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. 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.
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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.
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.
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.
Cast
Harry Baur as Ludwig van Beethoven
Annie Ducaux as Thérèse de Brunswick
Jany Holt as Juliette Guicciardi
Jean-Louis Barrault as Karl van Beethoven
Jean Debucourt as Le comte Robert Gallenberg
André Nox as Humpholz
Gaston Dubosc as Anton Schindler
Sylvie Gance as La mère de l'enfant mort
Georges Paulais as Le médecin
Georges Saillard as Breuning
Jean Pâqui as Pierrot
Jane Marken as Esther Frechet - la cuisinière
Marcel Dalio as L'éditeur Steiner
André Bertic as Johann van Beethoven
Roger Blin as de Ries
Dalméras as Franz Schubert
Lucas Gridoux as Nikolaus Zmeskall
Yolande Laffon as La comtesse Guicciardi
Lucien Rozenberg as Le comte Guicciardi
Paul Pauley as Schuppanzigh