Beethoven's Great Love (1936)

Synopsis: Much like his most celebrated film, NAPOLEON, cinema pioneer Abel Gance attempts to fashion a stormy, compelling myth of the life of legendary, deeply troubled composer Ludwig Van Beethoven. The... Much like his most celebrated film, NAPOLEON, cinema pioneer Abel Gance attempts to fashion a stormy, compelling myth of the life of legendary, deeply troubled composer Ludwig Van Beethoven. The life of the homely, lovelorn composer is seen through a series of devastating misfortunes: an obsessive aborted love, poverty, disregard for his music, and perhaps most tragically, oncoming deafness, all accompanied by Beethoven's lusty, lyrical music. Rejected by society and his "immortal beloved" Beethoven moves to an isolated mill where he battles his demons and composes masterpieces in a fury. Gance's signature fast-cut editing is taken to new heights as he treats Beethoven's music with the same experimental vision, underscoring all of the action and accentuation the effects of the editing with choice moments from various compositions. The world of 19th Century Vienna is compellingly evoked with its mixture of old world customs as well as its exciting and glamorous aura of the birth of new worlds of art and culture. The perennial outsider--destitute, heartbroken and deaf--Beethoven seems fated to be forgotten, but his love as well as his voluptuous music thrust him into immortality, as Gance details his final cinematic ecstasies and agonies. [More]

Starring: Harry Baur, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Dalio, Jan Holt

Starring: Harry Baur, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Dalio, Jan Holt, Annie Ducaux, Jean Bebucort, Paul Pauley, Jeanne Marken, Yolanda Lafon, Lucas Gridoux, Roger Blin

Director: Abel Gance

Director: Abel Gance

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