Ludwig van Beethoven : I mmortal Beloved (1994) If, based on the evidence of photos and written accounts, you’ve always thought of the Russian composer as being small, wiry and with an acidly sharp wit, think again – here he’s tall, muscular, and dismally, dismally dull.ģ. But Stravinsky himself, played by Mads Mikkelsen, presents real problems. Opening with a vivid reconstruction of the riotous Rite of Spring premiere, Jan Kounen’s cinematography is impressive throughout – though, to be honest, any director who can’t make a film about Chanel visually arresting really shouldn’t be in the business.
Yet interspersed through all the silliness Peter Shaffer reveals, through the mouth of Salieri, genuine insights into the brilliance of Mozart’s music as he unfolds the glories of such works as the Wind Serenade: ‘On the page, just a pulse, like a rusty squeeze box, and then suddenly, high above it, an oboe – a single note hanging there, unwavering, until a clarinet took it over, sweetening into a phrase of such delight, filled with such unfulfillable longing, it seemed I was hearing the voice of God.’Ģ.
We learn about his guilty enmity towards Mozart through his confession to a priest: he holds himself responsible for the collapse of Mozart’s health and premature death, and is still eaten up with the realisation that, for all his own devotion to God and the Art of Music, he will never match the genius of the giggling and annoying Mozart (Tom Hulce).
Composer Salieri (F Murray Abraham) is a physical and psychological wreck. We’ll begin with the most famous composer biopic of them all – not the first, but perhaps one of the glossiest and most thought-provoking.
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