You probably have to be a classical music buff or a sucker for period pieces to really enjoy “Copying Beethoven,” a fictionalized story about the great composer. This film has its share of silly moments and trumped-up drama.
But it’s funny how a single sequence can elevate an otherwise ordinary movie. And “Copying Beethoven” has one of those amazing, enthralling sequences in the midst of its middling tale.
The basic story has the aging Beethoven, played by Ed Harris, in need of someone to copy out his music. Much to his disgust, a woman, Anna (Diane Kruger), is sent for the job.
Beethoven, also known as “the Beast,” initially takes a sexist disdain toward his new copyist. Then he recognizes that she truly understands his music (in one highly unlikely moment, she improves on a musical phrase), and a friendship is born.
It’s a sort of “Amadeus”-lite, with Beethoven snorting and stamping around his Vienna apartment while his pretty assistant puts up with the genius. She has a beau, an architecture student (Matthew Goode, from “Match Point”), who in one amusing scene gets a dressing-down about his talent from the bluntly honest Beethoven.
This is enjoyable enough, but not earth-shaking. There are a few too many cute one-liners, and the attitude seems rather modern for Beethoven’s Vienna.
Then comes the 15-minute sequence that justifies the whole project. It’s the night of the premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which the composer insists on conducting himself – even though, at this point, he is all but totally deaf.
Just before taking the stage, he asks Anna to sit in the orchestra, score in hand, and mirror his movements back to him while he keeps the orchestra in rhythm. Then the music begins.
The film smartly segues from one great moment in the Ninth Symphony to another, all the while watching these two people communicate through their eyes and hands. Any kind of sexual tension between Beethoven and Anna is irrelevant after this – this is their passionate consummation.
Both Kruger (from “National Treasure”) and Harris are on fire during this scene. Harris looks absolutely lunatic at times, and you could almost believe this is Beethoven, who must have been blown away by hearing his own genius … except, of course, that he couldn’t hear a thing. Surely composing the Ninth Symphony in deafness must stand as the most prodigious act of artistic imagination in history.
And after that? The movie slides back into the ordinary. It’s almost as though director Agnieska Holland (“The Secret Garden”) knew that the script was so-so, and poured her energies into the Ninth Symphony sequence and the two lead performances. For those 15 minutes, it’s worth it.
Ed Harris and Diane Kruger star in “Copying Beethoven.”
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