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Copying Beethoven
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Additional DVD options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
DVD
February 22, 2010 "Please retry" | — | 1 |
—
| $7.58 | $6.41 |
Watch Instantly with | Rent | Buy |
Purchase options and add-ons
Genre | Drama |
Format | Dolby, NTSC, Color, Widescreen, Subtitled, AC-3, Multiple Formats, Dubbed |
Contributor | David Kennedy, Nicholas Jones, Ralph Riach, Joe Anderson (VI), George Mendel, Matthew Goode, Bill Stewart, Angus Barnett, Matyelok Gibbs, Agnieszka Holland, Viktoria Dihen, Diane Kruger, Ed Harris, Gbor Bohus, Phyllida Law, Lszl ron, Karl Johnson (II) See more |
Language | English |
Runtime | 1 hour and 44 minutes |
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Product Description
Product Description
When young Anna Holz (Diane Kruger), a Viennese music student is asked to transcribe scoring notes for the great Ludwig van Beethoven (Harris), she eagerly accepts, despite warnings about his volatile behavior. Part maestro, part mentor and part madman, Beethoven reluctantly relies on Anna to help him realize the culmination of his art.
Amazon.com
A passionate, powerful drama based loosely on the final months of Ludwig van Beethoven's life, Copying Beethoven finds the maestro a haunted man, composing the most revolutionary yet unappreciated work of his lifetime; largely deaf; disappointed in his relationship with a wastrel nephew; and fascinated by a young, female composer, Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), who goes to work for him transcribing music. Staying as a guest at a convent and engaged to a stolid engineer, Anna is drawn to Beethovens tempestuous genius. Half the time he's enchanted by her and seems to see straight through to her soul. The other half, he's shouting at her for her timidity or flattery. Hardly a mouse, Anna fights back. The more she does, the more Beethoven recognizes in her a kindred survivor, someone with whom he can reveal his vulnerability and the burden of his artistry. Ed Harris' Beethoven is wracked by pain but not overwhelmed by it; he looks like a man who understands his responsibility to nature too well to merely disintegrate. ("God whispers in most men's ears," Beethoven says. "He shouts in mine.") Director Agnieszka Holland (Olivier, Olivier) oversees a handsome, alternately tender and brutal drama, with several thrilling moments, including the stunned look of audience members hearing the world premiere of the glorious 9th Symphony. --Tom Keogh
Copying Beethoven Extras
Watch Ed Harris speak about portraying Beethoven in this exclusive clip.
Beyond Copying Beethoven
Copying Beethoven Soundtrack
Famous Composers: Ludwig Van Beethoven
More From MGM
Stills from Copying Beethoven
Product details
- Aspect Ratio : 2.35:1
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
- Product Dimensions : 7.5 x 5.25 x 0.5 inches; 2.88 ounces
- Item model number : MFR027616064981#N
- Director : Agnieszka Holland
- Media Format : Dolby, NTSC, Color, Widescreen, Subtitled, AC-3, Multiple Formats, Dubbed
- Run time : 1 hour and 44 minutes
- Release date : April 3, 2007
- Actors : Diane Kruger, Ralph Riach, Matyelok Gibbs, Ed Harris, Bill Stewart
- Dubbed: : French, Spanish
- Subtitles: : English, Spanish
- Language : English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)
- Studio : MGM (Video & DVD)
- ASIN : B000MV8AE0
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,506 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #331 in Musicals (Movies & TV)
- #1,039 in Romance (Movies & TV)
- #4,396 in Drama DVDs
- Customer Reviews:
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So, does it work? Musically, the film is quite sophisticated, the Ninth fragments performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and the LSO Chorus (of which I was a member many years ago). The story? Well, the theme, which is the difficulty of devoting your life to music (for Anna but for Beethoven too), will resonate in the memories of those of us who chose other routes to earning a living and wonder whether the trade-offs were worth it. Beethoven knew, without any question, that his music would be played everywhere and forever, but at the same time he lived a lonely, financially precarious life, and died at the age of 57. He never married, though he wanted to, and had no children of his own. Worth it? Even Beethoven couldn’t know, for he never lived any alternative life. That’s the same situation I, who went on to law school, am in when it comes to music – I have no way of knowing what that life would have been. Would my symphonies be played by the LSO? Would I have three musicals running on Broadway and the London West End? Or would I, as my father warned, have had to buy a hand organ and a monkey? No way to know, and this film, as I say, brings all these thoughts to mind. Five stars, for sure.
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.
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.
Top reviews from other countries
La escena final es simplemente imprescindible por los amantes de la música.