Immortal Beloved: beating Beethoven into Meat Loaf

Director: Bernard Rose Entertainment grade: C History grade: Fail Among Ludwig van Beethoven's papers was found a love letter to an "Immortal Beloved", who has never been conclusively identified. Premise What would be the most clangingly obvious way to open a Beethoven biopic? If you guessed a shot of the grumpy, aged Ludwig (Gary Oldman), illuminated by a stage lightning flash, and accompanied by the "duh-duh-duh-DUUUUUH" opening notes of the Fifth Symphony, give yourself a gold star and a pat on the frightwig. He dies, and his executor, Anton Schindler (Jeroen Krabbé), finds that his will bequeaths everything to an unnamed "immortal beloved". Stop right there, movie! Beethoven's will did not mention the immortal beloved. So basically the film's entire premise – that Schindler was obliged to turn detective and interview all of Beethoven's old conquests, looking for the anonymous true love mentioned in his will – is wrong. In real life, the immortal beloved letter is thought to have been written in 1812. Beethoven had quite a lot of romances in his life. There is no evidence he was still hung up on this particular beloved by his death in 1827. People Through Schindler, the audience meets a couple of immortal beloved candidates – including Giulietta Guicciardi and Anne-Marie Erdödy. More are left out, including Antonie and Bettina Brentano, two sisters-in-law, the latter of whom also seduced Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The film soon veers off into an emotionally unsatisfying tangent about Beethoven's tumultuous relationship with his brother's widow, Johanna van Beethoven, and their five-year custody battle over her son and his nephew, Karl. Politics Beethoven seeks an audience with Austria's arch-conservative minister of foreign affairs, Clemens von Metternich. In the role of Metternich, who dominated European politics for much of the first half of the nineteenth century, is Barry Humphries. He's actually not that bad. When casting Dame Edna Everage as Prince Metternich is the least camp and silly thing in your movie, though, you've probably gone a bit over the top with everything else. The film gains a point for suggesting that Metternich had his secret police spy on Beethoven, which is true. It loses the point again for suggesting that Beethoven and Metternich met in person, for which there is no evidence, and that Beethoven offered to write an oratorio praising Metternich in return for the minister intervening in his custody dispute, which is absurd and borderline slanderous. Mystery Finally, Schindler realises the truth (or, rather, the massive lie): Beethoven's own sister-in-law, Johanna, is the immortal beloved! And Karl is actually his son, not his nephew! And it's, like, OMG, the whole reason he's abusive and horrible to Johanna is because he's really secretly crazy in love with her. What is this, Twilight? It is wildly unlikely that Johanna was the immortal beloved. In real life, Schindler alleged that Guicciardi was the most likely candidate. Style The film's climax is the Ninth Symphony, accompanied with dreamlike footage of a young Beethoven floating in a pond, then a starry sky. The New York Times described this movie as "an extremely ambitious classical music video." Seeing as it came out soon after the video for Meat Loaf's I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That), to which it bears a striking visual and thematic similarity, it's not nearly ambitious enough. Where are the explosions? Where are the motorbikes? Where are the bootylicious Rhinemaidens in pleather corsets? Okay, so Rhinemaidens are technically Wagner rather than Beethoven – but the rest of this film is made up anyway, and a few misattributed 19th century German music babes would scarcely have made things any worse. If they were going to do a music video, the film-makers could at least have let Beethoven ride around in a carriage that bounced up and down like Dr Dre's car. Still taking his time to perfect the beat, and he's still got love for the streets, it's the L-V-B. Verdict If you're interested in who Beethoven's immortal beloved might really have been, don't watch this.