MARK JUDGE: Maestro and Hollywood’s retroactive repression.

Bernstein was a towering figure in American cultural life, but the film focuses on his bisexuality and how it presented a serious struggle in the 1950s. This is an important part of the story, to be sure, but not the entire story. It’s one small part of a symphony. Yet this aspect of the great man’s life is the main theme of Maestro. This is sad because Bernstein’s life was absolutely remarkable, overflowing with drama, politics, family, and triumph. He lived enough for two men.

Film critic Norman Lebrecht nailed it: “Bernstein revolutionized New York’s repertoire with injections of Mahler, Nielsen, Shostakovich and two-dozen American composers. He launched Saturday morning televised talks for young people at Carnegie Hall, educating a whole American generation in the elements and excitements of orchestral music. He and [wife] Felicia were shining lights of New York society, equivalent in fame and glamour to the Kennedys in the White House. The film of West Side Story carried his fame worldwide. He combined the roles of composer, conductor, teacher, social commentator, and reformer, too much for one man, one life. This context was entirely missed in Cooper’s film.”

Bernstein was also falsely accused of being a communist. Hollywood lives for those false accusations*. But they’re not too big on people who were actually destroyed by communism. Where’s the movie about Whittaker Chambers?

Homosexuality might be taking over racism as the main thrust of Tinseltown’s retroactive repression. But only because the films picking the scab of racism have been endless: The Butler. The Help. Or Mississippi Burning. Or The Long Walk Home, Men of Honor, Malcolm, Mona Lisa Smile, Pleasantville, Hairspray, and Remember the Titans. Hollywood just never seems to tire of making movies that rub our faces in our own erstwhile iniquity. It’s a form of what Sir George Frazer in The Golden Bough called “sympathetic magic” — by devouring something belonging to someone else, you take on those attributes yourself. Thus, liberals get to feel virtuous for just making a movie.

To be fair though, Bernstein was certainly tipping the leftwing scale pretty hard, at least in 1970: Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s.