Leonard Bernstein never won an Oscar, but a movie about him now has 7 nominations

Leonard Bernstein was one of the most celebrated composers and conductors in history. He won 16 Grammys, seven Emmys, and two Tony Awards in his lifetime, amidst a vast collection of other honors. But one major award eluded him: the Oscar. Now a movie about his life, Maestro, has seven nominations.

Despite a career that spanned from the concert hall to the Broadway stage and beyond, Bernstein only wrote the original score for one major feature film, 1954's On the Waterfront. His work on the Elia Kazan film earned Bernstein his one and only Academy Award nomination for Best Score of a Music or Comedy Picture. (At that time, they had a separate category for Best Score of a Musical.)

Bernstein faced stiff competition from legendary film composers, Max Steiner and Franz Waxman, and he ultimately lost to Dimitri Tiomkin for his score to The High and the Mighty. Still, it is strange to realize that the most influential, respected, and significant American composer of the 20th century does not have an Oscar. Even stranger then to watch as Bernstein's work, including his music, is feted instead via proxy. Maestro racked up seven Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning, including nods for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, and Best Picture.

It is a bit of trivia that occurs with alarming frequency nowadays, as Hollywood and the Academy seem intent on honoring the facsimile of American legends rather than the legends themselves. (See also Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe.) Both Judy and Blonde were more interested in dissecting and exploiting the tragedies of Garland and Monroe's lives than they were in celebrating their incredible artistry, while Maestro champions Bernstein's work but doesn't give us much insight into its creation. Why are we consumed with celebrating work that recreates something singular instead of celebrating the singular work itself?

While it's true that Bernstein didn't give himself many opportunities to win an Oscar, it still feels disingenuous to dole out nominations to Maestro for an award Bernstein never won himself. It gets at something that is a broader criticism of Maestro — that the film doesn't amount to any understanding of why Bernstein is important, why his music is great, what he loved about music, or why audiences should care about him. (On the flip side, Maestro is a marvelous portrait of a marriage and its complexities and the ways in which love is rarely neat or easy). Maestro showcases Bernstein's music (to sublime effect, I might add), but how does it help us understand it when so much of it is removed from the context of its creation for dramatic effect?

None of this is a knock on the outstanding performances in Maestro, the luminous cinematography, and the inspired sound design and score. But it is a reflection of what we, as a society, deem to be worthy. Some of this is, of course, because most great artists are ahead of their time. Given that, it may take historical context and the gift of time to fully appreciate what they offered the world.

In Bernstein's case, that is not really true. He made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall when he was only 25, which made him famous overnight. He brought classical music to the masses via recordings and television programs. He was troubled, yes, particularly by his sexuality and the challenges it brought to his marriage. But he was not misunderstood as an artist. When he lost at the Oscars, he was still relatively early in his career (though he already had a Tony Award to his name), so perhaps it is indicative of his status at the time.

Biopics have always been pure Oscar bait (hell, Paul Muni was nominated for playing Emile Zola way back in 1938), but of late, the Academy seems consumed with the idea that more is more. (Consider that Bradley Cooper received less awards love for his portrayal of Jackson Maine in A Star Is Born, a more insightful portrait of a tortured artist, albeit a fictional one.)

Bernstein's lack of cinematic output not withstanding, the dichotomy between his success at the Oscars and Maestro's nominations speaks to our contemporary obsession with surface-level value, our prizing of style over substance as our lives are reduced to Instagram grids and TikTok videos. Perhaps it is the insidious creep of living via highlight reel that we find more to celebrate in a career's highlights than in the career itself.

Historically, the Academy has been more impressed by the approximation of a thing than the thing itself. Why celebrate the atonal complexities and symphonic scale of the On the Waterfront score when we can instead honor someone spending six years to learn to believably pretend to conduct? It's a pattern intrinsic to the Academy's existence, to elevate the showy and simplistic over the subdued and complex.

After all, the Oscar itself isn't really gold, it's a gold-plated bronze statuette. Why mar things by digging deeper? Just enjoy the way it glitters.

The 96th Academy Awards will air on Sunday, March 10, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT on ABC. See the full list of 2024 Oscar nominations.

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