# New German film about Beethoven



## Hunt Stromberg (Sep 6, 2021)

Looks seriously like "Amadeus" judging by this preview, but we'll see: some of you who live in Germany would have already seen it on television.


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

Looks decent. 

Biographical films that try to cover the entire life of the subject are difficult to write and usually pretty bad, in my opinion, but this one at least seems to be better than the terrible Immortal Beloved.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Hunt Stromberg said:


> Looks seriously like "Amadeus"


To me, Amadeus is an overrated film/play with dumb acting/storyline. This biopic from 1991 is much better;


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## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

Amadeus is a surprisingly great film! -- despite the attempt to leverage interest by w****** off Mozart because audiences love this "deification of superstars", the script is very well written. And the film _is_ silly and gaudy and overblown, but in a good way. It's rare that a director knows how to shift the mood from comedy to drama effectively, but Forman nails it.

People just shouldn't see it as a biography.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I saw it last year on German TV. 
It's a rather mediocre movie (hard to understand unless you already know the biography of Beethoven) but it is very different from Amadeus and historically comparably accurate (with the usual exaggerations). One problem is that it focusses on the child/teenaged Beethoven (with a framing of the old Beethoven), so not a single famous work of Beethoven is featured because obviously none of them was written in Bonn. I never saw "The immortal beloved" from the 1990s complete but "Copying Beethoven" is a better movie (although neither good nor great) than the German one.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

As it happens I've not long finished the Beethoven biography by Jan Swafford, which brings out (a) how bad-tempered Beethoven was for quite a lot of the time, albeit also (b) how much suffering, physical as well as emotional, underlay that. First impression from that trailer makes me wonder how much of this the film will bring out. I'll definitely try and catch it though.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The movie is more likely to bore than to annoy or provoke strong reactions, I think. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it but if it is easily accessible, the worst thing is a waste of 100 min. or so.
(I should get on with reading the Swafford book...)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

A) "Eroica" is still the best film about Beethoven.

B) "Amadeus" is not and was never intended to be a biopic.

C) Lockwood is shorter, less pretentious/quirky, and all around better bio than Swafford.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

MarkW said:


> A) "Eroica" is still the best film about Beethoven.


This one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eroica_(1949_film)

Not sure if I have ever seen this one...



> B) "Amadeus" is not and was never intended to be a biopic.


Yes, and it is overall a pretty good movie, despite the silly portrayal of Mozart (it's more about Salieri).



> C) Lockwood is shorter, less pretentious/quirky, and all around better bio than Swafford.


I have already read the Lockwood years ago and already bought the Swafford, so this is too late.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> This one?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eroica_(1949_film)
> 
> Not sure if I have ever seen this one...


No, the BBC one. Not totally accurate -- telescopes into one day a lot of things that happened over time, and Haydn makes an apocryphal appearance -- but tells you a lot about Beethoven, and includes a superb performance of Eroica by John Eliot Gardener.


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## Hunt Stromberg (Sep 6, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> I saw it last year on German TV.
> It's a rather mediocre movie (hard to understand unless you already know the biography of Beethoven) but it is very different from Amadeus and historically comparably accurate (with the usual exaggerations). One problem is that it focusses on the child/teenaged Beethoven (with a framing of the old Beethoven), so not a single famous work of Beethoven is featured because obviously none of them was written in Bonn. I never saw "The immortal beloved" from the 1990s complete but "Copying Beethoven" is a better movie (although neither good nor great) than the German one.


Can you tell us what music actually is used in the film because, surely, a film about Beethoven without music is not to be taken seriously.


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

MarkW said:


> No, the BBC one. Not totally accurate -- telescopes into one day a lot of things that happened over time, and Haydn makes an apocryphal appearance -- but tells you a lot about Beethoven, and includes a superb performance of Eroica by John Eliot Gardener.


Agree with you on all you say here. This is for me too the most convincing film about Beethoven, even if it's not a biopic. All other films are kind of mediocre characterizations of him. Immortal Beloved for instance didn't do it for me (despite all biographical inaccuracies and liberties, Amadeus was much more enjoyable to me as a film).


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> To me, Amadeus is an overrated film/play with dumb acting/storyline. This biopic from 1991 is much better;


No, thanks. Amadeus is still better to me.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Hunt Stromberg said:


> Can you tell us what music actually is used in the film because, surely, a film about Beethoven without music is not to be taken seriously.


This is from wikipedia. I don't remember the details; the framing has the old Beethoven at his brother's house, so I think we get the late quartets for this and we see the very young Beethoven play some of his own early works.

Große Fuge; Artemis Quartett / Czech Ensemble Baroque[9]
Streichquartett Nr. 1, 2. Satz; Artemis Quartett
Streichquartett Nr. 13, 2. Satz; Artemis Quartett
Streichquartett Nr. 13, 6. Satz; Auryn Quartett
Streichquartett Nr. 14, 5. Satz; Artemis Quartett
Streichquartett Nr. 16, 4. Satz; Artemis Quartett, David Marlow (Hammerklavier)

Klaviersonate Nr. 14 (Mondscheinsonate); Peter Lewys Preston
Klaviersonate Nr. 17 (Der Sturm); Peter Lewys Preston
Klaviersonate F-moll (WoO47, Kurfürstensonate); Colin Pütz

Klavierquartett C-Dur (WoO 36); David Marlow, Jiri Havrlant, Barbara Willi / Czech Ensemble Baroque
7. Sinfonie, 2. Satz; WDR Sinfonieorchester unter Jukka-Pekka Saraste
Variationen über „Se vuol ballare" (WoO40); Hiro Kurosaki (Violine), Linda Nicholson (Hammerklavier), David Marlow
Variationen über ein Thema von Waldstein (WoO 67); Dominik Maringer, David Marlow
Bagatelle, op. 119; Dominik Maringer
Variationen über „Benni Amore" von Righini (WoO65); David Marlow[9]


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

MarkW said:


> No, the BBC one. Not totally accurate -- telescopes into one day a lot of things that happened over time, and Haydn makes an apocryphal appearance -- but tells you a lot about Beethoven, and includes a superb performance of Eroica by John Eliot Gardener.


If I remember correctly the BBC drama focused primarily on the time around the composing of the Eroica symphony - so isn't really a full biopic.
But it was a decent watch.


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

Question is whether it's better than Immortal Beloved, which wasn't a great film but had a couple of really well done scenes and was one of Oldman's best performances to date.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It certainly does not have any actors on the level of Oldman, the best is probably the one portraying Neefe. The old Beethoven is only for the framing, the main action has Beethoven played by two different young actors as ca. 12 and ca. 17 year old (when he meets Mozart in Vienna who is doing nothing but playing billiards).


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