Copying Beethoven

PG-13

Released Nov 10, 2006

1 hr. 43 min.

History

Drama

List

28%

81 Reviews

Tomatometer

56%

10,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), a student at the Vienna Music Conservatory, eagerly accepts an assignment to work as a copyist for composer Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris). The temperamental maestro develops a growing affection for his new companion, but she has plans to marry her longtime beau.

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Critics Consensus

A pretentious historical drama that's ultimately a drag, despite Ed Harris' powerful performance.

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R. Z

I liked the movie. I think the setting might be a fair representation which included pee pots and some rats and mice in Beethoven's apartment. It is easy to understand that Anna Holtz is a fictional character but she still speaks volumes about how Beethoven composed his 9th symphony with aid of copiers. And again how the first concert of the 9th was presented and who was in attendance. I was particularly moved by all the young women who sang in a choir at the height of the symphony. That was a moving moment for me.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

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Audience Member

the next time they will invent a woman around Tesla life for his inventions haha , pathetic ! they should make a great film about real great women like Marie Curie and her inventions with her own rights, instead of narrating senseless fake tales !

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

Full Review

Audience Member

One of my favorite cinematic tropes is when an artist debuts a shockingly original piece of music, like Buddy Holly at the beginning of the 1978 biopic, and audience members are in such a state of shock they do double takes—as numerous people do here during the first performance of the 9th Symphony, a shaky cam sequence (and the best scene in the otherwise middling melodrama) that takes up a hefty 25 minutes, or a full quarter of the movie's runtime. Happy 250th Birthday, ol' Ludwig Van!

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Though flawed in historical accuracy in coming up with a fictional amanuensis to Beethoven, the earthshaking fifteen-minute long enaction of Ninth Symphony is the centrepiece of Agnieszka Holland's interpretation of the maestro's last days premiering the masterwork, tortured by deafness and abandonment.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

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Audience Member

Why do we have to invent strong women characters when there isn't historical evidence of them?

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

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Audience Member

Disgustingly sexist movie. Demeaning to women composers everywhere. Especially when Beethoven asks Anna to wash him, and she agrees. My God. And worst, that she "does not understand" his Grosse Fugue at the end. I could go on...watched this with a male friend - reading this, David? I hated it. But was too polite to say so.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/22/23

Full Review

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Agnieszka Holland

Director

Ed Harris

Ludwig van Beethoven

Diane Kruger

Anna Holtz

Joe Anderson

Karl van Beethoven

Matthew Goode

Martin Bauer

Phyllida Law

Mother Canisius

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Critical Consensus: A So-So "Year", "Fiction" Works; "Babel" Shoots and Scores; "Harsh Times" Lives Up To Its Title; Guess "Return"’s Tomatometer!

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Derek Malcolm

London Evening Standard

You can mock this film if you like, but it remains watchable throughout. And the ears have it when the eyes don't.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 17, 2007

Full Review

Anthony Quinn

Independent (UK)

If the composer's shade could hear the words this script has put in his mouth it really would be a case of "roll over, Beethoven", right there in his grave.

Rated: 1/5

Aug 17, 2007

Full Review

Tim Robey

Daily Telegraph (UK)

A great example of that time-honoured genre, the biopic so silly it plays like a spoof.

Aug 17, 2007

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

Earnest but lackluster period biopic on the final days of the mentally tortured deaf composer Ludwig von Beethoven.

Rated: B-

Nov 19, 2014

Full Review

Brooke Holgerson

Boston Phoenix

Stuck between Kruger's blankness and Harris's overemoting, the film never finds a balance.

Rated: 2/4

Jul 6, 2010

Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

The once promising Polish director Agnieszka Holland ("Olivier, Olivier") stumbles with this muddled story about Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), a 23-year-old composition student sent to 1824 Vienna to transcribe sheet music for the demanding and cruel Ludwig

Rated: C-

Apr 24, 2009

Full Review

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Synopsis

Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger), a student at the Vienna Music Conservatory, eagerly accepts an assignment to work as a copyist for composer Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris). The temperamental maestro develops a growing affection for his new companion, but she has plans to marry her longtime beau.

Director: Agnieszka Holland
Screenwriter: Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Production Co: Sidney Kimmel Entertainment
Rating: PG-13 (Some Sexual Elements)
Genre: History, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 10, 2006, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 17, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $352.8K
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

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