Copying Beethoven (2006)
Country: GER/GB/HUN/US
Technical: Kodak/Super 35 104m
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Cast: Ed Harris, Diane Krüger, Matthew Goode, Ralph Riach
Synopsis:
A female student of composition goes to work for Beethoven as copyist as he prepares his great Ninth Symphony.
Review:
A synopsis to make one wince with apprehension but in fact this intimately focused drama avoids most of the pitfalls of composer biopics, though the dictation scene is clearly indebted to Amadeus and was perhaps a mistake. It makes as fair a stab as any at making clear to the layman what it is that is so special about the music, even as it often gets sidetracked into the man and his words through the need to have some dramatic business on which to hang it all. The production, shot in Hungary, is beyond reproach in its design and so on, and Harris dominates the film as the tormented soul, channelling the words of God but unable to hear them. On the down side, quite apart from the hard to swallow nature of the proto-feminist lead character and her unlikely elevation (it is a fiction), in the end the film does not go anywhere because it forgets what it is about: her struggle as a female composer? his too challenging music? her discovery of his genius? his fraught personal life involving his nephew? It toys with all of these ideas but suffers from a non-committal climax.
Country: GER/GB/HUN/US
Technical: Kodak/Super 35 104m
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Cast: Ed Harris, Diane Krüger, Matthew Goode, Ralph Riach
Synopsis:
A female student of composition goes to work for Beethoven as copyist as he prepares his great Ninth Symphony.
Review:
A synopsis to make one wince with apprehension but in fact this intimately focused drama avoids most of the pitfalls of composer biopics, though the dictation scene is clearly indebted to Amadeus and was perhaps a mistake. It makes as fair a stab as any at making clear to the layman what it is that is so special about the music, even as it often gets sidetracked into the man and his words through the need to have some dramatic business on which to hang it all. The production, shot in Hungary, is beyond reproach in its design and so on, and Harris dominates the film as the tormented soul, channelling the words of God but unable to hear them. On the down side, quite apart from the hard to swallow nature of the proto-feminist lead character and her unlikely elevation (it is a fiction), in the end the film does not go anywhere because it forgets what it is about: her struggle as a female composer? his too challenging music? her discovery of his genius? his fraught personal life involving his nephew? It toys with all of these ideas but suffers from a non-committal climax.
Country: GER/GB/HUN/US
Technical: Kodak/Super 35 104m
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Cast: Ed Harris, Diane Krüger, Matthew Goode, Ralph Riach
Synopsis:
A female student of composition goes to work for Beethoven as copyist as he prepares his great Ninth Symphony.
Review:
A synopsis to make one wince with apprehension but in fact this intimately focused drama avoids most of the pitfalls of composer biopics, though the dictation scene is clearly indebted to Amadeus and was perhaps a mistake. It makes as fair a stab as any at making clear to the layman what it is that is so special about the music, even as it often gets sidetracked into the man and his words through the need to have some dramatic business on which to hang it all. The production, shot in Hungary, is beyond reproach in its design and so on, and Harris dominates the film as the tormented soul, channelling the words of God but unable to hear them. On the down side, quite apart from the hard to swallow nature of the proto-feminist lead character and her unlikely elevation (it is a fiction), in the end the film does not go anywhere because it forgets what it is about: her struggle as a female composer? his too challenging music? her discovery of his genius? his fraught personal life involving his nephew? It toys with all of these ideas but suffers from a non-committal climax.