A Good Year/Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus/For Your Consideration/Harsh Times/Copying Beethoven

I really, really, really wanted to like this

Fine film about music, with a superb Ed Harris performance

Enjoyable and  sensitive  screen mini-biography  about life of the greatest composer

Katona József Theatre, Kecskemét, Hungary

Claire Bloom and Cliff Robertson in Charly (1968)

Andy Garcia and Inés Sastre in The Lost City (2005)

Omar Epps and LL Cool J in In Too Deep (1999)

Gerard Butler, Emily Mortimer, and Jack McElhone in Dear Frankie (2004)

Kristin Scott Thomas in I've Loved You So Long (2008)

Jorge Sanz and Maribel Verdú in Belle Epoque (1992)

Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds in City Heat (1984)

Christian Bale, Kate Beckinsale, Frances McDormand, Natascha McElhone, and Alessandro Nivola in Laurel Canyon (2002)

Ed Harris and Diane Kruger in Copying Beethoven (2006)

The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are.

Agnieszka Holland in Copying Beethoven (2006)

Diane Kruger at an event for Copying Beethoven (2006)

Ed Harris

Diane Kruger

Matthew Goode

Stephen J. Rivele

Christopher Wilkinson

A fictionalized account of the last year of Beethoven&apos;s life.

Agnieszka Holland

Copying Beethoven

As a professional musician I&apos;m tired of seeing movies that claim to depict the lives of musicians, but just don&apos;t &quot;get&quot; it. This one, with all its poetic excesses and liberties taken with the &quot;real&quot; story, does &quot;get&quot; it, and more. The writing has some good scenes, the acting for the most part is good. The scenes of music being written and made are quite true to the reality of the doing. In certain ways adding a fictional character to heighten the story weakens the integrity of the film, especially as the film clearly depicts Beethoven&apos;s unrequited love for his nephew Karl. Beethoven&apos;s real copyists at this point in his life were men. So what was the point of turning them into a young woman, except to sell the picture and make a political statement? 

But no matter. The picture has its moments of real beauty visually and emotionally. It captures the look and sound of a world lit only by daylight, candles and firelight, and in which the loudest sounds heard are those of church bells, added by the sound designer at very telling points in the story.

But the strongest thing about the film is the performance of Ed Harris. This is an amazing theater artist. He totally inhabits the character as written, with no tricks, no Method-izing, no self-conscious showing off, as do his contemporaries, DeNiro and Pacino. He totally disappears into the character, and unlike the actors I mentioned, is totally different in each role, in appearance and in voice. It&apos;s done so simply, too, without any extra attention-grabbing flourishes. As I&apos;ve said elsewhere, his work reminds me most of classic film actors like Tracy, Fonda and Stewart in that respect.

I was astounded by the way he acted the role of a musician, which was incredibly accurate, in ways I would expect from this actor, but still it surprised me. The only other performance on film that I&apos;ve seen which equals it in this respect is that of Claude Rains in the 1946 melodrama &quot;Deception&quot;. But then, Harris&apos; father was a musician, singing in the most famous small chorus of his time, Fred Waring&apos;s &quot;Pennsylvanians&quot;. So Ed Harris grew up around musicians, accounting for his accurate portrayal and his singing voice.

So do see this film, for the music of course, but also for Ed Harris&apos; riveting performance.

Theatrical Trailer from Sidney Kimmel Entertainment

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BM2RmZDc0NDktNDNhNS00YmZiLWI1NjUtODg3ODdhZGJkMTM3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzU1NzE3NTg@._V1_.jpg

As a professional musician I'm tired of seeing movies that claim to depict the lives of musicians, but just don't "get" it. This one, with all its poetic excesses and liberties taken with the "real" story, does "get" it, and more. The writing has some good scenes, the acting for the most part is good. The scenes of music being written and made are quite true to the reality of the doing. In certain ways adding a fictional character to heighten the story weakens the integrity of the film, especially as the film clearly depicts Beethoven's unrequited love for his nephew Karl. Beethoven's real copyists at this point in his life were men. So what was the point of turning them into a young woman, except to sell the picture and make a political statement? 

But no matter. The picture has its moments of real beauty visually and emotionally. It captures the look and sound of a world lit only by daylight, candles and firelight, and in which the loudest sounds heard are those of church bells, added by the sound designer at very telling points in the story.

But the strongest thing about the film is the performance of Ed Harris. This is an amazing theater artist. He totally inhabits the character as written, with no tricks, no Method-izing, no self-conscious showing off, as do his contemporaries, DeNiro and Pacino. He totally disappears into the character, and unlike the actors I mentioned, is totally different in each role, in appearance and in voice. It's done so simply, too, without any extra attention-grabbing flourishes. As I've said elsewhere, his work reminds me most of classic film actors like Tracy, Fonda and Stewart in that respect.

I was astounded by the way he acted the role of a musician, which was incredibly accurate, in ways I would expect from this actor, but still it surprised me. The only other performance on film that I've seen which equals it in this respect is that of Claude Rains in the 1946 melodrama "Deception". But then, Harris' father was a musician, singing in the most famous small chorus of his time, Fred Waring's "Pennsylvanians". So Ed Harris grew up around musicians, accounting for his accurate portrayal and his singing voice.

So do see this film, for the music of course, but also for Ed Harris' riveting performance.

A fictionalized account of the last year of Beethoven's life.

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Copying Beethoven

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