Copying Beethoven

With few exceptions, films about the great composers have been a rum bunch. Grieg got the egregious Song Of Norway. Ken Russell did well by Delius in Song of Summer, okay by Tchaikovsky in The Music Lovers, so-so for Mahler, then perpetrated Lisztomania, with Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt, Paul Nicholas as Wagner, and Ringo Starr as the Pope. And of course, Tom Hulce played Mozart as a braying adolescent in Amadeus.

Stern, deaf old Beethoven has mostly been given a wide berth by filmmakers, although I should like to have seen Erich von Stroheim's portrayal in Sacha Guitry's Napoleon, and Gary Oldman was well cast in Immortal Beloved.

Now one of Oldman's former costars is taking up the challenge. Ed Harris (The Right Stuff; A History Of Violence; The Rock) is certainly not an obvious choice. Clipped and self contained, with a tight mouth and jutting jaw, he is most often seen as officer material - though he had a brush with genius in his own film, Pollock.

Agnieszka Holland (Total Eclipse; Washington Square) introduces the character from behind, almost as if he were the phantom of the opera. Anna Holz (Diane Kruger, from Troy) has been dispatched to serve as his copyist - that is, to transcribe his compositions for performance, a kind of musical secretary. Appropriately enough she hears him before she sees him, sitting at the piano humming and playing as he composes. He's wearing a peculiar silver contraption about his head to bounce back the sound, but he's too deaf to hear her come in. The year is 1824, and he is hard at work on his 9th Symphony.

The maestro is duly scathing about a woman sent to do a man's job, though it becomes apparent he's an equal opportunity ogre, making mincemeat of any fool who crosses his path. With a rather splendid wig and (unless I'm mistaken) a putty nose, Harris is almost unrecognizable in the role, and his big, bold, extravagant performance is equally unexpected. It seems to come more from a European expressionist tradition. Even his voice is different, deeper and haughty.

It takes some getting used to, this performance, in part because it's not a natural fit, but it's fascinating all the same, and often funny. Beethoven has such absolute belief in his own God-given genius, he's utterly contemptuous of social niceties. 'God whispers in the ear of some men,' he says. 'He shouts in mine!' To prove the point he; well, you should see for yourself. I was shocked, which is not a reaction you get much with this kind of picture.

Dramatically-speaking the movie can't avoid the obvious comparison with Amadeus. Anna fancies herself a composer too, but has to come to terms with the vast chasm between a nice talent and unruly genius. There are lots of scenes of her sitting, transcribing as the music pours out of him, that are strongly reminiscent of the climax of the Milos Forman film.

Holland's movie is on a more modest scale, but in some ways that's to its advantage. It takes some liberties (Beethoven didn't have a female copyist and by this stage in his life he was even more deaf than he appears in the film), but if anything this film is probably more respectful of the artist.

Where it really scores, if you'll pardon the pun, is in its palpable engagement with the music. Holland and her DP Ashley Rowe try various means to express the discovery and thrill of hearing a new Beethoven composition for the first time, and their invention pays off handsomely in a long, unbroken sequence devoted to the premiere of the 9th, conducted by Ludwig van, with Anna conducting him in effect, to help him keep time. It becomes a love scene, a transcendent moment in an otherwise solid, enjoyable movie.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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