Copying Beethoven

This 2006 film looks like a historical flick but it is not. Really, it is fictional work that focuses in Beethoven's  last years after having finished his most perfect work: the Ninth Symphony.
The story begins with the arrival of one of the fictional elements of the story: in 1824, Anna Holtz  (Diana Krueger) has recently arrived in Vienna to find a position as  a copyist for Beethoven (Edward Harris) who is about to finish his ninth symphony and needs help getting other copies of th ready for the premiere in only four days. 
Holtz is a young composer in a time where women were mostly relegated to be housewives and raise kids. She admires Beethoven tho is famous for being despotic, impatient and even rude but who also is the greatest composer of all Austria. And she secretly wants Beethoven to check her work but before she will have to get to know Beethoven not only as the great genius he was but as the human being with all of his flaws and frailties.
As I said this is mostly a fictional work but with a historical background and the work to bring that specific time and place into life is almost perfect. The customs and the setting really transport us to the Vienna that Beethoven lived in. Ed Harris as Beethoven is dazzling: he delivers a strong performance that goes from the energetic to the frail depending on the moment. Especially in the scenes that correspond to the premiere of the Ninth Symphony. And there is my favorite moment because this part really happened which is when Beethoven had finished directing the presentation (helped by Anna) and had stopped unable of what was happening behind. Anna gets onto the stage and makes him turn around so he can see that everyone in the audience was giving him a standing ovation. Of course in real life it was not Anna but one of the members of the chorus who did that.
If you like Beethoven's music and want to learn a little bit more about the man behind the genius and his time this could be a good starting point.
Four stars out of five for this one.

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