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 pretty 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 relieve was to the audience could not gape them. With Tears in her eyes one of the singers led Beethoven to the edge of the stage where he could notice the cheering people.” At this point Schroeder buries his face in his hands and emits a heartbroken “Scream.”
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There are many stories about that first performance, and while no one knows for determined 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 gradual 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 peaceful beating time and turning pages of the derive. That was when the contralto Caroline Unger walked over and turned Beethoven around to examine the cheering audience, who were raising their hands and throwing things into the air to accomplish 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), develop the fictional character of Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), a young woman who is sent to the apartment of the maestro to turn his recent pages for the salvage 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 safe tempos, and it will be Anna who will turn Beethoven around so that he can observe 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 account continues for another half hour, with decidedly less impressive results. My well-liked scene actually comes early in the film, when Anna is trying to interpret that she is indeed the copyist who has been sent to turn his new pages for the bag of the 9th Symphony into something that can actually be read and printed for the orchestra. It is in its maintain exiguous wall the counterpart to the scene at the demolish 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 witness 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 mutter what he was doing to change the world of music, is turned into a proto-feminist figure who wants to acquire her acquire brand 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 recent source material to be mined for gems similar to what we come by a peek 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 view 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 sincere performance of the 9th is far too short for my taste and the emphasis becomes not so worthy the music as it is the situation 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 spot in that the contrivance the station is status up you are inclined to assume that they are skating on the edge of concern and that either one of them could acquire a detestable mistake. This tends to rob away from the music and at least there are a few shots of members of the audience moved by the realization that this deaf primitive 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 pleasing interesting and throughout this movie there is always Beethoven’s music, so there is huge grounds to round up on this film. Finally, if the main achieve of this film is that you go out and listen to the 9th Symphony from originate to enact, 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 gloomy side, as a improper and shameful man.
Other reviewers have done an fine job of describing the account. 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 compose 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 whisper of God through music were very provocative.
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 section together all the musical forms in his head. These scenes reminded me of “Amadeus” when Mozart was able to gape how all the different parts of different instruments near together in his symphonic compositions.
Through these scenes we salvage to search for how God chose to deposit his musical gifts in a very current and ordinary man who is rotund of shortcomings and weaknesses.
2) Ed Harris does a expansive 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 unusual musical work, he could also be pouring water on his disheveled hair and drive his neighbors crazy with his protest disregard for their well-being as he ruins their dinner times.
3) The incredible music in the film: Not only do we catch to hear the fabulous movements of the 9th Symphony, but we win 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 astonishing featurette “Orchestrating Beethoven” which offered spacious interviews of the director, script writers, and cast members. It was very insightful. The featurette and deleted scenes are colossal.
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 grand of a feminist crooked in this memoir of Beethoven. As the featurette in the Special Features account for, the memoir of Anna Holtz as the gifted female compositional student is a work of fiction — Anna Holtz is an example of artistic license on the share of screenwriters; she is a composite of all the different assistants that helped Beethoven.
For dramatic do and for creating a strong female character, the screenwriters created Anna Holtz to be the one assistant that comes to the relieve of Beethoven in both his personal life and his compositional & musical efforts. As Diane Kruger portrays her, Anna is splendid, gleaming, 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 serve complete and “moral” Beethoven’s compositions. At the climactic halt, 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 serve 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 glance. It was a very captivating and inspirational portrait of Beethoven. In fact, I contemplate it is the best portrayal of Beethoven for a feature film. It is a worthy 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 beget you’ll be impressed by Harris’ acting.
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