Copying Beethoven
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Movie Reviews of Copying Beethoven
Movie Review: Harris is brilliant, but the 9th symphony, well...
Summary: 5 Stars
This film exceeded many viewers' expectations, particularly Ed Harris's portrayal of the Mad Maestro, Ludwig von Beethoven. Knowing full well that Harris is more than likely one of the most talented actors working in main stream Hollywood today, when discovering he was playing in a period piece, and taking on the role of Beethoven, well, it just didn't seem to feel right...we see Harris playing current heroes and villains with his believability and unique flair, not a historical character whose been played before by a few excellent actors, such as, Gary Oldman in Immortal Beloved (1990) and others. "Ed Harris in a wig! Oh c'mon." What an extraordinary surprise to sit back and actually suspend all disbelief and enjoy Harris's Beethoven - pure genius. All said and done, however, the true "star" of the film is Beethoven's masterpiece "Ode to Joy" his 9th and final symphony.
To be really honest here, the reason I came to see the film was to experience the music in booming surround sound in the dark of the movie theatre. If the performances became too unbearable, I thought, closing one's eyes and submerging in the music would be the perfect escape. This was certainly not needed as all the performances, including Diane Kruger's performance as the Maestro's "copyist" but more so, as the story unfolds becomes more his "muse", his inspiration to forge on to new territory in his music. Kruger as the beautiful Anna Holtz, rose brilliantly to the occasion when forced to help the maestro conduct the debut of his 9th symphony...this scene was moving in many respects. To hear this familiar music along with the images of Holtz and Beethoven conducting was almost too much to bear as my friend and I, without hesitation, certainly expressed the emotions the 9th symphony evokes...for this wonderful scene alone, the movie was worth three times the price of admission.
Joe Anderson as Beethoven's "nephew", Karl von Beethoven, was a superb performance as the young lad convincingly played the "victim" of his uncles `unconditional love' stealing money from the composer to feed his gambling habit. Those eyes were expressive in the deepest sense, a talent any budding film actor would die for because as some actors have stated, to have that specific `gift', that is, the camera capturing the nuances of profound emotion makes a true film actor. Anderson showed the audience that gift during the 9th symphony performance scene and one other that should be left unsaid for those who have not viewed the film.
If you have been `put off' from this film by some who call it `commercial', `vulgar', `a disservice', `too Hollywood', `boring' or otherwise, slide the DVD into the slot, turn out the lights and turn the sound up, way up...you'll not be disappointed.
Five stars without hesitation...
Movie Review: The Master's apprentice
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie focuses on the last 3 years of Beethoven's life (1824-1827). While it is likely to be compared to the great film Immortal Beloved, their agendas are different. Both movies cover Beethoven's triumph of the premiere of his 9th symphony. This film, however, goes beyond the 9th and focuses on this late string quartets - most of which were rejected by the musical audience of his day.
Diane Kruger portrays a fictional character who interacts with Ludwig. She is his musical copyist who has ambitions to write music in her own right. While she is technically gifted in music theory and being a copyist, she is missing the Master's innovative touch when it comes to composition.
The relationship between the two becomes the center-of-gravity of the film. Somewhat surprisingly, the movie does not water itself down to becoming some cheesy love story. Granted, there are a few moments in the film that could be called erotic in nature, but it is a very muted eroticism.
There is a slight, oblique parallel with Amadeus. Instead of Salieri being buried in the shadow of Mozart, Beethoven belittles a person who belongs to another art: architecture. In this case, Beethoven points out that the guy is a not-so-good bridge builder. That was a curious segment.
Ed Harris is every bit as obnoxious, pompous, volatile, ill-mannered, rude and bigger-than-life as we would expect from someone playing the Great Composer. I have always been a big fan of Ed Harris, and this movie is likely to convert others to admiring Harris' acting prowess as well. In the special features, Harris reveals that he read up on Beethoven's life and constanly listened to his music in preparation for the role. It shows! Diane Kruger is terrific as the young woman who gains Beethoven's friendship. The fact that she was born in Germany adds to the lustre of the film.
This is not a typical biographical film as it pinpoints a particular juncture of the composer's life. There are only references to other epoch's of his life. As is always the case with movies that deal with composers, the film has a nice built-in soundtrack! As a sidenote, people may want to see State of Grace as well. Little did anyone know when SOG was made that both Ed Harris and Gary Oldman would go on to play the immortal musician - and both do a fine job thereof!
Movie Review: Convincing Beethoven
Summary: 5 Stars
Ed Harris creates a convincing Beethoven. ( Immortal Beloved committed crass nonsense identifying Beethoven's widowed sister-in-law as his beloved.. No historian of standing would try that.) Composers had copyists. The female copyist in Copying Beethoven is gentle and delightful fictionalizing. At the real premier of the 9th Symphony Beethoven had an assistant conductor who turned him around to see the ovation at the end. That passage was done perfectly in this film, it was deeply moving. Diane Kreuger does the alchemy of hero-worshiping empathy and self-asserting spunk beautifully. There she speaks for all of us who love the difficult man as well as his music. In May I visited Beethove's apartments in Vienna, the Pasqualatie house, and in Heilingenstadt.
In several leading biographies, including Thayer and Maynard Solomon, I have never read that Beethoven smashed a young engineer's bridge model. His roughness could have been shown by his berating the engineer loudly, disturbing the meeting, and raising his cane threatening to smash the model, but not going that far. If he was trying to teach the engineer a lesson in self-criticism, that would have been enough. Any notion that Beethoven was jealously striking at Anna Holst's friend is ludicrous.
Those moments in the film when Beethoven explains his music to Anna Holst allude to how Beethoven 's genius and soul conquer deafness to attain a higher level of consciousness and then communicate this to us through his music. One can hear him doing this in his pure, not program, music where he is out among the galaxies dealing with things that do not connect to earthly concerns, or talking and thinking fractally with God.
The film's score was powerful, the performances first rate. Costumes, scenery, stying right on the mark. The film approaches Amadeus in quality. I sent a copy to my composer son.
Movie Review: True Genius
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie portrays a very unique perspective to Ludwig Van Beethoven's musical genius through the relationship we see between Beethoven and a young, aspiring female, composer, Anna Holtz, (Holtz is a fictionalized character) who becomes Beethoven's copyist for the debut of his 9th Symphony.
Copying Beethoven opens in Beethoven's life when he is already middle-aged, deaf, egocentric, already very well know in the music world for his earlier musical masterpieces, difficult to get along with and can be intimidating if not down right rude on purpose. Nonetheless, this doesn't stop Ms. Holtz from becoming Beethoven's copyist and actually giving her opinion on changing/enhancing a section of his 9th Symphony!
Ms. Holtz even helps Beethoven conduct his 9th Symphony for the first time before a live audience. This is a highly anticipated event as to whether it will be great success or be an atrocious failure as there were doubts about how this symphony would play out because no had ever heard of a choral being performed along with a symphony.
However, the performance of the highly anticipated 9th symphony was a huge success. Beethoven and Holtz continued their relationship after the performance of the 9th Symphony when Holtz shows some of her musical compositions to Beethoven in hopes of having him help her with her musical style. At 1st he rudely mocks her musical style, but then in turn helps her with musical compositions--- thus becoming her mentor.
I highly recommend watching this movie. It is very well acted and very well done plot/story wise.
Movie Review: A desert island DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
Somehow, I cannot get tired of this movie. Being a musician myself, I can understand the scenes where Beethoven is sharing the secrets of what music is, and the price musicians pay to bring it to life. When he told the Anna Holtz character that musicians must be conduits for the Voice of God, and "if we are not that, we are nothing", I almost wept; because it is true. Any musician that is reading this will bear witness to this.
Beethoven was not without his faults. But his music was as powerful as life itself. And he continued to progress in his musical development until the day he died. The movie shows how he pushed the envelope with his Concerto Grosso; and nobody understood what he was doing. Until many years after he died. Now, it is how we hear music. The maestro's vision was supremely vindicated.
Ed Harris' performance was marvelous. This, especially since he had Gary Oldman's equally fine portrayal of Beethoven to stand up to. He made the character his own without copying Oldman's method.