[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Immortal Beloved GARY OLDMAN Ludwig van Beethoven
ISABELLA ROSELLINI Josephine von Brunsvik
JOROEN KRABBE Anton Schindler
JOHANNA TER STEEGE Johanna Reiss
VALERIA GOLINO Giulietta (Julia) GuicciardiDirected by BERNARD ROSE
Columbia/Tristar Studios ASIN 6303 47729 1
1 VHS tape: 121 min
Edition pictured left: January 12, 1999 in Color, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, Surround Sound, Digital Sound, NTSC. Other editions also available. Check with your store. Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf
A Retrospective Review of "Immortal Beloved"by Chia Han-Leon
IT IS all too easy for those of us who have normal hearing to say we "understand" the difficulties of "being deaf", and to try to imagine living in a world cut off from everyday sounds. But when the deaf individual is a composer, indeed the composer of some of the world's greatest musical legacies, how does one enter into such a world? Director Bernard Rose's portrayal of the Romantics' greatest composer is focussed on the mysterious identity of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved." This is in contrast to other films which have focused on Beethoven himself as a Romantic legend with all the clichés associated with the rebel artist/genius and tragic hero. One film - Beethoven's Nephew (1992), even tries to examine his relationship with his nephew Carl.
The choice to portray Beethoven's ill-fated love life is not new. Like Rose, Abel Gance's Un Grand Amour de Beethoven ("The Great Love of Beethoven", 1936) also tries to solve the mystery. And what better way to examine and understand this extraordinary yet tortured soul than by exploring the nature of his love? For is it not love that is the one gentle yet powerful emotion many forget to see in Beethoven, especially in view of the stereotypically anguished and tormented Romantic?
It may seem blatantly obtrusive of the film to begin with such an obvious and "clichéd" opening as ta-ta-ta-DAAAAAH! - but it is significant to note that after all, the main character of the film is the composer of this tune! The music accompanies the scene of Beethoven's funeral, and the raw energy of the Fifth Symphony's first movement is reflected in the turbulent crowd (said to have numbered 30,000) straining for a final glimpse of the composer.
Rose has chosen well, for the Symphony, infrequently called "Fate", is often seen as symbolic of Beethoven's struggle against it (fate, or his deafness). In the same way he struggles against his own 'flaws', the world too must struggle against its loss of, even its past hostility towards, an extraordinary man. The Fifth ends in a blaze of triumph and such is the image of Beethoven at the end of his life, compared to that of the misanthrope during his early days, as he himself wrote in the Heiligenstadt Testament, quoted in the film:
Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you ...Rose carefully weaves many of Beethoven's famous letters and documents into the narrative. As his weary voice announces these words, Beethoven (Gary Oldman) walks through town, head bowed. Passers-by greet him but he does not respond. The voice reads on:
If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than in others ...We do not hear the sounds of the streets, only the voice of the composer. Thus Rose depicts the pain of Beethoven's 'infirmity' and the reason for his unfriendliness. It is an agony that Beethoven felt throughout his adult life, portrayed on many levels. His occasional fits of 'madness' are also well-known - his throwing of a chair through a window is not clichéd in this context because the Romantics were quite literally the first of the "angry young men" of Napoleonic Europe to do so - so to speak.
Indeed, like the use of the Fifth Symphony, Rose highlights the context where such an act is fully appropriate in conveying nothing but the raw force of profound human anguish. There is no attempt to suppress the violent rage of Beethoven for the sake of the benumbed modern audience already saturated with worse sights. Hackneyed or not, Immortal Beloved spares no quarter to show the emotional essence and the terrible spiritual energies of the Arch-Romantic.
ROSE SUBTLY makes Beethoven reveal his shame at being deaf. In one poignant scene, he visits the house of Giulietta (Julia) Guicciardi (Valeria Golino), one of the "Immortal Beloved" candidates, to test the newly-invented broadwood piano on the condition that he will do so in a room alone. Beethoven sits down at the keyboard and immediately hammers out several shocking, dissonant chords which suggest that he is audially oblivious to what he is playing. His jarring hammering indicates his need to play very forcifully to be able to sense anything at all. Such a portrayal by Rose makes us join in the terrible suspicion experienced by the secretly-watching Julia - that he cannot play at all. The shock of his affliction is as sad as it is terrifying. It is a constant theme that recurs throughout the film - a suffering Beethoven who refuses to give up where a weaker person would, a demonstration of the emotional and spiritual torture that the Romantic artist must go through. Yet, it is through the overcoming of such immense difficulties that his sublime art shines through.
Beethoven stops pounding and lays his head sideways on the piano. In the impending silence, Julia breaks down. Suddenly, the melancholic strains of the Moonlight Sonata is heard (appropriate because it is actually dedicated to Giuletta). The camera cuts to Beethoven, eyes-closed, ear pressed on the piano, playing the world's most beautiful music without ever hearing it. The entire scene is symbolic of his transcendence beyond the physical, likewise in his music. The music stems from the emotions precisely because the composer had to struggle with so much of inside his being. Because he cannot physically hear what he is playing nor composing - he must do so with his heart.
AN INGENIOUS use of sound is employed in several scenes to allow us to 'hear' Beethoven's world. Playing and directing his "Emperor" Piano Concerto, Beethoven performs the grand solo entry before rising to conduct the orchestra -which turns it into a disaster. As the sound of the orchestra falls away, the soundtrack becomes quiet except for the 'lub-dub' of a heartbeat and a high-pitched tone. Vague distant sounds - the audience laughing - reflect what is left of his hearing ability. This heartrending account of Beethoven's world is a revelation. Using it, Rose magnifies the visual impact of what we see, marrying its poignancy with the strange otherworldly soundscape of Beethoven's inner world and the awkward sensation of what we should be hearing. It is this sympathy for the struggling hero that makes another "Immortal Beloved" candidate, Josephine von Brunsvik (Isabella Rossellini) befriend him. Abel Gance, whose film was the first Beethoven film to use a soundtrack, also created a sense of the composer's sound-world via an unconventional use of sound. In it, as Beethoven plays on the piano, the sound of an entire orchestra pours forth from the instrument! Both directors thus point out the way in which the physical ear is not the only sense involved in experiencing Beethoven's music but - crucially - also the mind.
Immortal Beloved marvelously re-enacts the famous legend of Beethoven ascending the concert hall stage during the premiere of his song of humanity, the great "Choral" Ninth Symphony. During the performance, Rose creates a flashback to Beethoven's childhood, showing him starring out of his bedroom window at the night sky as his drunken father arrives home. Fearing a beating, the boy escapes, running out to a dark lake. Wading in, he spreads his arms and floats in the dark water reflecting the stars of the sky. As the camera slowly zooms out, the figure of the boy spins away into the starry heavens, symbolizing his spiritual deliverance from physical pain, as the choir sings exaltedly:
Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
Wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.Joy, bright spark of divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
Fire-inspired we tread
Thy heavenly sanctuary!
Thy magic power re-unites
All that custom has divided,
All men become brothers
Under the sway of thy gentle wings.The significance of Schiller's Ode to Joy in the film cannot be understated. If there is one thing in life that keeps the Romantic alive, no matter the extent of his difficulties, it is his art which delivers his pain through sheer joy. Composed when he was completely deaf, Beethoven's last symphony not only affirms the love he held for humanity, his faith in himself, but also the overwhelming love he held for even those he was in conflict with.
In the context of Rose's solution to the identity of the "Immortal Beloved", it is also the very reason by which we see her forgive him for all his 'wrongs'. As she puts it, no one can begrudge a person who composes such sublime music. We are persuaded to see beyond the composer's all-too-human faults and understand how it is all part of the blending of emotional forces we all experience to some degree. On his part, Beethoven showed his capacity not just for overcoming pain, but for experiencing profound human joy.
At the end of the Symphony, Beethoven was said to have not realised it, standing before the orchestra still and meditating. As we watch him silently engrossed in the music of his inner world, we see - but do not hear - the out-of-focus audience in the background rise in tumultuous applause. Cut off from the sound of clapping and cheering, we are impelled to experience the silent spiritual triumph of the composer, even as he is gently turned around to receive the ovation he can never hear.
THE PLOT of the film is Beethoven's secretary Anton Schindler's (Jeroen Krabbe) detective-search for the "Immortal Beloved", whom Beethoven had bequeathed his entire estate. The answer, like Gance's, is Rose's version, for the mystery persists to this day. Nevertheless, her identity is shocking yet ... appropriate after all that has occurred. No one can hate a person who encompasses so much beauty, so much extraordinary capacity for humanity. Indeed, no one can fail to love the writer of the most famous letter addressed to the "Immortal Beloved":
My angel, my all, my very self -So much pain, so much love... Tenderly recited throughout, the film conveys the deep sensitivity of the lover in Beethoven. Through this, it shows the simple but little understood idea that the Romantic and his "Immortal Beloved" must be able to share each other's lives for their union to be enduring - to be immortal. Both must be able to sacrifice and live for each other. The Romantic is not just an anti-social, rebellious, angry "individual", he/she is a lover of his beloved, and also lover of his all-too-human world.
Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) ... Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks? - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine? - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to you with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I ... Like the Ode to Joy, this is a timeless letter addressed to all humanity, for lovers in all time to comprehend the essence of love - the interweaving, overcoming and understanding of joy and pain - to be able to experience life as each other does. If anyone of us could possibly experience the joy and pain of Beethoven, then we will be able to hear his music as he did.
This video has never been seen in Singapore... If you can't find it at the store, try Amazon.com.
Chia Han-Leon is beloved by his beloved, but not immortal. And he prefers it that way.
Back to the Classical Index!... or read previous Beethoven reviews and features in the Inkpot archives.Other classical music reviews by this or any other writer can be obtained from the InkVault by doing a key word search with the writer's name.
400: a.11.1.1999 ©Chia Han-Leon
Readers' Comments
From: Terry Lim (terry@risingtrout.com / Friday, February 19, 1999 at 05:57:22)
Chin Han Leon's review of Immortal Beloved is a well considered look at an exceptionally fine film by Bernard Rose. But there is so much more to be said. Gary Oldman is the definitive, completely believable Beethoven. The action is masterfully scripted and directed to fit the music with precision. The music itself has been selected thoughtfully: the late string quartet on his deathbed, the Kreutzer against the backdrop of an unfolding tragedy, the Missa Solemnis for his funeral and so on. I have watched the film on laser disc several times, and come away with a renewed appreciation for the maestro's music each time. It is a memorable film.
From: Marleen (marleen@mbox5.singnet.com / Sunday, July 18, 1999 at 19:11:57)
Nice Review on the film, Immotal love. Generally, this site has fullfull it aim. But there is still extra room.
Explore the Flying Inkpot
They're Alive!
Concert Reviews
Bit deadish:
Other Resources at The Flying InkpotHome
