Madness...it is defined as being extremely enthusiastic; fanatical; infatuated sometimes to a point of insanity. It is a word typically in the company of these words: wildly, furiously, fanatically, frantically, desperately, passionately, rashly, hastily, violently. All of these describe the character in a movie I saw this weekend starring Ed Harris, Copying Beetoven. Excellent movie with a thousand blogs to be written. I will attempt to only write one.
Would it be great to be genius?
Genius seems to always be tortured or torturing. How unfair could it be to be a legendary icon in music but be deaf...to never hear the sounds of your creations or the joy it creates in others? How cruel could it be to be trapped just "inside" your gifting; not quite being able to communicate yourself; just "of" yourself....? Why do some of us struggle so hard to just be normal; while others prefer to be superhuman and that ever so few to be nothing less than gods?
SYNOPSIS: Young Anna Holz, (Kruger) a student at the Vienna Music Conservatory is summoned to the offices of Herr Schlemmer, Beethoven’s publisher. His Ninth Symphony is about to be premiered and Schlemmer, who is dying of cancer, needs a copyist to complete the score. Anna eagerly accepts, despite his warning that Beethoven (Harris) is a monster.
As her work of copying down the music of Beethoven proceeds, Anna is drawn into the maestro’s tortured and inspired world. She sees their collaboration as a God-sent opportunity to prove her own talent as a composer; he glimpses in her a pure soul who might help him realize the culmination of his art – the creation of the last string quartets, the most sublime and spiritual music ever written. ...more...
In this movie, eventually the genius Beethoven demonstrates the perfection of raw communication and release from the higher plane. He is so engrossed by this passion to express his music that "bumble bees inside his head" doesn't even begin to describe the necessity to get out what is inside his mind. The music wouldn't stop. It was like cerebral Chinese water torture...the constant dripping inside from above echoing passion's demand to be obeyed, regardless of sleep, the body, the world or responsibility.
Perception rules:
Beethoven would bathe by pouring water over his head, spilling it onto the floor which leaked through to the downstairs neighboor family dining table. Of course, they would shout and hammer on the walls; but it's all silence to the deaf man. He has no reaction since he has no perception. His young copier is mortified by their outbursts. So if a tree falls in the forest with no one around, does it make it a sound?
Conform or Exemplify
At a point in the movie, the young copier must chose between her passion or her fiance. Her family, fiance and even society said there could never be a female composer or conductor... Do what women could only do. You cannot succeed. She was bombarded with everyone elses decisions about the world and her place in it; even the great Beethoven for a bit.
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