Ray Richmond: Whatever happened to the Bradley Cooper ‘Maestro’ prosthetic nose controversy? Poof! It’s disappeared

It’s been about seven weeks since the Bradley Cooper “Jewface” controversy broke. Remember that? It’s easy to forget because it was so ridiculous. For a minute or two, several parties seemed to get their knickers in a twist over the fact that Cooper opted to wear a big prosthetic nose while portraying the legendary composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro,” the biopic he directed, co-wrote and stars in that had its North American premiere this week at the New York Film Festival. (The film launches in select theaters on November 22 before dropping December 20 onto Netflix.)

The furor seemed to have been sparked in mid-August by the release over social media of first-look photos and an early trailer from the film whose angle made the nose appear semi-gargantuan. It suddenly became a thing all over the entertainment world for a good week or so, casting a dark light on the fact that Cooper – a gentile – was purportedly using the nose to perpetuate Jewish stereotypes rooted in neo-Nazi propaganda and antisemitism.

Yes, apparently a man who fought for years to get a major feature film made did it solely so he could denigrate Jews and in the process sabotage his Hollywood career in an industry packed with Jewish professionals. That makes a lot of sense. Nonetheless, the Anti-Defamation League had to check in on the charge, defending the decision to wear the nose as “not antisemitic.”  Bernstein’s own children were also forced to weigh in on it, expressing their support for Cooper. Even the Oscar-winning makeup artist who styled the nose was required to express remorse in case his decision to create it hurt anyone’s feelings.

But lately an interesting thing has happened. Less than two months later, the debate has disappeared. Poof! Gone.

It can be traced back to the first screening of “Maestro” at the Venice Film Festival in early September. Suddenly, the discussion wasn’t over prosthetics but the considerable merits of a film that gets most everything right. No critic wanted to debate nose size anymore but the size of “Maestro’s” chances of landing a Best Picture nomination (considerable) and the potential for Cooper and co-star Carey Mulligan to become frontrunners in the Best Actor/Actress races, respectively (possible).

Then I saw for myself why this was the case at a “Maestro” screening I was privileged to attend last week. I was slightly apprehensive before the movie started, anticipating The Nose That Ate Manhattan would soon appear onscreen and devour the theater. But it never did. Cooper’s prosthetic schnoz never called attention to itself and was, from what I could see, applied to the actor’s face rather seamlessly. After the first half-hour, I forgot about it entirely because it was a non-issue, visually and in every other way. The fact that a non-Jew was portraying this famed Jew was also irrelevant.

If one surprise did await me in the film, it was the fact that the man’s name is pronounced Bern-styn (like “Frankenstein”) rather than Bern-steen (like “Springsteen”). I’m hoping that doesn’t qualify as a spoiler.

Here’s the bottom line: no Oscar, Globe, SAG or Critics Choice voter should be reluctant to cast a ballot for such a dynamic, powerfully acted and beautifully directed movie or its performers and crew over a completely manufactured issue – a nose job, as it were. This isn’t to say that there isn’t plenty of legit Jew-hating and Jew-baiting out there in the world, but this ain’t it. It’s not even a misstep. It’s nothing. And it was perpetuated by people who had never seen the film, naturally. Because that’s pretty much always the case.

The thing I’ve come to realize is, people love to fan flames and create mayhem because conspiracies are fun. Consider another recent one involving the Jim Caviezel-starring action film “Sound of Freedom” in July. There were accusations on social media that AMC Theatres were purposely disrupting screenings of the movie following accusations that it stoked QAnon conspiracy theories. The claims found AMC deliberately wreaking havoc with technical problems and broken air conditioning. The film became a hit, anyway.

In the age of social media, anyone can claim anything about anything or anyone and potentially gather traction. That isn’t quite what happened in the “Maestro” nose furor. Racists and antisemites do work to denigrate Jews, and big noses has long been a trope about Jewish people, of which I am one. But a star who also happens to be the filmmaker doesn’t go out of his way to purposely (or even unwittingly) humiliate and disparage the person whom he’s portraying. At the end of the day, you hope common sense wins out.

To go off on a brief tangent that diverts somewhat from the specific subject at hand, have you ever noticed that too often, people seem to know the most about that which they have the least amount of actual knowledge and/or information? Everyone’s an expert on the content and quality of the film they’ve yet to see. People who have the greatest understanding of child rearing have no children themselves. The person who hands out marital advice is on their fourth spouse. So much garbage information is spread as if it’s gospel. The ignorant drive the conversation on too many subjects and in too many instances, and I’m sick and tired of it.

There. It felt good to get that out.

The truth is that I couldn’t care less what the middle of Bradley Cooper’s face looks like when he’s portraying Leonard Bernstein. After all, one person’s insult is another’s homage. What I focus on is how convincing his performance is, and in the case of “Maestro,” Cooper is brilliant. Plus, if you look at pix of Cooper-as-Bernstein and the man he’s portraying side by side, there is indeed a remarkable resemblance.

Maybe it will come out that Bernstein put considerable effort throughout his life into trying to look like a goy. Yeah, there you are. Let’s start that insane rumor and see how viral we can make it go.

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