Customer Reviews

Copying Beethoven

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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 beautiful 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 back was to the audience could not see them. With Tears in her eyes one of the singers led Beethoven to the edge of the stage where he could see the cheering people." At this point Schroeder buries his face in his hands and emits a heartbroken "SOB."

There are many stories about that first performance, and while no one knows for sure 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 behind 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 still beating time and turning pages of the score. That was when the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven around to see the cheering audience, who were raising their hands and throwing things into the air to make 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), create the fictional character of Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), a young woman who is sent to the apartment of the maestro to turn his original pages for the score 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 proper tempos, and it will be Anna who will turn Beethoven around so that he can see the applause.

What will surprise you is that this film's interpretation of this memorable moment comes not at the end of "Copying Beethoven," but about an hour into this 2006 film. It is the highpoint of the film and then the story continues for another half hour, with decidedly less impressive results. My favorite scene actually comes early in the film, when Anna is trying to explain that she is indeed the copyist who has been sent to turn his original pages for the score of the 9th Symphony into something that can actually be read and printed for the orchestra. It is in its own small wall the counterpart to the scene at the end 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 glimpse 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 articulate what he was doing to change the world of music, is turned into a proto-feminist figure who wants to make her own mark 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 original source material to be mined for gems similar to what we get a glimpse of early in the film. Instead, we waste 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 idea 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 actual performance of the 9th is far too short for my taste and the emphasis becomes not so much the music as it is the place 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 problem in that the way the situation is set up you are inclined to think that they are skating on the edge of disaster and that either one of them could make a horrible mistake. This tends to take away from the music and at least there are a few shots of members of the audience moved by the realization that this deaf old 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 uncover the mystery woman in his life. But watching Harris play Beethoven conducting his symphony is pretty captivating and throughout this movie there is always Beethoven's music, so there is ample grounds to round up on this film. Finally, if the main effect of this film is that you go out and listen to the 9th Symphony from start to finish, which is exactly what I did, then you would be ahead of the game.

I'm not as overwhelmed as the last reviewer. The movie is visually very pleasing, and of course the music is wonderful, but the characters and their situations are terribly cliche'd, and the script pretty clunky and wooden in places. Basically, this is just an old-time Hollywood biopic with a touch of social comment (the role of women) and discussion of the nature of Art thrown in. Diane Kruger is curiously lukewarm and not entirely convincing, but Ed Harris does a good job, and despite my reservations this is certainly a movie worth watching.

The best thing going for this movie is Ed Harris' electrifying performance as Beethoven. He captures Beethoven's musical genius and his dark side, as a rude and crude man.

Other reviewers have done an excellent job of describing the story. 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 mad at God for giving him a musical gift and then making him deaf. He would purposedly make 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 end of his life. His dialogue to Anna about how he can sense the voice of God through music were very moving.

The scenes of Beethoven composing are the most memorable scenes in this movie for me -- he clearly has the great gift of being able to piece together all the musical forms in his head. These scenes reminded me of "Amadeus" when Mozart was able to see how all the different parts of different instruments come together in his symphonic compositions.

Through these scenes we get to see how God chose to deposit his musical gifts in a very common and ordinary man who is full of shortcomings and weaknesses.

2) Ed Harris does a great 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 new musical work, he could also be pouring water on his disheveled hair and drive his neighbors crazy with his utter disregard for their well-being as he ruins their dinner times.

3) The wonderful music in the film: Not only do we get to hear the wonderful movements of the 9th Symphony, but we get 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 wonderful featurette "Orchestrating Beethoven" which offered great interviews of the director, script writers, and cast members. It was very insightful. The featurette and deleted scenes are great.

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 much of a feminist bent in this story of Beethoven. As the featurette in the Special Features explain, the story of Anna Holtz as the gifted female compositional student is a work of fiction -- Anna Holtz is an example of artistic license on the part of screenwriters; she is a composite of all the different assistants that helped Beethoven.

For dramatic effect and for creating a strong female character, the screenwriters created Anna Holtz to be the one assistant that comes to the aid of Beethoven in both his personal life and his compositional & musical efforts. As Diane Kruger portrays her, Anna is attractive, intelligent, 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 help complete and "correct" Beethoven's compositions. At the climactic close, she is perfectly in sync with Beethoven as he conducts the 9th Symphony. She is able to conduct just 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 help 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 watch. It was a very moving and inspirational portrait of Beethoven. In fact, I think it is the best portrayal of Beethoven for a feature film. It is a much better film on Beethoven than "Immortal Beloved" (which I think was very chaotic and unorganized).

If you're a classical music lover and a Beethoven fan, this movie is well-worth watching. I believe you'll be impressed by Harris' acting.

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.

The writers and producers of this movie worked hard to imbed informative nuances (such as his directing style) into this production. I loved the music, and enjoyed the portrayals. The presentation of the actual Ninth Symphony was amazing. It made me feel the tension within the orchestra like I was holding an Oboe and was waiting to play just the hand full of notes comprising my part. The opulence of the audience looked appropriate for that Age of Style. Anna's emotions during her faux-conducting made it look like someone within a labor of love.

The movie material after the Ninth was I presume felt to be necessary but I did not find it pleasing.

Still, as a window into Beethoven, and as a unique view from within the orchestra, this is a good movie.

He's one of those rare actors that can't be pigeonholed into a role or type. For a while there, Ed Harris simply was Beethoven and we were watching him slowly wind down his life til he went out in a blazing hymn.

I wouldn't buy this film to watch over and over unless I was a very strong classical music fan, but "Copying Beethoven" was well worth watching at least once.

This is a difficult movie to rate for me because I'm a huge fan of Beethoven's music and I have researched his life and compositions extensively. First, it certainly is worth viewing just because it's about Beethoven but there are a number of scenes that will leave the purists hurling objects at the screen. I mean someone, anyone, correcting Beethoven's music! There's a thunderclap! Beethoven's music has a frugality of content that belies the rich sounds and metaphors it invokes. It contains a sort of musical minimalism and structural form that retains only that which is absolutely necessary. His music is generally made from molecular bits of sound, carefully crafted and shaped to yield an incredible tapestry of sound with tremendous structural unity.

With this in mind, when Anna Holtz corrected the Ninth, I nearly fell off my chair (well, when she showed up as his assistant I was already mystified). Beethoven would've tore her to pieces if she had dared question a note much less correct him. He did not take any meddling in his music kindly; even things as trivial as a listener's lack of attention would enrage him.

The scene with Anna Holtz helping Beethoven conduct the Ninth was not nearly as painful though it was utterly fictional. It helped in terms of an emotional underpinning for the movie. In reality, Beethoven was still conducting when the orchestra had finished performing since he could not tell they had finished (his hearing loss was nearly complete at this point).

The movie does convey his contempt for flattery, his epic rudeness and his radical departure from the norms of composition during his time. On the whole, I really liked the performances of the cast and, undoubtedly, the tremendous music. On balance, definitely worth a spin though not without gaping flaws and glaring historical inaccuracies.

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!

I could not give any movie using so much of Beethoven's music less than three stars. Ed Harris does a good job as Beethoven, but the movie focuses way too much time on a fictional character Anna Holtz. She's trying to become a composer. She must fight against everyone's opinion, including Beethoven's, that women can't compose. Beethoven is quickly won over. (There is a funny scene where Beethoven is punctuating his musical reading of Anna's composition with raspberries, which mimics a scene in Amadeus) She's in love with an engineer, Beethoven thinks anything or anyone which deal with a slide rule can have no soul. Is Anna going to dump the engineer? The movie could could give us a fasincating story on the real Beethoven, but we spend most of time learning about travails of a fictional Anna.

The climax of the movie happens while Anna is helping Ludwig conduct the first performance of the Ninth Symphony. He is taking cues from her on the beat and helping the performers to come in. They cut out way too much of the Ninth, but that is a side point. We watch him watch her be transfigured by the music. It is a good way to express the power of the Ninth. Unfortunately she loses the beat sometimes. So it is a technique that only partially works. The movie also shows Beethoven's estranged nephew Karl's reaction to the Ninth, which helped with displaying the power of the performance of the Ninth.

The movie sort of drifts after the performance of the Ninth. The audience hears snippets of the Grosse Fugue and some other pieces, but not enough. The movie delves slightly into the nature of creativity. What is and is not art, but not very well. There is a good line from Beethoven yelling that music is the language of God and that God screams into his ears and that why he is deaf. There is some other mumble jumble about composing music and religion. I am not sure whether the movie is quoting Beethoven or not.

The movie was enjoyable because of the soundtrack. I put it on the same level as "Immortal Beloved." Beloved is more flamboyant and Copying has Ed Harris going for it. My recommendation is to skip those movies and go buy a CD of the Ninth.

Why can't Hollywood use any intelligence? Profit motive only? Well, perhaps one of these days someone there will realize that an accurate movie about what really happened in Beethoven's life would pack 'em in to the theatre faster. Beethoven's true life, not fabrications based upon marginal and basically unknown love fantasies about him are insults to the movie-going public and the nobility of his person.

Think how exciting a movie would be which was accurate in it's depiction of his true talent and suffering.