复制贝多芬 Copying Beethoven review by TIM KNIGHT

The biopic genre has taken a critical and commercial drubbing of late, what with Sofia Coppola's Elle-magazine version of Marie Antoinette and Steven Shainberg's egregiously misconceived Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. Sadly, the genre's downward artistic spiral continues with Copying Beethoven, Agnieskza Holland's wildly uneven, speculative drama about the final years in the tortured life of the legendary composer. Although it has moments of great aural and visual beauty, as well as a fiercely committed performance from Ed Harris as the embattled composer, Copying Beethoven is all too reminiscent of those glossily ersatz biopics that Hollywood used to crank out in the 1930s and '40s.
Written and produced by biopic veterans Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson, whose credits include Ali and Nixon, Copying Beethoven unfolds from the point-of-view of Anna Holz (Diane Kruger), a 23-year-old aspiring composer who's come to Vienna, circa 1824, to study at the music conservatory. Determined to succeed in the male-dominated profession, she persuades sickly music publisher Wenzel Schlemmer (Ralph Riach) to hire her as the copyist for the notoriously temperamental Beethoven (Harris), a.k.a. "The Beast," whose Ninth Symphony is scheduled to premiere in just four days. For the sheltered yet strong young woman boarding at a convent, it's the proverbial baptism by fire working for the demanding, volatile, and sometimes cruel composer in his filthy apartment. Tormented by his hearing loss and the fickle attentions of his ne'er-do-well nephew Karl (Joe Anderson), Beethoven gradually comes to depend on Anna, whose devotion to the composer will take its toll on her relationship with Martin Bauer (Matthew Goode), a wealthy architect/engineer.

The dramatic highlight of Copying Beethoven is the premiere of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Vienna's K鋜ntnertortheater (filmed at the Katonza Jozsef Theater in Hungary). With Anna's assistance, Beethoven conducts the orchestra and choir in a performance of this landmark work that moves many in the audience to tears. That this scene is wholly the invention of the filmmakers—indeed, Anna is a composite character based on two male Austrian music students and French female composer Lorenc Ferenz—in no way diminishes its soaring, emotional power. Holland (Europa, Europa) skillfully captures the peculiar dynamic of Beethoven and Anna's chaste but intense bond as she helps him keep time with the orchestra, her eyes often shut as she loses herself in the music. It's one of a handful of insightful scenes in this handsomely mounted film that convey the transcendent nature of art. These scenes are so compelling that you're almost willing to forgive the unfortunate surfeit of dramatic contrivance, baldly expository dialogue, clunky staging, and wan acting (Harris excepted) that otherwise characterizes Copying Beethoven.

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