Immortal Beloved

[BADfan69]

Hey! has anyone seen it? Isn't it Shania's favourite film?
Well, I just saw it this morning and it was very catchy! Really beautiful and sad :( I loved it!! Shania sure has taste :D;)

[Eilsel]

I haven't seen it but I knew it was Shania's favourite movie.:)

[Heather]

Yeah I saw it a long time ago:D I loved it! I am a big fan of classical music so I thought it was very enjoyable. And I agree, Shania has excellent taste;)

[benperkins]

I've never seen it! :(

Ben

[Carol]

The title sounds familiar...who's playing in there?

~Carol~

[BADfan69]

Gary Oldman plays Beethoven and Isabella Rosselini is in there too:)

[shania x 64]

IMMORTAL BELOVED - letters from Beethoven to his immortal beloved


The First Letter
July 6, in the morning
My angel, my all, my very self - Only a few words today and at that with pencil (with yours) - Not till tomorrow will my lodgings be definitely determined upon - what a useless waste of time - Why this deep sorrow when necessity speaks - can our love endure except through sacrifices, through not demanding everything from one another; can you change the fact that you are not wholly mine, I not wholly thine - Oh God, look out into the beauties of nature and comfort your heart with that which must be - Love demands everything and that very justly - thus it is to me with you, and to your with me. But you forget so easily that I must live for me and for you; if we were wholly united you would feel the pain of it as little as I - My journey was a fearful one; I did not reach here until 4 o'clock yesterday morning. Lacking horses the post-coach chose another route, but what an awful one; at the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at night; I was made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more eager - and I was wrong. The coach must needs break down on the wretched road, a bottomless mud road. Without such postilions as I had with me I should have remained stuck in the road. Esterhazy, traveling the usual road here, had the same fate with eight horses that I had with four - Yet I got some pleasure out of it, as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties - Now a quick change to things internal from things external. We shall surely see each other soon; moreover, today I cannot share with you the thoughts I have had during these last few days touching my own life - If our hearts were always close together, I would have none of these. My heart is full of so many things to say to you - ah - there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all - Cheer up - remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be -
Your faithful LUDWIG.


The Second Letter
Evening, Monday, July 6
You are suffering, my dearest creature - only now have I learned that letters must be posted very early in the morning on Mondays to Thursdays - the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K. - You are suffering - Ah, wherever I am, there you are also - I will arrange it with you and me that I can live with you. What a life!!! thus!!! without you - pursued by the goodness of mankind hither and thither - which I as little want to deserve as I deserve it - Humility of man towards man - it pains me - and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is He - whom we call the greatest - and yet - herein lies the divine in man - I weep when I reflect that you will probably not receive the first report from me until Saturday - Much as you love me - I love you more - But do not ever conceal yourself from me - good night - As I am taking the baths I must go to bed - Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm as the vault of heaven?


The Third Letter
Good morning, on July 7
Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.
ever thine
ever mine
ever ours



Background
After Beethoven's death in March 1827 two documents were discovered in his desk. These were the Heiligenstadt Testament and the love letters shown above. The passionate feelings manifested in these letters where addressed to a person unknown. Many have speculated over whom might be the recipient, made more difficult by the fact that there is no year or place given on the letters. But Solomon, following Beethoven's date on the letters, his movement during the period (1812) and studying the persons close to Beethoven, has come to the solution that Antoine Brentano must be the answer, now generally accepted as being correct.



Antonie Brentano
Antonie von Birkenstock was born in Vienna on May 28, 1780, thus 10 years younger than Beethoven. She underwent eduction with the Ursuline order in Pressburg.
On July 23, 1798 she married the Frankfurt merchant Franz Brentano, 15 years her senior. Her first child was born in 1799 but died a year later. She then had four surviving children. Solomon states that her marriage was unhappy.
In June 1809, Antonie's father was seriously ill in Vienna and she went there with her children in early October. Her husband followed a short time later and set up a branch of his firm in Vienna. In May 1810, Antonie's sister-in-law Bettina Brentano introduced her to Beethoven for the first time.
The Brentano's remained in Vienna until late in 1812 - she didn't like Frankfurt much and was ill most of the time. During her illnesses Beethoven would often play the piano for her. The Immortal Beloved letters were written at a time when it was evident that she would be leaving Vienna. After her departure at the end of 1812 she and Beethoven never met again.
Antonie Brentano died in 1869 at the age of 89.

[AmethystMoon]

I saw it a long time ago. I have to see it again but I thought it was a really good movie.

[shania x 64]

Originally posted by AmethystMoon
I saw it a long time ago. I have to see it again but I thought it was a really good movie. I looked for reviews and found 2 immediately - the first one really panned the film - this one is not much better but at least it is detailed enough to explain the plot etc.:

All-Reviews.com Movie/Video Review
Immortal Beloved
Director: Bernard Rose
Starring: Gary Oldman, Isabella Rossellini
MPAA Rating: R
Release Date: January 1995
RunTime: 121 Minutes
Genre: Drama, Romance, Music
Overall Rating: 2 Stars out of 4
Also starring Valeria Golino, Jeroen Krabbe, Marco Hofschneider, Johanna Ter Steege, Miriam Margolyes, Barry Humphries, Gerard Horan, Michael Culkin

Review by Steve Rhodes
2 Stars out of 4
Copyright © 1995 Steve Rhodes

IMMORTAL BELOVED is the reputedly true story of Ludwig van Beethoven. The degree to which they stretched the truth for dramatic purposes, I have no idea since I know only of Beethoven 's music and little of his life other than he was deaf at the end. For some reason, the script's plausibility never bothered me, and I took the movie totally on face value.

IMMORTAL BELOVED is told as a mystery, but actually the mystery is more of a ruse to be able to tell the story of Beethoven's life in a fresh way. The mystery is that when he died he left all of his estate to "his immortal beloved", but no one knew who that was. His secretary (Jeroen Krabbe) decides to dedicate his life to finding out who she was. The movie then tells Beethoven's life in flashback from his severe beatings as a child to his death after composing his ninth symphony.

We find many amazing things about his life. He was the Mick Jagger of his time! His music turned his female fans (Isabella Rosselini, Johanna Ter Steege, Valeria Golino, and others) into ecstasy, and he had many lovers, groupies if you will. He was considered something of a villain by their fathers.

Moreover, Beethoven (Gary Oldman) we find was a crude, mean, vicious, angry, and extremely obnoxious person. The movie seems to say that although he is terrible to everyone around him, this is because he was a victim of child abuse and deafness. There are periodic statements that he is a good person inside and that people are just not able to see that part of him. Perhaps.

I am not a big fan of Gary Oldman. I found his SID AND NANCY repulsive in the extreme. He has done some acting I like, but his specialty is playing despicable characters (he was Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK). The minor character parts of the movie played by Steege and Golino I found I enjoyed the most.

Now, unless you are an historian, comes the only real reason to see movie--the music. The show opens with a piano sonata and ends with an amazing set of images while playing the Ode to Joy part of Beethoven's last symphony. What do you think of when you hear his choral symphony? I sure never thought of what they did, yet it worked wonderfully well. The music is all directed by Sir. Georg Solti and is beautiful.

I have to mention the art decoration as another outstanding part. You are transported to 18th century Vienna, and it feels so real you think you are in a time machine. Actually, the credits show it was filmed in Prague, but hey, save a few bucks wherever you can I suppose.

What is wrong with the show? The script is pretty outlandish and tries to cover way too much material. The editing is too choppy. Finally, I just did not buy Oldman as Beethoven. I thought he was miscast and he certainly overacted.

It does seem like producers feel they can only make movies about composers if they show them as bizarre and quirky individuals. I think back to the only movie about by far and away my favorite composer - Gustav Mahler. It was called simply MAHLER. It was directed by Ken Russell, and he has Mahler hallucinating about death and Nazis and has him seeing his wife dancing on his grave in jackboots to the tune of one of Mahler's greatest symphonies. Sure.

The movie runs too long at 2:03, but if they felt that they had to cover as much ground as they attempted, then it should have been a 3 or 4 hour movie. The movie is correctly rated R for the beating of one small child and the death of another, for rape, murder, blood, and a little nudity. [Actually, the show featured some very effective kissing.] I think older teenagers could see it though since it does present the items above in a non-exploitive fashion. If you are a lover of classical music, then you will probably enjoy yourself as I did; otherwise, I would say skip it. I give it a very mild thumbs up overall, and I award it **.