Copying Beethoven | 
| Director: Agnieszka Holland
Actors: Diane Kruger, Ralph Riach, Matyelok Gibbs, Ed Harris, Bill Stewart
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy Used: $4.99
You Save: $14.99 (75%)
New (40) Used (25) from $4.99
Rating:  62 reviews
Sales Rank: 9682
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: DM106498D
UPC: 027616064981
EAN: 0027616064981
ASIN: B000MV8AE0
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: April 3, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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 Beethoven's 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 | 
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Stills from Copying Beethoven
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 57 more reviews...
 Harris plays Beethoven; Beethoven loses May 28, 2009
Gerard Dionne
Those of us with an aesthetic bent always hope a film about a great artist will add to our understanding of that ineffable something which explains the transcendence that can arise from among us. This movie ain't it. Ed Harris, so brilliant elsewhere, is hilariously miscast. The script is a one-day-pass to Beethoven World. The cinematography, particularly in its effort to add impact to the obscenely truncated Ninth Symphony sequence, only trivializes the music. Nuance? subtlety? Look for another source.
Visually stunning May 22, 2009
Copying Beethoven is not meant to be a biography and is not a documentary. We all know the real facts about the first performance of Beethoven's ninth ( or perhaps we all think that we know). We all seem to know that they are not depicted historically in this film.
Copying Beethoven is just a charming film, a piece of cinematic art, that is a pleasure to view and to hear. Each face is a portrait and each scene is tastefully presented to us, the viewers.
So rather than pick it apart, thinking that it was trying to be what it wasn't, I suggest that we all just relax, watch, listen and enjoy.
Smacks of Amadeus April 7, 2009
Jennifer L. Ruane (Atlanta, GA)
This just happened to be on cable last night. I knew not to compare it to the love story "Immortal Beloved" (which I happened to like very much) but I never dreamed that it would openly plagiarise "Amadeus". Wasn't Beethoven interesting enough on his own? It was truly disappointed with the "deathbed" scene (okay, he wasn't dying, but you get the idea)... the way he called out the notes, asked Anna if "she got it", moved his hands while humming, etc., it was so tragically copycat of Mozart dictating the Requiem to Salieri that I couldn't bear to watch.
Now I did give this 3 stars for 3 reasons: I liked having a little more background on Beethoven's nephew; I loved the Salieri and Orsini name-dropping; but most of all, having never heard anything of the 9th symphony except the chorale "Ode to Joy", I was enthralled with the entire scene... the faces of the audience in awe and the look on his face when Anna turns him to face the throng (which I was mentally combining with same scene from "Immortal").
 An IRRESISTIBLE target. *punch* March 31, 2009
J. T. Larcade (United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I like Ed Harris but not as Beethoven. He looks right, but sounds wrong. I don't like American actors playing historical figures; that didn't work in the 1940s, and still does not.
But I MOST don't like this silly movie for the model bridge-smashing scene. How dare they portray Beethoven as having ever done such a thing? It's sacrilege. It maligns a dead man. It panders to this generation's insistence on having vile, unacceptable behavior represented in all venues of entertainment, lionized as "interesting" and "believable" and "understandable" and "common to us all, after all." We used to insist on heroism. Now we insist on bringing icons down to our own lowest level.
This movie, especially that scene, followed by the young lady's taking 15 seconds to give in and stay with that infantile, violent malignant narcissist, is CUT OUT for the reviewer who craves a good vent.
As for the DVD, it might be fine quality, I don't know. I was too offended by the content to notice either way. I clicked it off while the camera was on that doorway, the instant her skirt appeared in the frame, indicating that she had come RIGHT back after saying "I don't even want to be near you."
That isn't a story. That is canned, predictable, lazy movie-making.
No, it's not "Amadeus" nor even close but... March 31, 2009
A. J. Stavsky
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
...with a superb performance by Harris and two hours of gorgeous Kruger, how can you miss? The music is great too...
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