COPYING BEETHOVEN
Year: 2006
USA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
UK: Verve Pictures
Cast: Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Matthew Goode, Ralph Riach, Phyllida Law, Joe Anderson, Angus Barnett, Nicholas Jones, Bill Stewart, Karl Johnson, Viktoria Dihen, Gabor Bohus, George Mendel, Laszló aron, David Kennedy, Matyelok Gibbs, Gyorgy Mendel
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Countries: USA / Germany
USA & UK: 104 mins
USA Rated: PG-13 for some sexual elements
UK Certificate: 12A contains infrequent moderate sex references
USA Release Date: 10 November 2006 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 17 August 2007 (Limited Release)
UK Distributor
Synopsis
An aspiring composer of humble means, 23 year-old Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) is seeking inspiration and career advancement in the world's music capital, Vienna.
A student at the music conservatory, she is recommended for a position at a venerated publisher. Herr Schlemmer (Ralph Riach), Beethoven's publisher is dying of cancer and needs a copyist to complete the score and a young student, Anna Holz (Diane Kruger) at the Vienna Music Conservatory is summoned to Schlemmer's offices. In a fortuitous turn of events, she orchestrates an opportunity to work beside the greatest, most mercurial artist alive - Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris).
When the sceptical Beethoven issues an impromptu challenge, Anna demonstrates her competence and musical insight. The maestro accepts Anna as his copyist, beginning a remarkable relationship that will transform both of their lives.
Featuring Harris' remarkable incarnation as the celebrated composer, and a breakthrough performance by Kruger (TROY, NATIONAL TREASURE), COPYING BEETHOVEN centres on the last years of Beethoven's life...a turbulent period in which his struggles with deafness, loneliness and family trauma provided profound inspiration for arguably the greatest symphony ever written, his astonishing Ninth.
Shot on location in Hungary, COPYING BEETHOVEN is a period drama set in Vienna in 1824 about Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris) and the completion of his Ninth Symphony. Directed by Agnieszka Holland (SECRET GARDEN, EUROPA, EUROPA), the film co-stars Matthew Goode (CHASING LIBERTY), Ralph Riach (TV's THE CANTERBURY TALES), and Bill Stewart (ANNA AND THE KING).