Beethoven's Great Love

Beethoven's Great Love
Directed byAbel Gance
Written byAbel Gance
Steve Passeur
Produced byMichel Kagansky
Christian Stengel
StarringHarry Baur
Annie Ducaux
Jany Holt
CinematographyMarc Fossard
Robert Lefebvre
Edited byMarguerite Beaugé
André Galitzine
Music byPhilippe Gaubert
Production
company
Général Productions
Distributed byÉclair-Journal
Release date
  • 7 December 1936 (1936-12-07)
Running time
135 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

Beethoven's Great Love (French: Un grand amour de Beethoven) is a 1936 French historical musical drama film directed by Abel Gance and starring Harry Baur, Annie Ducaux and Jany Holt.[1][2] It portrays the career of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven. In Britain and the United States it was sometimes alternatively titled The Life and Loves of Beethoven.

It was shot at the Cité Elgé Studios in Paris. The film's sets were designed by the art director Jacques Colombier.

Plot

In Vienna in the early 19th century, while Beethoven works as a musical tutor, two of his pupils are in love with him. One ends up marrying a count instead while the other spends years of unrequited love as his fiancée. Beethoven moves to Heiligenstadt to dedicate himself to his music, and overcoming his growing deafness, composes a series of masterpieces.

Critical Response

The film received divided contemporary reviews. Some critics objected to Gance´s melodramatic style and the liberties taken with Beethoven's biography.[3]

François Truffaut later defended the film in Cahiers du cinéma by stating: “there is not a single shot which does not mark a significant moment in the history of cinema.” He also praised Harry Baur´s performance.[4]

The film's cinematic treatment of Beethoven's deafness has remained one of its most notable achievements. The director progressively removes the sounds of the external world in a sequence which places Beethoven in his daily life, within an increasingly subjective experience of silence.[5]

Cast

See also

References

  1. ↑ King p.243
  2. ↑ Karney, Robyn; Finler, Joel Waldo; Bergan, Ronald (2006). Cinema Year by Year: The Complete Illustrated History of Film. Dorling Kindersley. ISBN 978-0-7566-2259-6.
  3. ↑ J. L. (14 January 1937). "Un grand amour de Beethoven". Cinémonde: 27.
  4. ↑ Truffaut, François (1–7 September 1954). "Sir Abel Gance". Arts (479): 3.
  5. ↑ Deutsches Historisches Museum, Zeughauskino, Un grand amour de Beethoven, programme notes, 2021.

Bibliography

  • King, Norman. Abel Gance: A Politics of Spectacle. Bloomsbury Academic, 1984.


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