[N.B.: I am not responsible for the following prose, a product of studio
PR, nor have I been consulted about casting Ed Harris as Beethoven...:(]
COPYING BEETHOVEN
Writers: Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Producers: Sidney Kimmel, Michael Taylor, Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher
Wilkinson
Starring: Ed Harris, Diane Kruger
Rating: Rated PG-13 for some sexual elements
Run Time: 104 minutes
-----------------------------------------
Young Anna Holz, (Kruger) a student at the Vienna Music
Conservatory is summoned to the offices of Herr Schlemmer,
Beethoven's publisher. His Ninth Symphony is about to be premiered
and Schlemmer, who is dying of cancer, needs a copyist to complete
the score. Anna eagerly accepts, despite his warning that Beethoven
(Harris) is a monster.
As her work of copying down the music of Beethoven proceeds,
Anna is drawn into the maestro's tortured and inspired world.
She sees their collaboration as a God-sent opportunity to prove
her own talent as a composer; he glimpses in her a pure soul who
might help him realize the culmination of his art - the creation
of the last string quartets, the most sublime and spiritual music
ever written.
Beethoven reveals his growing need and affection for Anna as
they work together on the string quartets. She boldly shows
Beethoven her own work. Thoughtlessly, he derides it and she
leaves him in despair.
Desperate, Anna accepts her longtime paramour, Martin's, proposal
of marriage. Beethoven storms after her - she must choose between
Martin and him. Anna tries to flee Vienna but cannot; her destiny
is linked to Beethoven's. She returns to finish their work and
finds him dying. From his dictation she copies the last of the
quartets. His work on earth done, he frees her to become what
he tells her she was born to be - a composer.
COPYING BEETHOVEN opens in the San Francisco Bay Area on Friday,
November 10th.
Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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