A prodigious musical talent who embraced the role of public artist with all its rewards and dangers, achieving a storybook level of success but never circling the square of his public persona with his gay identity in the sexually repressive milieu of 20th century America. That’s the picture of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein that we’re given in Douglas Tirola’s documentary, “Bernstein’s Wall.”
The central metaphor of the film, as suggested by its title, is a wall: the Berlin Wall. As the grand monument to Cold War frigidity was being dismantled brick by brick, Bernstein traveled to Berlin and conducted an orchestra of musicians from East and West Germany through a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
Bernstein reworded the famous “Ode to Joy” refrain as “Ode to Freedom” in honor of the occasion. It was a new era for Germany and the world. For the conductor, it was a crowning moment of a career whose highlights were not confined to the concert hall, but also extended into the corridors of political discourse on progressive issues such as civil rights, peace activism, nuclear disarmament and, later in life, advocacy for Aids research.
The other major wall in Bernstein’s life was figurative rather than literal – between his public image as a married, heterosexual family man and his private life as a closeted gay man. Tirola’s documentary tells this part of the story through a skillful back-and-forth between Bernstein’s own words, collected from interviews over the years (that’s the great advantage of making a documentary about such a prolific and outgoing personality – plenty of source material) and his private letters, which express longings and satisfactions he could never own up to publicly.
A particular steamy missive between Bernstein, as a young upstart, and the older, more established composer Aaron Copland suggests Bernstein was not above mobilizing his erotic forces to curry favor and familiarity with influential figures.
But nobody sleeps their way to the top of their profession for a career lasting half a century. Bernstein’s talent was obvious, and celebrated vigorously in a time society still behaved like classical music represented the apex of musical achievement. If he received the occasional pan review (the documentary lingers on Bernstein’s disappointment in the critical reception of his politically charged work “Mass,” torn to shreds by The New York Times for its ponderous polemics), it was always against the backdrop of a gilded and unimpeachable pedigree.
The sketches of the conductor’s formative years and marital difficulties are particularly effective in humanizing our understanding of his achievements. The boy who grew up in little Lawrence, Massachusetts. Who fell instantly in love with music when his aunt left the family an old upright piano. Who was a Jew and a son of two immigrants, including a father who disapproved of his musical ambition. Who refused to accept a gentile stage name that, so he was advised, an audience might find more appealing. Who spun through cycles of infidelity and regret. Was this a figure destined for greatness? Yet great he became.
If there’s a little sadness that accompanies the portrait of achievement that the filmmaker makes of Bernstein, it’s just part of what makes him a larger-than-life character, living out big ideas in big ways in the public eye, to praise and censure. Arguably, the negative reviews of “Mass” presaged a larger cultural shift into an era in which his politics and personality held less cachet. The documentary also highlights Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” essay as a shot across the bow of Bernstein’s supposed “bourgeois radicalism.” All great artists, if they live long enough, are put out to pasture.
But before he headed to that final pasture in the sky, Bernstein lived a life that was just a hair’s breadth short of epic. Tirola does an admirable job capturing the impact of his art and career without getting too in the weeds with the soap opera of his private relationship. If you want more of that, have a look at Bradley Cooper’s 2023 biopic “Maestro.”
The Coolidge Corner Theatre will show “Bernstein’s Wall,” starting August 7, with a special Q&A screening with director Douglas Tirola on August 9.
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