up. This disconnect doesn’t seem intentional, but it also serves the story and characters, including early on when Lenny’s and Felicia’s heightened emotions and smiles can feel forced, like an act of mutual will. Even so, you believe they love each other, however differently; and because Cooper spends a lot of time on Felicia, you grow to understand that she knows she’ll never be enough for Lenny. Yet in focusing so much on Felicia, whose light dims the brighter his blazes, stressing what it costs her to play a role in this performance of happy heterosexuality, Cooper also inadvertently shortchanges Lenny.Although Cooper makes Felicia the linchpin of his Great Man revisionism, the film’s most deeply felt scenes involve Lenny with his children and his close male friends. One centers on an anguished encounter he has with David. The other unfolds at Lenny and Felicia’s country home after the birth of one of their children and finds him walking across the lawn, the newborn in his arms. Lenny drifts over to Aaron Copland, who’s sitting under a tree on a swing with a smile. Lenny joins him and gently holds the baby so that Aaron can see the baby’s face. Lenny nuzzles the infant, and the two men just sit quietly as the tenderness of the moment — and the overwhelming cruelty of this world and all its terrible lies — knocks you flat.MaestroRated R for some discreet nudity and a whole lot of cigarettes and booze. Running time: 2 hours 9 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Movies to See This Winter: ‘Hunger Games,’ ‘Maestro’ and More

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      “The Color Purple” and “Poor Things” and Beyoncé lead a list packed with goodies. Mark your calendars.The leaves are falling, and at least one of the strikes looming over the film season has been resolved. From Wiseman to Wonka, Beyoncé to Ferrari, here is a select list of the films you need to know about this winter. Release dates and platforms are subject to change.NovemberDREAM SCENARIO An evolutionary biologist (Nicolas Cage) begins turning up in random people’s dreams, an inexplicable phenomenon that first intrigues the dreamers, then freaks them out. Julianne Nicholson also stars. Kristoffer Borgli wrote, directed and edited. (Nov. 10 in theaters)Brie Larson, front left, as Captain Marvel and Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel in, yes, “The Marvels.”Laura Radford/MarvelTHE KILLER Michael Fassbender plays a hyper-punctilious hit man who is forever checking his pulse and who soothes his nerves by listening to the Smiths. But his careful plans are upended when a job goes awry. The film reunites the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, who together gave us “Seven” (1995), and here adapt the graphic-novel series by Matz and Luc Jacamon. (Nov. 10 on Netflix)THE MARVELS Captain Marvel (Brie Larson), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) join forces to take down whoever is threatening the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days. Nia DaCosta (the 2021 “Candyman” remake) directed. (Nov. 10 in theaters)ORLANDO, MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY In this nonfiction feature, the philosopher Paul B. Preciado uses Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” as a lens for exploring issues of gender identity, enlisting transgender and nonbinary people to play the character and reflect on their lives. (Nov. 10 in theaters)STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING The academic and activist Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 book, “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” becomes a documentary film with commentary from Kendi and others, including Angela Davis and the poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Roger Ross Williams directed. (Nov. 10 in theaters, Nov. 20 on Netflix)Rachel Zegler and Tom Blyth in the prequel “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.” Murray Close/LionsgateA STILL SMALL VOICE A nonfiction highlight at Sundance, this documentary from Luke Lorentzen (“Midnight Family”) follows a hospital chaplain during a residency as she discovers whether she has the fortitude for the job. (Nov. 10 in theaters)YOUTH (SPRING) Known for documentaries with lengthy running times and an unobtrusive style, the acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing (“Dead Souls”) chronicles the lives of migrants toiling in the textile workshops of Zhili, China. (Nov. 10 in theaters)THE LADY BIRD DIARIES The latest nonfiction feature from Dawn Porter (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”) draws on archival audio of the first lady Lady Bird Johnson and assesses the part she played in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. (Nov. 13 on Hulu)Natalie Portman as an actress studying her subject in “May December.”Francois Duhamel/NetflixBEST. CHRISTMAS. EVER! Mary Lambert (the original “Pet Sematary”) directed this holiday movie about a woman who tries to puncture her friend’s carefully cultivated aura of good cheer. Heather Graham and Brandy star. (Nov. 16 on Netflix)DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW Magic helps restore the Yuletide spirit for a social worker (Chris Bridges, a.k.a. Ludacris) and his 9-year-old (Madison Skye). Lil Rel Howery and Teyonah Parris also star; Tim Story directed. (Nov. 17 on Disney+)THE DISAPPEARANCE OF SHERE HITE Nicole Newnham (a director of “Crip Camp”) made this documentary on the work of Shere Hite, who in 1976 published “The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality,” which advanced the then-radical notion that women could achieve sexual satisfaction without intercourse. (Nov. 17 in theaters)FALLEN LEAVES The latest from the Finnish treasure Aki Kaurismaki won the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival; the award scanned as an affectionate third place. It’s a love story — in an unusually bittersweet and low-key register — between lonesome members of the working class (Alma Poysti and Jussi Vatanen), and between Kaurismaki and cinema. (Nov. 17 in theaters)Michael Potts, third from left, Aml Ameen, Chris Rock, Glynn Turman and Kevin Mambo as civil rights leaders in “Rustin.”David Lee/NetflixTHE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES Set before the events of the Jennifer Lawrence films, this screen installment from Suzanne Collins’s books casts Tom Blyth as a teenage tyrant in the making and Rachel Zegler as the tribute he tries to prepare for the deadly games. Francis Lawrence returns to direct. (Nov. 17 in theaters)MAXINE’S BABY: THE TYLER PERRY STORY Normally, Perry projects begin with “Tyler Perry’s” this or that in their titles. But this biographical documentary bears his mother’s name, and traces how Perry built his universe of film and TV shows. Gelila Bekele and Armani Ortiz directed. (Nov. 17 on Amazon Prime Video)MAY DECEMBER Todd Haynes investigates what constitutes realistic acting — and what attracts viewers to tabloid sensationalism — in this drama, which casts Natalie Portman as a TV star shadowing her latest role’s infamous real-life inspiration (Julianne Moore), a woman whose past is not dissimilar from Mary Kay Letourneau’s. With Charles Melton. (Nov. 17 in theaters, Dec. 1 on Netflix)John Dory (left, voiced by Eric André) joins Poppy (Anna Kendrick) in “Trolls Band Together.”Universal PicturesNEXT GOAL WINS Smarting from a record-breaking loss, American Samoa’s soccer team braces for another try at the World Cup qualifying matches, this time with a new, curmudgeonly coach (Michael Fassbender). Taika Waititi directed. The team’s story was also told in a documentary with the same title. (Nov. 17 in theaters)RUSTIN Colman Domingo plays the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, who was a principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and whose legacy has received renewed attention. (In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California granted him a posthumous pardon for a 1953 conviction on a charge that had been used to criminalize homosexual activity.) George C. Wolfe directed. Chris Rock, Glynn Turman and Audra McDonald co-star. (Nov. 17 on Netflix)SALTBURN The writer-director Emerald Fennell’s first feature behind the camera since “Promising Young Woman” centers on a student at Oxford (Barry Keoghan) who becomes taken with the lifestyle of a classmate (Jacob Elordi) and accepts an invitation to his lavish home. (Nov. 17 in theaters)The animation master Hayao Miyazaki returns to theaters with “The Boy and the Heron.” GkidsTHANKSGIVING Sixteen years is a long time from trailer to release. But the tongue-in-cheek coming attraction that Eli Roth made for the midpoint of “Grindhouse” (2007) is now a feature film in its own right. Patrick Dempsey stars. (Nov. 17 in theaters)TROLLS BAND TOGETHER The Troll universe expands again as Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) seek out Branch’s brothers, with whom he previously formed a boy band. Who knew the Trolls universe had one? (Nov. 17 in theaters)LEO Adam Sandler lends his inimitable vocal stylings to a lizard in an elementary school classroom; it only has a year to live. Bill Burr and Cecily Strong also star. (Nov. 21 on Netflix)THE BOY AND THE HERON Ten years after “The Wind Rises,” which had been billed as a final feature, the master animator Hayao Miyazaki gives us this story of a boy who moves from Tokyo after his mother’s death during World War II. An enigmatic tower that stands near his new home becomes a gateway to a parallel world — a quintessentially Miyazakian realm. (Nov. 22 in theaters)Eddie Murphy and Tracee Ellis Ross deal with holiday woes in “Candy Cane Lane.”Amazon Prime VideoLEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND Julia Roberts plays a misanthropic New Yorker who ropes her husband (Ethan Hawke) and children into an impromptu getaway on Long Island. But after strange things start to happen, and the family who owns the rental house (Mahershala Ali and Myha’la play father and daughter) turns up, the atmosphere gets tense. Barack and Michelle Obama are among the executive producers. Sam Esmail directed. (Nov. 22 in theaters, Dec. 8 on Netflix)MAESTRO In the director’s chair again after “A Star Is Born” (2018), Bradley Cooper also stars as the legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, in a biopic that focuses in particular on his marriage. A top-billed Carey Mulligan plays the actress Felicia Montealegre Bernstein, his wife for nearly three decades until her death. (Nov. 22 in theaters, Dec. 20 on Netflix)MENUS-PLAISIRS — LES TROISGROS The 93-year-old Frederick Wiseman has made more than 40 feature documentaries, but never one as culinarily tantalizing as this four-hour look at a three-star restaurant (per Michelin) in France. You’ll see how the food is sourced, how dishes are devised, how patrons react and much more. (Nov. 22 in theaters)Joaquin Phoenix as the title character in Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon.”Sony Pictures/Apple OriginalNAPOLEON Stanley Kubrick’s Bonaparte biography will, alas, always be one of cinema’s great what-ifs. But we are getting Ridley Scott’s version of the life of the French military leader, with Joaquin Phoenix donning the bicorn. Vanessa Kirby also stars. (Nov. 22 in theaters)WISH Will Ariana DeBose belt out a hit as big as “Let It Go”? Disney’s latest animated offering, advertising its affinities with “Frozen,” among other movies, casts the “West Side Story” Oscar winner as a heroine who takes on a king with the help of a cosmic force and a goat. Alan Tudyk and Chris Pine lend their voices as well. (Nov. 22 in theaters)AMERICAN SYMPHONY While the musician Jon Batiste is planning a symphony, his partner, the writer Suleika Jaouad, has a recurrence of cancer. Matthew Heineman (“Cartel Land”) documented their experiences. (Jaouad had previously written for The New York Times about having cancer in her 20s.) (Nov. 24 in theaters, Nov. 29 on Netflix)Beyoncé at the Toronto stop on her Renaissance tour, the subject of her new movie.The New York TimesSMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD The director Anna Hints documents the lives of women sweating things out in an Estonian sauna. The movie won a directing prize at Sundance. (Nov. 24 in theaters)THEY SHOT THE PIANO PLAYER Jeff Goldblum provides the voice of a journalist investigating the disappearance of a Brazilian pianist in this animated documentary. Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal directed. (Nov. 24 in theaters)SOUTH TO BLACK POWER In his book “The Devil You Know,” the New York Times Opinion columnist Charles M. Blow argued that Black Americans should reverse-migrate to the South. This documentary, directed by Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”) and Llewellyn M. Smith, explores that idea. (Nov. 28 on Max)FAMILY SWITCH In the tradition of “Freaky Friday” and “Vice Versa,” this movie casts Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms as parents in a family that gets scrambled in a body swap before a big day. McG directed. (Nov. 30 on Netflix)Emma Stone in “Poor Things,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.Searchlight PicturesDecemberBAD PRESS In 2018, officials in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation repealed an act guaranteeing freedom of the press. This documentary concerns a reporter’s efforts to fight back. (Dec. 1 in theaters and on demand)CANDY CANE LANE A spell cast by an elf (Jillian Bell) causes Christmastime trouble for a man (Eddie Murphy) and his family. With Tracee Ellis Ross. Reginald Hudlin directed. (Dec. 1 on Amazon Prime Video)EILEEN A sophisticated new counselor at a Massachusetts prison (Anne Hathaway) piques the curiosity of a younger woman who works there (Thomasin McKenzie). William Oldroyd (“Lady Macbeth”) directed this adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel. (Dec. 1 in theaters)IN WATER It’s not uncommon for the prolific South Korean director Hong Sangsoo to turn out two films per year, with a high consistency of style and subject. The gimmick in this one is that, for most of the movie, the picture is out of focus. (Dec. 1 in theaters)Jeffrey Wright, left, Leslie Uggams and Tracee Ellis Ross in “American Fiction,” directed by Cord Jefferson.Orion ReleasingLA SYNDICALISTE Isabelle Huppert plays a whistleblower who reveals secrets about France’s nuclear sector. But when she is sexually assaulted, the investigation calls into question her veracity. (Dec. 1 in theaters)RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ Last month, Taylor Swift conquered theaters with a cinematic document of her Eras Tour. Now it’s Beyoncé’s turn, in a movie that goes behind the scenes of the artist’s Renaissance World Tour, which ended Oct. 1. (Dec. 1 in theaters)SHAYDA Zar Amir Ebrahimi plays a woman from Iran residing in a shelter in Australia who is desperate to prevent her estranged husband from taking their child back with him. Noora Niasari wrote and directed. (Dec. 1 in theaters)Rocky (voiced by Zachary Levi) and Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) return to action in “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget.”Aardman/NetflixSILENT NIGHT A father (Joel Kinnaman) seeks revenge for the Christmas Eve killing of his son. No, it’s not another “Death Wish” reboot — the director, in fact, is John Woo. (Dec. 1 in theaters)THE SWEET EAST After getting away from an attack by a PizzaGate-style conspiracy theorist, a high schooler (Talia Ryder) has a series of outlandish adventures as she travels from place to place. Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O. Harris and Simon Rex also star. The cinematographer Sean Price Williams directed from a script by the film critic Nick Pinkerton. (Dec. 1 in theaters)THE APOCALYPTIC IS THE MOTHER OF ALL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY The experimental filmmaker Jim Finn examines the ideas of the apostle Paul using oddball cultural detritus, including board games and sponsored films. (Dec. 6 in theaters)WAITRESS: THE MUSICAL Sara Bareilles plays the lead role in the movie version of the stage musical for which she wrote the music and lyrics. The show was itself adapted from Adrienne Shelly’s posthumously released 2007 film. (Dec. 7 in theaters)Timothée Chalamet takes over as the title character in “Wonka.” Hugh Grant is an Oompa Loompa, of course.Warner Bros.ANSELM Similarly to what he did in “Pina,” his 2011 documentary tribute to the choreographer Pina Bausch, Wim Wenders uses 3-D and high-resolution digital camerawork to give viewers a sense of the monumentality of Anselm Kiefer’s art. (Dec. 8 in theaters)FAST CHARLIE Michael Fassbender’s character in “The Killer” isn’t the only assassin with a problem this season. There’s also the hit man in this movie (Pierce Brosnan), who has trouble proving that the headless person he has killed was the intended mark. James Caan, who died last year, plays the hit man’s mentor. Phillip Noyce directed. (Dec. 8 in theaters and on demand)MERRY LITTLE BATMAN Bruce Wayne’s son has to become a mini-Batman to thwart what sound like “Home Alone”-style shenanigans in this animated feature. Luke Wilson is in the voice cast. (Dec. 8 on Amazon Prime Video)ORIGIN Reviewing “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” the 2020 book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, Dwight Garner of The New York Times called it “an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far.” With Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson, Ava DuVernay dramatizes the period of the book’s writing. (Dec. 8 in theaters)Jason Momoa dives back into “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.”Warner Bros./DC ComicsPOOR THINGS Yorgos Lanthimos combines the costume drama of “The Favourite” with the social satire of “Dogtooth” to follow the odyssey of Bella Baxter (a wildly dexterous Emma Stone), who, thanks to a Frankensteining by a mad-scientist father figure (Willem Dafoe), begins the movie as a grown woman with a child’s brain. Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef also star. Based on the novel by Alasdair Gray, it won the top prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival. (Dec. 8 in theaters)TOTAL TRUST In this documentary, the director Jialing Zhang looks at the nature of the surveillance state in China. (Dec. 8 in theaters)THE TASTE OF THINGS Tran Anh Hung won the directing prize at Cannes for a film that, along with Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” boasts the most mouthwatering display of cuisine in any movie this year. Inspired by the French novel known in English as “The Passionate Epicure,” it concerns the relationship between that epicure (Benoît Magimel) and his longtime cook and companion (Juliette Binoche). (Dec. 13 in theaters)CHRISTMAS RESCUE Kidnapping the bride from a wedding in an effort to win her love sounds like a horrifying thing to do, but maybe it works out for these two crazy kids in this movie? With Robin Givens, Raven Goodwin and Mario Van Peebles. (Dec. 14 on BET+)AMERICAN FICTION Adapting a 2001 satirical novel by Percival Everett, the TV writer and former Gawker editor Cord Jefferson directed Jeffrey Wright as a Black author who, in frustration and jest, writes a book that plays into stereotypes — and suddenly finds the success that has eluded him. Erika Alexander plays a potential love interest; Sterling K. Brown and Issa Rae also star. It won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. (Dec. 15 in theaters)Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are absolutely not interested in each other in “Anyone but You.”Brook Rushton/Sony PicturesCHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET To counter the existential threat posed by exceptionally delicious chicken nuggets, Ginger, Rocky and their daughter break into a poultry-processing plant. Thandiwe Newton, Zachary Levi and Bella Ramsey provide some of the voices. (Dec. 15 on Netflix)THE FAMILY PLAN When his past catches up with him, a government assassin turned car salesman (Mark Wahlberg) tries to save his family while keeping his previous occupation secret. Michelle Monaghan also stars. (Dec. 15 on Apple TV+)GODARD CINEMA The legacy of Jean-Luc Godard, who died last year, is impossible to distill almost by design; he reinvented film with his first feature, “Breathless,” and never stopped reinventing. Still, the documentarian Cyril Leuthy gives a survey a try, interviewing people who worked with Godard. In New York, Film Forum will show this feature with a final short Godard work, “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars.’” (Dec. 15 in theaters)WONKA While “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and Roald Dahl’s book left many questions, how Wonka defeated a chocolate cartel to found his factory was not exactly foremost among them. Will the movie at least explain how Timothée Chalamet, who plays Wonka in this prequel, could grow into Gene Wilder? (Dec. 15 in theaters)THE ZONE OF INTEREST Loosely based on Martin Amis’s 2014 Holocaust novel, the director Jonathan Glazer’s first feature since “Under the Skin” a decade ago is an intensely formal exercise that tries to immerse viewers in the perspective of Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the commandant of Auschwitz, as he carried on with his life next to the camp. With Sandra Hüller as Höss’s wife. (Dec. 15 in theaters)Kumail Nanjiani provides the voice for one of the Mallards in “Migration.”IlluminationALL OF US STRANGERS A run-in with a neighbor (Paul Mescal) somehow causes a rupture in the life of a screenwriter (Andrew Scott), who visits the home where he grew up and encounters his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) — who died years earlier, but who now have a chance to get to know him as an adult. Andrew Haigh (“45 Years”) directed. (Dec. 22 in theaters)ANYONE BUT YOU Advance word suggests that this film, starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as two wedding guests who pretend to be together but aren’t, is unusually racy by the standards of comedies faintly inspired by “Much Ado About Nothing.” Will Gluck directed. (Dec. 22 in theaters)AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM Jason Momoa has to form an alliance with his brother (Patrick Wilson) to save Atlantis. Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman return for this DC sequel, along with the director James Wan. (Dec. 22 in theaters)THE IRON CLAW Sean Durkin (“The Nest”) directed this dramatization of what happened to the real-life Von Erich brothers, who beginning in the 1970s made a name for themselves wrestling and who almost all died young. Zac Efron and Jeremy Allen White star. (Dec. 22 in theaters)MIGRATION A family of ducks — the Mallards — do what a lot of American families do: fly south for a winter getaway. Not surprisingly, travel proves to be a hassle. Mike White, a long way from “The White Lotus,” wrote the screenplay for this animated feature, which has the voices of Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Awkwafina and Keegan-Michael Key, among others. (Dec. 22 in theaters)Sofia Boutella is trying to save the galaxy in “Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire.”Clay Enos/NetflixREBEL MOON — PART ONE: A CHILD OF FIRE Sofia Boutella bands together misfit warriors to save the galaxy. Untethered from DC Comics characters and the zombies of his “Dawn of the Dead” and “Army of the Dead,” this could be the most unfiltered dose of Zack Snyder since “Sucker Punch” (2011). This is the first of two installments, with the next one due in April. (Dec. 22 on Netflix)THE BOYS IN THE BOAT In 1936, the United States’s eight-man rowing team bested Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy at the Berlin Olympics. How the American team did it, and how its members got to that point from the University of Washington, is chronicled in this drama, directed by George Clooney and starring Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner. (Dec. 25 in theaters)THE COLOR PURPLE The Broadway musical version of Alice Walker’s novel, which itself was already adapted into a movie by Steven Spielberg in 1985, hits the big screen. The singer Fantasia, a.k.a. Fantasia Barrino, plays Celie, the role Whoopi Goldberg embodied in the original film. With Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo and Halle Bailey. Blitz Bazawule directed. (Dec. 25 in theaters)THE CRIME IS MINE A stage actress (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) is accused of murdering a lecherous producer in this 1930s-set film from François Ozon. It also features Rebecca Marder and, as a Sarah Bernhardt-like star, Isabelle Huppert. (Dec. 25 in theaters)Adam Driver is playing another figure synonymous with Italy in “Ferrari.”Eros Hoagland/NeonFERRARI Michael Mann and the sleek Italian auto brand go way back. (See also “Miami Vice” in its TV and movie versions.) Adam Driver plays the sports car maker Enzo Ferrari in 1957, as he grieves the death of one son, tries to keep the existence of a mistress (Shailene Woodley) and an out-of-wedlock child from his wife (Penélope Cruz) and braces for the Mille Miglia race across Italy. (Dec. 25 in theaters)OCCUPIED CITY Working from a book by his wife, the Dutch filmmaker Bianca Stigter, the director Steve McQueen combines documentary footage from present-day Amsterdam with narration that recounts events in the city throughout World War II. “With formal rigor and adamant focus, it maps — street by street, address by address — the catastrophe that befell Amsterdam’s Jewish population,” Manohla Dargis wrote when the film played at Cannes. (Dec. 25 in theaters)THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE A schoolteacher (Leonie Benesch) winds up in an awkward professional position — and a deepening ethical quagmire — after leveling an accusation against one of the school’s staff members. İlker Çatak directed this festival favorite. (Dec. 25 in theaters)GOOD GRIEF Dan Levy (“Schitt’s Creek”) casts himself — in his first directorial feature — as a man who takes a trip to Paris with two friends (Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel) while grieving his husband’s death. (Dec. 29 in theaters, Jan. 5 on Netflix) More

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      When Did the Plot Become the Only Way to Judge a Movie?

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      At the New York Film Festival, auteurs conjure up moods and sensory experiences that show why the story isn’t always the thing.It’s time to take a stand against the tyranny of “story.” In Hollywood these days, “story” and “storyteller” are privileged terms, seemingly interchangeable with “films” and anyone who makes them — a distressing development considering the medium’s wild range of possibilities.The “story” framing used to feel fresh, anchored, however tenuously, to the effort to bridge racial and gender diversity gaps in the industry. It’s not just one kind of story, this line of thinking goes, but all colors and stripes of good stories that matter.As I sunk into my first week of screenings at this year’s New York Film Festival, which runs through Oct. 15, this sentiment didn’t feel wrong, per se. Just insufficient. To think of, say, a full-body sensory experience like Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” as merely a story about a Nazi family; or Raven Jackson’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” which consists of lush memory fragments, as merely a story about a Black woman’s coming-of-age, would feel dismissive of the filmmakers’ full intentions.I can’t imagine a single director in this year’s beautifully eclectic lineup who would call themselves a “storyteller” with a straight face — outside of a pitch meeting with investors. One film even satirizes the connection between moviemaking and corporate brand marketing. I’m looking at you, Radu Jude (“Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World”).That’s because movies aren’t just stories. Narrative can play a part, but the medium also encompasses feelings, moods, distortions of time and logic. The movies are exercises in freedom.From right, Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel in “The Taste of Things,” by Tran Anh Hung.IFC Films“The Taste of Things,” by the French Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung, is, at face value, a conventional Belle Époque-era romance about a gastronome (Benoît Magimel) and a cook (Juliette Binoche) who together create sumptuous multicourse meals. Over half of the film is entrenched in the raw physicality of their work, the textures of the foods they wash, boil, chop and sear into magnificent forms. The film doesn’t rely much on dialogue because the couple’s passion is transmitted through a decadent display of food porn. In one scene, a voluptuous poached pear gives way to a shot of Binoche’s disrobed derrière. It conveys an ineffable quality: that of loving and being loved through the act of cooking.When I think about what makes a good story — a tale that traces out a plot and a path from A to B — the answers don’t always square with the parts of movies I love best. I’m not super hot on Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic, “Maestro,” but the scenes in which Lenny conducts are magnificent and powerful, like being thrown into the middle of a sonic storm. The rest — the tortured-genius bad-wife-guy intrigue — sometimes felt like homework. I often found myself thinking, “Let’s get back to the music.”That’s because the best things in life are gratuitous, like sex — kinky sex, weird sex, sex whose finer details you’d think twice before sharing. Joanna Arnow’s deadpan dramedy “The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed” relishes all of the above. The 30-something Brooklynite played by Arnow herself (in a perpetual Garfield the cat scowl) goes on dull dates and powers through a numbing office job. The focus is her sex life, specifically the submissive role she plays in a B.D.S.M. relationship with a divorced lawyer (Scott Cohen). These scenes are cringey and absurd, but there’s something compelling about choosing the conditions of your own humiliation — and having some fun with it.The images in Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City” are of Amsterdam during the pandemic lockdown, but the narration is about the Nazi occupation in the 1940s.A24Steve McQueen’s postmodern ghost story, “Occupied City,” which clocks in at a whopping four and a half hours, forces us to rejigger and expand our understanding of how movies communicate meaning. The film takes an almost pointillist approach to the telling of history. Based on a book by McQueen’s wife, Bianca Stigter (a Dutch filmmaker and historian whose research into the Holocaust also yielded one of last year’s most astounding nonfiction movies, “Three Minutes: A Lengthening”), “Occupied City” consists of hundreds of mostly static shots of Amsterdam during the pandemic lockdown. With each shot, an impassive narrator (Melanie Hyams) details the corresponding crimes that took place in each location in the early 1940s, when the Nazis invaded the country.The conceit is willfully repetitive, and its simple, matter-of-fact approach departs from the manipulations of empathy-generating narratives that tend to dominate the subject matter. Often, my mind wandered throughout the film’s countless enumerations, which triggered pangs of guilt and also putting things in perspective: It’s distressingly easy to forget, to lose focus, in the face of horrors whose size and scope are impossible for the human brain to fully process.Every year I try to take in a few films from the Revivals section, which features restorations of vintage titles, many of them previously inaccessible. “Un rêve plus long que la nuit” (A Dream Longer Than the Night), by the French American artist Niki de Saint Phalle, stood out. Years ago I had visited a de Saint Phalle exhibition where one of the most striking pieces was a door-sized vaginal opening nestled between a behemoth pair of legs. Silly, beautiful, and terrifying all at once, the film is a pagan fever-dream that envisions a feminist revolution through the eyes of a young girl, and its best qualities are in the details: the sheer diversity of papîer-mache penises is astounding.Also playing in Revivals is a program of shorts by Man Ray, the artist best known for his photographs, but whose films — dizzying experiments with light and movement — turn familiar objects into alien entities. For Man Ray, conventional photography was about capturing reality, meaning his work would manifest images only possible in fantasies and dreams. Now, in the vertiginous age of the internet, with increasingly sophisticated film technologies at artists’ disposal, it’s worth considering films with similar ambitions: those that make legible the unreal. In “The Human Surge 3,” the director Eduardo Williams uses a 360-degree camera to capture the roamings of a multicultural group of friends, each from a different part of the world: Peru, Taiwan and Sri Lanka. Using uncanny, stretched-out images that resemble those on Google Earth, Williams’s remarkable vision of digital interconnectivity collapses borders and language barriers in wondrous, psychedelic fashion.“Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,” from Thien An Pham, tracks a man’s journey through rural Vietnam.Kino LorberFor more brain-breaking adventures, I recommend scouring the shorts and midlength programs. Preceding Deborah Stratman’s “Last Things,” an eerie, science-fictional take on evolution (from the perspective of rocks!), is a gem: “Laberint Sequences,” by the visual artist Blake Williams, the only 3-D film in the lineup. This 20-minute short is thrillingly destabilizing, and its considered yet adventurous employment of 3-D makes Hollywood’s innovations look juvenile by comparison. Also of note for their beautifully baffling subversions of the cinematic status quo: Ross Meckfessel’s modernist horror jaunt “Spark From a Falling Star,” Onyeka Igwe and Huw Lemmey’s “Ungentle,” in which a disembodied narrator (Ben Whishaw) ruefully remembers his past — part gay awakening, part spy thriller — over banal shots of contemporary England.A descendant of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ethereal excursions, Thien An Pham’s transportive feature “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” tracks a man’s journey through rural Vietnam after the sudden death of his sister. You could say the film is about faith, the anxiety of fatherhood, or the existential unease of mortality itself, but plot is beside the point.What matters is the riveting sensuality, the way the images ensorcel you, vesting quivering landscapes with an almost divine power. It’s the kind of film that makes our culture’s devotion to movies click: It’s not about watching stories, but inhabiting worlds they have not told us of.For more information on the New York Film Festival, go to filmlinc.org. More