Did Bradley Cooper really conduct in Netflix's Maestro?

[@henrychandra2064]

I completely disagree with you, David, when it comes to Bradley's conducting level. Except for a few instance when he was actually giving the beat evenly, the orchestra was playing without him. Bradley was following, not leading. The orchestra was highly prepared to ignore Bradley's confusing beats. He added extra upbeats and extra downbeats that would confuse a less skilled orchestra by not being together. Plus, at times his gestures does not corresponds to the actual music. Highly professional orchestra's like the LSO is able to correct instantly a conductor's mistake. I'm familiar with Mahler's 2nd. Having studied it 30 years ago. I am very familiar with the ending. Conductor and composer, Andre Previn, discussed in his book, No Minor Chords, that the LSO was able to keep together much more than one would think they can. They know how to follow the concert master's bow to keep together. An orchestral player commented how he was clueless as to how to follow Furtwangler's beat when guest conducting because Furtwangler was so unclear with his baton. The entire orchestra followed the concert master to keep together. I would say that if Bernstein was to grade Bradley's conducting of the orchestra, he would grade it as a B minus. This is not grading to conduct like Bernstein, but actual conducting of the orchestra. When you watch Bernstein conduct the ending of Mahler's 2nd, you can see every beat makes sense. But Cooper....it looks like he was trying too hard. Bless Cooper's heart, he was making a movie and being an actor......not a conductor.

[@daviddas]

I agree with everything you said about an orchestra being able to self-lead. I'll disagree with the rest only in that when making a movie, there's all kinds of editing done for artistic sake (including, potentially, moving video shots of Bradley to different points in the music, if the editor feels like it visually works better), so my compliments to Bradley are really about capturing the essence of LB's physicality. I'm explicitly not saying that Bradley is a real conductor.

[@henrychandra2064]

​@@daviddas Your words are true when it comes to editing for artistic sake. But we were told by Cooper that this was done all in one take. Yes, there were moments of copying Bernstein's physicality, which Bradley was mostly just imitating Bernstein's body actions. But I've studied Bernstein's conducting so much for decades that I felt it was watching a caricature of Bernstein. A cartooning of Bernstein.

[@TheDreamingDays]

Being done in one take does not mean it isn't being edited. Of course, Bradley is acting and not being on par with a real conductor. He has not had years of dedicated experience in that profession. Don't you think you are holding him to an unfair standard? Actors act. They do the best they can to be in the spirit of the roles they take on. There are going to be understandable flaws. Did you expect Bernstein's ghost to possess him and magic Bradley's conducting to the perfect level? That is an impossible task. @@henrychandra2064

[@reginasaboya2665]

He acted fantastically! The incorporation of Bernstein