FILM TITLE: IMMORTAL BELOVED DIRECTOR: BERNARD ROSE COUNTRY: AMERICA 1994 CINEMATOGRAPHY: PETER SUSCHITZKY MUSIC: SIR GEORGE SOLTI CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN CAST: Gary Oldman (Beethoven), Jeroen Krabbe (Anton), Isabella Rosselini (Anna), Johanna Ter Steege (Johanna), Marco Hofschneider (Karl), Miriam Margolyes (Nanette), Barry Humphries (Clemens), Valeria Golino (Giulietta) WRITTEN BY: Bernard Rose SUPER FEATURES: The music, of course.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Few people liked this film, either for the music or for the story. How dare a film maker make a genius look like such an idiot, and not act like the great composer and bad person that he can be/was.
Like AMADEUS, and many of the other films that have been done about any composer in the past, there are a few literary licenses in this story, but, there is very little else that is implausible or not well done. while scholars may disagree as to Anton Schindler's whereabouts and doings, the film decides that a nice little story, however far fetched is may be, is better than two over weight professors discussing the merits of the thirteenth bar in the Adagio of the Third Symphony. And like AMADEUS, we see the story in retrospect, through the story telling of his own son. And he is the real story.
Beethoven left his estate to the mother of his son, but he had a hard time admitting, and let anyone else know that it was his own brother's wife, with whom he had an affair prior to her leaving for his brother. He never recovered from that, specially when they knew the child was his.
And much of the music seems to be designed around the life story of the growing of this child. In the meantime, Anton is searching for Beethoven's Immortal Beloved, the woman he wrote some poetry and much music about. And some of his paramours, and various patrons of the arts, do not really know who she is. All they know is that he always leaves for her, whoever she is.
If anything, Bernard Rose's story gives us a nice ending, to the story that has gone unforgiving and forgotten for so very long. What triggered this man to write so much, and so well, given his terrible condition and curse of deafness in the field of listening.
Gary Oldman is excellent as Beethoven, as are all the women in the film. And the music is beautifully directed around the events, or otherwise. It comes in and goes out quietly, and teaches Hollywood one thing it can not do. Choreograph real soundtracks with meaningful stories. We know that these two go together, and it is many people's opinions as to how they should. The invisible part is how it all got written behind all the anger. Hollywood only uses fill-ins. It hasn't had a real composer since Bernard Herrman, whose music could be considered better than any movie ever made. The same is the case here.
The music isn't worshipped. It is just played and mixed and matched to the various people. And the result is excellent. Even if the story may not be true. Who cares. It still is a very good film with excellent acting and costumes.
NICE FILM TO SEE. A little culture, anyone.? 4 GIBLOONS Pedro Sena Member of the Internet Movie Critics Association
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