‘Bernstein’s Wall’ Review: A Bracing Documentary Captures How Leonard Bernstein Became the Superstar of American High Culture

There was a time, in the middle of the 20th century, when the orchestra conductor was a shamanistic figure in American life.

And during that era, no shaman was more magical — a higher priest of high culture — than Leonard Bernstein.

To understand the pedestal he strode upon, you’d have to go back to the period when classical music was still at the center of things.

You’d have to go back to the era before Bradley Cooper, coming off “A Star Is Born,” couldn’t get the backing for a Bernstein biopic that would play in movie theaters.

(He’s making it for Netflix instead.) Within that now vanishing world, the conductor loomed like some elevated rock-star version of Merlin crossed with P.T.

Barnum, a mystic who would lead us all to the mountaintop of classical ecstasy.He was almost like a one-man preview of the counterculture revolution: a lone figure in a tuxedo,

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