Copying Beethoven

Name: Copying Beethoven
Genre: Drama

United States, Germany, Hungary · 2006
Rated PG-13 · 1h 44m
Director Agnieszka Holland
Starring Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Matthew Goode, Phyllida Law
Genre Drama

A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new symphony. However, it has been years since his last success and he is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A copyist is urgently needed to help the composer. A fictional character is introduced in the form of a young conservatory student and aspiring composer named Anna Holtz. The mercurial Beethoven is skeptical that a woman might become involved in his masterpiece but slowly comes to trust in Anna's assistance and in the end becomes quite fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence in his life is an absolute necessity. Her deep understanding of his work is such that she even corrects mistakes he has made, while her passionate personality opens a door into his private world.

Stream Copying Beethoven

US availabilities powered by JustWatch

What are people saying?

Be the first to comment about this film.

What are critics saying?

L.A. Weekly by

One is left yearning for the overheated melodrama of Bernard Rose's 1994 Beethoven biopic, "Immortal Beloved," which was trashy, but fun.

Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

Copying Beethoven has an ace up its sleeve: the wonder and drama of the Ninth Symphony itself (heard here in Bernard Haitink's tremendous 1996 recording with the Royal Concertgebouw).

ReelViews by James Berardinelli

This is one of those middle-of-the-road art pictures that will impress some music lovers and attract a small audience, but won't really excite anyone. Copying Beethoven does not do for its title composer what Amadeus did for Mozart, and that's a shame.

Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum

Holland's empurpled bio-fantasy is hooey with an anachronistic feminist slant from start to finish.

The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen

The picture never successfully comes off the written page.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington

Copying Beethoven, at its best, is a sort of grand cinema opera of the composer's life and music.

The A.V. Club by Nathan Rabin

Aspires to the sublime, but it stalls at the merely ridiculous.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer by William Arnold

Has one knockout sequence: the deaf maestro conducting his Ninth Symphony as Anna coaches from the wings. It goes on for what seems a whole reel, but it's so sublime it seems too short and, by itself, could stand as one of the greatest classic music videos ever.