In October of 1955, Charles Schulz did a series of “Peanuts” strips dealing with Schroeder and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Schroeder listens to it in an overcoat because the first movement was so magnificent it gave him chills. The October 27th strip has Charlie Brown reading to Schroeder how: “At the conclusion of the symphony the audience stood up and cheered. Beethoven, however, because of his deafness could not hear them, and because his abet was to the audience could not leer them. With Tears in her eyes one of the singers led Beethoven to the edge of the stage where he could watch the cheering people.” At this point Schroeder buries his face in his hands and emits a heartbroken “Roar.”
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There are many stories about that first performance, and while no one knows for clear what has the most credence is that Beethoven wanted to conduct his work, but his deafness made it impossible, so Michael Umlauf, the Kapellmeister of the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna conducted the orchestera. Beethoven was late him on the stage, giving the tempos at the beginning of each movement and beating the time. The orchestra had been instructed to ignore the composer and when the symphony was over Beethoven was smooth beating time and turning pages of the pick up. That was when the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven around to witness the cheering audience, who were raising their hands and throwing things into the air to execute up for the fact the man they were cheering could not hear their ovation.
“Copying Beethoven” looks at the last years of the life of Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris) and writers Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, who did the screenplays for the biopics of “Ali” and “Nixon” (and are currently working on a film about Jackie Robinson), build the fictional character of Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), a young woman who is sent to the apartment of the maestro to turn his current pages for the find of the 9th Symphony into something that can actually be read and printed for the orchestra. At the premier performance of the work the composer will indeed conduct the work himself, but with Anna working as his ears to give him the respectable tempos, and it will be Anna who will turn Beethoven around so that he can study the applause.
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What will surprise you is that this film’s interpretation of this memorable moment comes not at the waste of “Copying Beethoven,” but about an hour into this 2006 film. It is the highpoint of the film and then the legend continues for another half hour, with decidedly less impressive results. My current scene actually comes early in the film, when Anna is trying to justify that she is indeed the copyist who has been sent to turn his fresh pages for the pick up of the 9th Symphony into something that can actually be read and printed for the orchestra. It is in its absorb itsy-bitsy wall the counterpart to the scene at the raze of “Amadeus” when Mozart is explaining to Saliari how the pieces of “De Profundus” fit together in his “Mass.” Beethoven finds an “error,” and in her explanation we have our proof that Anna knows what she is doing and a watch into the technical nature of Beethoven’s genius. But far too often director Agnieszka Holland (”Europa Europa”) focuses on Anna instead of the maestro.
Ultimately, “Copying Beethoven” is too caught up in the character of Anna. What could have been a nice conceit, giving the maestro someone to talk to about living with deafness and to reveal what he was doing to change the world of music, is turned into a proto-feminist figure who wants to compose her contain impress as a composer. As he turned deaf Beethoven started keeping conversation diaries, a rich source of the composer’s thoughts regarding his music, so there are current source material to be mined for gems similar to what we earn a ogle of early in the film. Instead, we destroy time on Anna’s struggle to write music, a plotline that really has no where to go and which ends up being enveloped in the thought that the Beethoven’s last works so radical and so far ahead of their time that they could not be comprehended by the audiences of the Romantic Ear.
I have to say that the accurate performance of the 9th is far too short for my taste and the emphasis becomes not so distinguished the music as it is the area where it takes both Beethoven and Anna (ironically, while he is conducting without ears as it were, she keeps closing her eyes as she becomes enraptured) . There is a predicament in that the draw the set is area up you are inclined to deem that they are skating on the edge of inconvenience and that either one of them could effect a dismal mistake. This tends to win away from the music and at least there are a few shots of members of the audience moved by the realization that this deaf ragged man, who had not premiered a symphony for a dozen years, was unleashing a work of monumental greatness.
“Copying Beethoven” also suffers in comparison to “Immortal Beloved”, the 1994 film about the composer that had the virtue of framing Beethoven’s life in the quest to reveal the mystery woman in his life. But watching Harris play Beethoven conducting his symphony is elegant appealing and throughout this movie there is always Beethoven’s music, so there is vast grounds to round up on this film. Finally, if the main conclude of this film is that you go out and listen to the 9th Symphony from commence to conclude, which is exactly what I did, then you would be ahead of the game.
The best thing going for this movie is Ed Harris’ electrifying performance as Beethoven. He captures Beethoven’s musical genius and his murky side, as a coarse and rude man.
Other reviewers have done an friendly job of describing the tale. What I want to comment on is the masterful job done by the screenwriters and the performers of capturing the compositional genius of Beethoven.
What I really liked about the movie:
1) The scenes of Beethoven composing his music
The transformation of Beethoven’s egomania to one of thanksgiving: Initially, Beethoven was wrathful at God for giving him a musical gift and then making him deaf. He would purposedly produce statements about God that border on blasphemy. Those statements showed his frustration at God for allowing him to become deaf so he could no longer listen to his compositions but had to rely on a earpiece or on vibrations. Later on, as the film progresses, Beethoven discovers how God speaks to him through music and he makes his peace with God through composing a hymn of thanksgiving towards the extinguish of his life. His dialogue to Anna about how he can sense the verbalize of God through music were very fascinating.
The scenes of Beethoven composing are the most memorable scenes in this movie for me — he clearly has the titanic gift of being able to portion together all the musical forms in his head. These scenes reminded me of “Amadeus” when Mozart was able to inspect how all the different parts of different instruments advance together in his symphonic compositions.
Through these scenes we pick up to view how God chose to deposit his musical gifts in a very current and ordinary man who is elephantine of shortcomings and weaknesses.
2) Ed Harris does a astronomical job of capturing the divergent natures of Beethoven — on one hand he is a musical genius, but on the other hand, he is quite a brute of a man. On one hand, he could be gentle and tender, but on the other, he could suddenly become “The BEAST” — be extremely cruel and harsh in his ridicule and mockery. While Beethoven is busy composing a fresh musical work, he could also be pouring water on his disheveled hair and drive his neighbors crazy with his whisper disregard for their well-being as he ruins their dinner times.
3) The astonishing music in the film: Not only do we derive to hear the fabulous movements of the 9th Symphony, but we find to hear excerpts of the String Quartet and other works. The movie could have done without “Fur Elise” (which is overplayed to death) — we could have had more of some of his sonatas and chamber works.
4) The extraordinary featurette “Orchestrating Beethoven” which offered tremendous interviews of the director, script writers, and cast members. It was very insightful. The featurette and deleted scenes are mountainous.
What I didn’t like about the movie:
1) The over-emphasis on the importance of Anna Holtz to Beethoven. Other reviewers have rightly criticized the movie as having too considerable of a feminist curved in this legend of Beethoven. As the featurette in the Special Features define, the account of Anna Holtz as the gifted female compositional student is a work of fiction — Anna Holtz is an example of artistic license on the section of screenwriters; she is a composite of all the different assistants that helped Beethoven.
For dramatic finish and for creating a strong female character, the screenwriters created Anna Holtz to be the one assistant that comes to the succor of Beethoven in both his personal life and his compositional & musical efforts. As Diane Kruger portrays her, Anna is comely, smart, gifted, and perceptive. She is everything that Schlemmer (Beethoven’s aging male assistant) is not. She is able to discern the thoughts and feelings of Beethoven — she is the perfect assistant to back complete and “fair” Beethoven’s compositions. At the climactic end, she is perfectly in sync with Beethoven as he conducts the 9th Symphony. She is able to conduct objective as Beethoven does. In fact they become “one” in their conducting.
Historical and musical purists may be infuriated at these scenes.
2) It is highly doubtful that Beethoven conducted the 9th symphony with the wait on of a female assistant giving him the rhythmic cues. Yet, this forms the climax of the movie.
All this aside, I felt that the movie was very worthwhile to seek. It was a very tantalizing and inspirational portrait of Beethoven. In fact, I judge it is the best portrayal of Beethoven for a feature film. It is a grand better film on Beethoven than “Immortal Beloved” (which I judge was very chaotic and unorganized) .
If you’re a classical music lover and a Beethoven fan, this movie is well-worth watching. I have you’ll be impressed by Harris’ acting.
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