'Copying Beethoven' takes place in 1824, toward the end of Beethoven’s life. Anna Holtz (Kruger), a Viennese music student who...
'Copying Beethoven' takes place in 1824, toward the end of Beethoven’s life. Anna Holtz (Kruger), a Viennese music student who through talent, ambition and happenstance finds herself summoned to transcribe Beethoven’s messy musical notations. Stone deaf, Beethoven (Harris in a wig) initially rebuffs her services (you’re a woman, he all but shouts, as if her sex were a crime), but quickly relents. Time and life are running out, and he is too preoccupied with finishing his latest symphony to rout out someone new. So together, in a darkly lighted apartment where rats scuttle underfoot amid eggshells and overflowing chamber pots, he composes and she copies. In time, the work and the notes join forces until one evening, with Beethoven conducting, the Ninth Symphony erupts into a dazzled world. [NYT]
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28 %81 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
56 %14,224 reviewsAudience score rating
"Helmer Agnieszka Holland's Copying Beethoven joins 1994's "Immortal Beloved" in the ranks of mediocre dramatic interpretations of Beethoven's biography..."
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Variety
Variety"Topped with that messy salt-and-pepper wig that frames and obscures his scowling, searching face, [Harris] invests Beethoven with a violent turbulence that sometimes floods the room but mostly stays coiled inside, where it seethes..."
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The New York Times
The New York Times"Has one knockout sequence: the deaf maestro conducting his Ninth Symphony as Anna coaches from the wings. It goes on for what seems a whole reel, but it's so sublime it seems too short and, by itself, could stand as one of the greatest classic music videos ever..."
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer"One is left yearning for the overheated melodrama of Bernard Rose's 1994 Beethoven biopic, "Immortal Beloved," which was trashy, but fun..."
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LA Weekly
LA Weekly"The picture never successfully comes off the written page..."
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Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood Reporter"Holland's empurpled bio-fantasy is hooey with an anachronistic feminist slant from start to finish..."
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Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment WeeklyCopying Beethoven | Details
- Runtime
- 104
- Genre
- Drama, Music, Romance
- Country of origin
- USA, Germany
