In several respects, Leonard Bernstein was a man split in two. Dreaming of becoming the first great American conductor but finding more success as a composer for Broadway musicals, he also struggled with his sexuality, marrying a woman he loved but regularly cheating on her with men. His life was a balancing act, his ego pulling him in different directions—between self-fulfillment and self-preservation, self-interest and altruism. So perhaps it makes sense that Bradley Cooper—cowriter, director, and star of the Bernstein biopic Maestro—seems to be wrestling between reverence for his subject and a need to prove himself.
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