Product Details

• Actors: Alexander Bernstein, Leonard Bernstein, Nina Bernstein, John Corigliano, Jon Deak
• Directors: Susan Lacy
• Writers: Susan Lacy
• Producers: Susan Lacy, Dina Hossain, Karen Bernstein, Margaret Smilow, Tamar Hacker
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Winstar
• DVD Release Date: November 24, 1998
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305154996
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,058 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Leonard Bernstein - Reaching for the Note" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Originally aired on PBS's American Masters series, this evocative biography of the American composer, conductor, and de facto musical evangelist Leonard Bernstein offers a compelling balance of musical scholarship and personal insight. It's a fitting approach to the brilliant--and emotional--life and art of Bernstein, who elevated Broadway musical theater, demystified and democratized classical music for two generations of American children, and brought a true New Yorker's vigor and directness to his conducting.

Writer-director Susan Lacy establishes the film's sympathetic tone in its opening shots of Bernstein's funeral cortege as it passed along Manhattan streets in 1990. Underscoring the footage is the elegiac second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, the final piece conducted by Bernstein at his final performance months earlier at Tanglewood. Scenes from that last concert (and a return to that slow, funereal march) are the inevitable conclusion of Lacy's film, which finds ample drama over the course of approximately two hours.

Lacy traces the arc of Bernstein's career from his earliest triumphs as a young conductor through his Broadway successes (culminating in West Side Story), his historic network television outreach, the frustrations encountered over his "serious" compositions (often derided, ultimately vindicated), and his autumnal work abroad conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Bernstein's private demons--anguish over the tradeoff between a conductor's glory and a composer's productivity, the ridicule invited by his impassioned political activism, the conflict between his devotion to his family and his bisexuality, bouts of depression suffered in his later years--are addressed as well.

Excellent archival footage and a literate script are enhanced by interviews with his brother and children; collaborators including Jerome Robbins, Isaac Stern, and Stephen Sondheim; and conductors including John Mauceri, Seiji Ozawa, and Michael Tilson Thomas. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolute BERNSTEIN!, August 28, 2004

By 

D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Leonard Bernstein - Reaching for the Note (DVD)

It has been said many times that music is the universal language. While the truth of this statement is self-evident, occasionally even universal languages require translators. For that, great men such as Leonard Bernstein have stepped to the fore to assist the rest of us in understanding what is perhaps man's single greatest art form.

This is a magnificent documentary of the life of this incredible individual. Leonard Bernstein can be called the Carl Sagan of classical music. What the Cornell astronomer did to popularize science to a wide audience, so too did the conductor do the same for classical music. The present DVD traces the remarkable career of Bernstein from his early flirtations with fame up through to his death in 1990.

The footage contains commentary by his daughters, son, friends and fellow conductors and musicians. Some of the notable names to compile the latter groups are Michael Tilson Thomas, Seiji Ozawa, Isaac Stern and Andre Previn. All angles of his life are covered, from his professional life to his personal life to his struggles with his bi-sexuality.

The shortcomings of this DVD are few, but I am compelled to point them out. For one, it is only hinted at a few times just how diverse Bernstein's taste in music was. Not everyone knows this, but he was a huge fan of both the BEATLES and PINK FLOYD. Some anecdotes from the likes of people such as David Gilmour and Paul McCartney would have complemented this DVD nicely. Both knew Lenny and were friends of his.

Also, it would have been nice to have learned more about his childhood. They pretty much skimmed over that, for the most part. The "story" portrayed almost begins where he sub-conducted for Bruno Walter, getting his big break.

That said, this is a must-buy for all fans of music, all fans of Leonard Bernstein, and all fans of the human race. Paul Hindemuth once said "Those who make music together cannot be enemies. So long as the music lasts." Hence, nobody could ever be a true enemy of the great Leonard Bernstein, for he made music with the entire world.

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but a little white-washed, September 18, 2002

By 

John Grabowski (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Leonard Bernstein - Reaching for the Note (DVD)

This PBS documentary is loaded with clips from Lenny's long career, and captures many of his great moments on film. There are also the requisite interviews with people fawning over him. No mention of the extremely negative (often deservedly so) reviews he got in his early days at the helm of the NYPO, or the sordid story of how he wrestled the top job there away from Dmitri Mitropoulos by "outing" him when he himself was flagrantly bisexual. What he did to his wife, emotionally, in her final years, is only briefly hinted at. The whole Tom Wolfe/Radical Chic incident is also only glossed over in about a minute, and the effects this and other "anti-Lenny" incidents had on his psyche are barely mentioned. His depression is talked about, but the reasons behind it are not. But TV documentaries usually skim the surface this way, and the real treat is in the performances and interviews captured here. This is a great two hours for any Bernstein lover. They may not learn anything new, but they'll have a wonderful time reliving the old.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as I expected, November 7, 2000

By 

N. Daniele Pietro "hyperdanny" (Milano, MI Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Leonard Bernstein: Reaching for the Note [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was a bit disappointed by this release., especially considering PBS' impeccable credentials. The very beginning set my expectations very high : slow-motion, artsily fuzzy sequences from Bernstein's funeral cortège through the street of NY, touchingly commented by his son. Very intense, but also very telling of the overall approach of the movie : the man first , and then the musician. It's not an easy task because, as those interested into this great composer-conductor know well, Bernstein was a very complicated, troubled and sometimes puzzling man. In this respect the video is very nicely done: it's pretty straighforward about potentially controversial issues like L.B.'s depressions or bisexuality, without sounding gossipy or trashy. All these aspects are described though lenghty interviews with L.B.' s son and daughters. This has obvious advantages but also shortcomings : I would have liked to hear somebody from outside the family, somebody less viscerally involved, so to say. I also liked the way the video gives us, through the Bernstein family's home movies, a fascinating idea of the life of the post-war American cultural elite. There are flaws, though. First of all, to apply the definition of "motion picture" to this documentary is, sometimes, kind of a stretch: the viewer spends decidedly too much time staring at vintage photographs with an audio commentary not especially related to them. This is actually baffling, because I don't think there has ever been a more filmed or recorded artist than L.B. and it's hard to believe that PBS could not obtain the rights on more video performances from Deutsche Grammophon, Sony/CBS and whoever else. Through the narration we learn about L.B.'s ascent to prominence and his lifelong internal struggle between the great conductor he was and the great composer he desperately wanted to be, but there aren't enough visual demonstrations of the great music that flowed from this troubled soul. And we don't get much of the legendary impact of a Bernstein performance either. In this respect the few interviews to musicians don't help much, being for the most part ridicolously brief (average 2 minutes) : a world-class maestro like Andre' Previn is just allowed the time to say that "L.B. was the figure who had the greatest influence on American music". Thank you very much. I don't want to seem harsh on this video: it's what I would call a "classy" product, and

probably a totally comprehensive Bernstein portrait is far beyond the possibilities of a 2-hour video, but if it's Bernstein the musician that you really want to get to know, you'll learn much more from the 10-minute part devoted to him by the marvelous Teldec video "The Art of conducting".