The lack of a Jewish performer in the role of the West Side Story composer has also drawn criticism.
“It breaks our hearts to see any misrepresentations or misunderstandings of [Cooper’s] efforts,” Jamie, Alexander, and Nina Bernstein said in a statement that was published online.
The fact that Leonard Bernstein had a great, large nose is a fact. Bradley made the decision to enhance his similarity with makeup, and we have no problem with that. We’re also confident that our father would have approved of it.
“Any vehement complaints about this matter strike us above all as dishonest attempts to bring a successful person down a notch, a practise we observed was all too frequently applied to our own father,” they wrote.
“We could always sense Bradley’s deep regard for Leonard Bernstein and his wife, our mother Felicia, as well as his love for them during the shooting of this movie. We are very grateful to have met Bradley, and we can’t wait for everyone to see what he has created.
According to Bernstein’s family, Cooper “included the three of us along every step of his amazing journey as he made his film about our father”.
We were deeply moved by his level of dedication, his adoring embrace of our father’s music, and the unbridled delight he brought to his research.
The Hollywood Reporter’s film critic Daniel Feinberg suggested the movie had “ethnic cosplay” when the first pictures of Cooper surfaced last year, calling Cooper’s appearance “problematic”.
Jewish English actress Tracy-Ann Oberman compared Cooper’s apparent usage of a prosthetic nose to the use of blackface makeup in an Instagram post.
Get a Jewish actor instead of Bradley Cooper if he can’t succeed via acting alone, she said.
It is amazing, according to Binyomin Gilbert of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, “that nobody thought twice about sticking a big nose on a non-Jewish actor playing a Jew.”
He stated, “The filmmakers here need to demonstrate that they comprehend why this is a problem. “Failing to do so would show that there is a double standard when it comes to the representation of Jews on screen,” the statement continued.
Prior to its December debut on Netflix, Maestro is scheduled to make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival the following month.
Similar criticism has surrounded the upcoming release of Golda, another movie.
The movie directed by Guy Nattiv, which will be shown in US theatres at the end of this month, will star Dame Helen Mirren as the former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
Dame Helen’s casting “disagreed” with actress Maureen Lipman, who had told the Jewish Chronicle that the character’s Jewishness was “so integral.”
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