Beethoven Returns
Ed Harris looks pretty good as Beethoven. Lord knows between Jackson Pollock (Pollock), a poet dying of AIDS (The Hours), and a crazy TV producer (The Truman Show), he can play artistic genius. His conducting in the trailer doesn’t look entirely unconvincing. But the movie seems to focus on the Ninth Symphony, which is used to score the trailer. Personally, they need to really choose their battles with that one because just tossing it out there makes me cringe. Immortal Beloved really did a good job with that even though I thought the movie was just okay.
Beethoven’s music never needs a revival ’cause it’s always out there, which just goes to show you that you can still hear Beethoven, but he still cannot hear you.
Decomposing Composers (mp3) - Monty Python Buy
October 28th, 2006 at 2:08 am
I’m making a documentary film on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. I’m wondering what you mean by the following: “”they need to really choose their battles with that one because just tossing it out there makes me cringe.” I’m not sure what you mean.
Best
kerry candaele
www.followingtheninth.com
October 28th, 2006 at 3:16 am
Thanks for asking Kerry as well as the link to your great project! btw, I have sung bass in a Ninth performance too!
The Ninth Symphony is sacred to me. Whenever I decide to listen to it, I usually do it unimpeded without interruption. It’s something I don’t do too often (roughly two or three times a year), and I meditate on it.
My point is that it is an internal experience. To throw it out there with visuals threatens to remove that aspect. I’m still haunted by the way it was used in Immortal Beloved (I guess that’s also a compliment). Some parts of A Clockwork Orange grate on me because of the use of the Ninth. By “choose their battles” I mean I hope they diversified the soundtrack so that it’s not just all Ninth all the time and that when it does appear, it has the weight it deserves.
I understand that Copying Beethoven is pretty much going to be about the creative process behind the Ninth Symphony, but my advice is less is more.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Thanks for your reply. I saw Copying a couple weeks ago, and I was struck by how utterly
uninteresting the film is, and even how the power of the music is diminished precisely
in the way you thought it would be. It will be quite a challenge for me to carry off a powerful documentary about this music, while continuously cutting between the people in the stories that I have compiled.
All the best,
kerry candaele
www.followingtheninth.com