Trailer for Copying Beethoven Starring Ed Harris
Aside from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, there are many other great composers who probably deserve some time in the cinematic spotlight. For example, not only did Ludwig van Beethoven write some of the most important classical pieces ever, but he was also a pretty bitter and tortured artist who started going deaf at around age 28. There has already been one biopic about Beethoven (Bernard Rose’s Immortal Beloved starring Gary Oldman), but now Polish director Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden) is tackling the German maestro all over again with Copying Beethoven.
The interesting thing here is that Beethoven is played by a virtually unrecognizable Ed Harris. Just from looking at the trailer, I’d say we’re talking almost a Charlize Theron/Monster level of transformation here… I wonder if this means he’ll be up for an Oscar? The movie, which co-stars Diane Kruger, is a fictionalized account of the final year of Beethoven’s life and will hit select theatres on November 10th.
Next up: Ralph Fiennes as Vivaldi!
» Related Link: Apple: Copying Beethoven trailer
Comments (3)
I’m really looking forward to this. As for Ed Harris getting an Oscar nod…I hope he takes it home too. The guy has had some amazing roles and I’ve yet to see him in a bad performance. If transformation is what it takes to get him gold, so be it.
Posted by Marina on October 27th, 2006Props for typing out Mozart’s entire name. (snob
)
The reason “Amadeus” works so amazingly well, is because the story is not about Mozart, but actually about a lot of other stuff that everybody can relate to. Alot of biopics (ie. Gandhi) tend to overdo the biography and forget the emotion, and they become not only tedious but insignificant.
This movie seems to be in the middle somewhere, focusing only on his last year. It seems to have a love story though which is ridiculous. I think Beethoven is worthy of a movie that does not need the clutch of love story clichés to be interesting. Would anybody in the world go and see a movie like this because of the love story? I have a hard time believing it.
Another thing – with “Amadeus” they were absolutely adament not to change a single note of Mozart’s music, which I think is fair enough, but in this trailer they are already shortening the ending of the 9th…
Ed Harris didn’t convince me – you think a wig is transformation? I thought he looked just like Ed Harris, which is not a problem, except his voice is too familiar for me. I keep hearing General Hummel from The Rock.
Another thing that worried me personally is that when I heard the 9th I immediately went to “I was cured all right”.
This might be horrible. The love story aspect really annoys me, even if it is just going to underplayed sexual tension or whatever. Get rid of the bullshit stereotypical women in our movies. If you absolutely need a woman in a script, give her a purpose other than to have sex and fall in love with. Imagine if this had been a male student? All of a sudden it’s a much better movie.
Posted by Henrik on October 27th, 2006In some scenes it looked like Ed Harris, but from certain angles it definitely looks like they used some sort of make-up effect to change the shape of his face a bit. Or maybe I’m just imagining it…
Agreed, love interests in movies are so formulaic and unnecessary. I heard that girls like that crap though.
Posted by Sean on October 28th, 2006Leave a Reply