Beethoven's love

Most biographical films of celebrities list the modes of life experiences in detail: single-threaded descriptions, such as early and wise growing pains, ups and downs of career success or failure, colorful emotional experiences and ill-fated personal legends ..... all these are like a resume for recruitment or an epitaph on a revolutionary graveyard. For those who miss worship or gossip, take a look. Therefore, according to "there is no road in the world, so many people walk …", when the "positive solutions" (or the explanations of mainstream ideology) of those celebrities are repeated repeatedly, so that a large number of audiences lose box office performance, poor filmmakers learn to "twist", "misinterpret" and "reverse interpretation" as magic weapons to win surprises, so as to turn over. Recently, there was a series of "jokes about XXX" in the mainland, which occupied the TV time in the mainland for many years and was very poisonous. As far away as Hollywood, this "eternal lover" made bold guesses about Beethoven's life, trying to solve a big mystery of Beethoven's life.

Speaking of Beethoven, children in the 1970s must be very affectionate. His name has appeared in our primary school textbooks since childhood. But the most prominent embodiment of its value is the "ideological education course". Every time the school organizes activities and calls for learning from Zhang Haidi, Beethoven is bound to be regarded as a human landscape board and run with another uncle, "Ostrovschi". After the long-term publicity and education of the ideological teacher, these two left and right protectors of the "physically disabled and determined" school have misled me over time, that is, they have abandoned all the shortcomings and weaknesses of human nature, made of special materials, and were born to live in order to realize lofty ideals. As the supreme directive teaches us, it is "a pure person, a noble person, a person who is free from vulgar tastes and a person who is beneficial to the people." Even Beethoven, who had never been married, was praised by mainstream ideology to the point of "keeping chastity for music". This can't help but make me a "vulgar person" who only thinks about what's delicious on the table today after school every night, away from Beethoven, an out-of-touch musician. However, this impression was quickly broken by a magazine called Reader's Digest in a summer vacation. I believe all the young artists were familiar with this magazine. It is a magazine whose sales volume is equivalent to that of Story Club and similar to that of Vientiane Today. Generally speaking, it focuses on thinking about life, exploring ideals and engaging in petty bourgeoisie love songs. It is a reading treasure and fashion symbol of petty bourgeoisie. Much like today's Zhang Ailing going to Village Tree in spring or Starbucks once a week. Go with the flow with style, or at least read Reader's Digest at that time. Therefore, don't be idle during holidays, but urge yourself to make progress and be a qualified literary youth who is "out of low taste". Finally, on the title page of a reader's digest, which is usually full of famous sayings, I came across three love letters written by Beethoven to an eternal lover. "My angel, my everything, my me: you should feel pain-well, no matter where I live, may you stay with me, and I will try my best to let me live with you. What a life I lived when you were not in front of me! ! -I am followed by people everywhere, and I feel that I don't deserve it and I don't want to have it. However, people's humility towards others makes me sad. When I looked at what I was in the whole universe and the world called me the greatest person, I cried when I thought that you might receive my first message on Saturday and Sunday. -Of course you have love, but my love for you is stronger.-Oh, my God.-We are so close! So far away again! Our love is not really a castle in the air-but it is as stable as the sky. " I was shocked when such passionate and loving words came at me on a large scale. Is this the cold and violent Beethoven I remember? Is this Beethoven who dedicated his virginity to music and fought for human liberation? "When I sleep in bed at night, all my thoughts rush to you, my eternal love. Some people are happy, others are sad. Wait for fate to listen to us and wait for the result. Only when I am completely with you can I live, otherwise, I would rather not live. Yes, we must. " "Our love can be achieved in other ways, except through sacrifice and imperfection. You are not entirely mine, and I am not entirely yours. You can change this. Oh, my God, please look at the beautiful nature; Relax about the inevitable-love needs everything, which is absolutely right. I am so to you, and so are you to me-I must live for you and me ... "Are these restless souls and emotional anxieties Beethoven whose mission is music? Since my previous understanding of love letters was limited to "Love DOG" in Xu Zhimo's Love My Eyebrows and "Good Pain and Melancholy" by Aunt Qiong Yao, I immediately felt ashamed to see such a magnificent and religious love letter. This is the master of chasing girls. This made my affection for him soar. In the following years, I began to get in touch with his music works and biographies, as well as various film works reflecting his life. The motive is three love letters he wrote to an eternal lover.

Who is this "eternal lover", who was so passionately and nobly loved by Beethoven, is still an unsolved mystery. Many scholars have expressed their views on this, and their opinions cannot be unified. Just because there are different opinions in the academic circles, the film "The Immortal Lover" has gone astray, and it is still risky to take this as a clue. The highlight is how to find this "immortal lover" and how to justify it.

The film begins with Beethoven's funeral, and his student Schindele accompanies him to the end of his life. While sorting out the relics, Schindele found three love letters he wrote to his "immortal lover". According to Beethoven's will, his property was also bequeathed to this mysterious lady. In order to realize his predecessor's last wish, Schindele embarked on a journey of pursuit.

I "when I reach the coldest and most dangerous peak, my heart closes itself like a flower at night"-Beethoven and Julia.

Movie: The first stop of Schindler's visit is Countess Julia Chishalti. Julia in her twenties and eighties rushed from Italy to her cousin's house in Vienna to attend Beethoven's prestigious concert. There was a handsome young man playing a pathetique sonata in the hall, and Julia had to wait in the lounge because she was late. Just as she was bored, a man with short limbs and strange appearance suddenly appeared from behind the sofa and lashed out at the performer's skills. This encounter made Beethoven become Julia's piano teacher, and they soon fell in love. While two of a kind's honeymoon was still deadlocked, Julia's father received a proposal from Count Kalebuk, the handsome guy who was criticized by Beethoven for playing the pathetique sonata. Julia told her father that she had a heart and wanted to marry Beethoven. The father had to admit to his daughter that there were many rumors about Beethoven's deafness in society, and Beethoven had to be tested to continue their relationship. So, in the name of testing the new piano, Beethoven was called home. In the empty hall, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata flowed through his fingers. He leaned down, put his ear on the keys and felt the flow of music. Julia, who watched all this through the peephole next door, was also moved by this scene. Julia crept up to him, put her hand on his shoulder and said that her father would agree to his proposal. Beethoven, who had just been immersed in music, was furious at the moment. For the unruly Beethoven, this temptation is an insult and plunder to his feelings. He left in anger, and Julia, feeling dejected, finally married the third-rate musician Count Kalebuk. Julia was crying when Schindele took out three letters to an immortal lover, but she was sure that she was not an immortal lover.

Historical facts: Whether the first meeting between Beethoven and Julia was as dramatic as the first meeting between Rhett and Scarlett is now impossible to verify. But the cruel reality tells us that Julia's love for Beethoven has never been as romantic as in the movies. They met at 1800 and fell in love immediately. 180 1 year, Beethoven told his friend Wegele that she was "a lovely and charming girl. She loves me and I love her. For the first time, I feel that marriage can be a happy thing. " But he also has doubts about the future of this relationship. "Unfortunately, she doesn't belong to my class." Sure enough, Julia's feelings soon cooled down and turned her enthusiasm to an unworthy aristocratic musician, Count Kalebuk. The double blow of deafness and lovelorn made Beethoven desperate. 1802, when Julia fell madly in love with the count, Beethoven tried to commit suicide and wrote the famous Heiligenstadt will-"People like you treat me as a resentful, crazy or cynical person, and they really insulted me! You don't know what's behind those appearances! " . Fortunately, this kind of despair and pain intertwined with body and mind did not crush him, just as the will said, "It's art! It was art that kept me. Ah! I feel that my mission has been completely completed. I don't think I can leave this world. " We don't know whether Julia read those three letters to an immortal lover, but in her later years, she fondly recalled that he was "ugly, but noble, with elegant feelings and cultivation." As for this famous "Moonlight Sonata", Beethoven really dedicated it to Julia. It is actually called "Piano Sonata in C sharp minor". Later, because the German poet Lyle Stub compared the music of the first movement to the night on Lake Lucerne, the clever publisher took Moonlight as the title of this piece, which has been passed down to this day. This work soothes anxious souls with love, as gentle as water. You can imagine how much Beethoven loved Julia at that time. But the pain and despair that followed pushed Beethoven into a valley isolated from the outside world. He closed his mind, was claustrophobic in his own world and only used music to communicate with the outside world.

Two. "Between the lips and the voice, something is dying"-Beethoven and Anna

Video: Schindele came to Central Europe through Julia's guidance. Julia thinks this "immortal lover" is Anna, the Countess of Hungary. They met at a terrible concert. At that time, Beethoven was deaf and conducted a concert. Amid the ridicule and sarcasm of everyone, Anna bravely stepped forward to help him out of the hall. At that moment, two people with heart and soul came together. The countess who lived alone lived in Vienna with her three children, but Napoleon's conquest of Europe shattered their quiet life, and the war took the life of her youngest son. Beethoven gave his music to Anna who was immersed in pain. He said, "Use music to express it". After the war, Beethoven lived with Anna and her two daughters in a manor. Anna told Schindler that a year with Beethoven was the happiest day of their lives. Because they are attached to each other and inseparable. Beethoven called the countess "the god of repentance" and told her everything. When Schindele was glad that he had found an "immortal lover" and decided to send Anna three religious letters, Anna refused him. Anna believes that she is by no means the mysterious lover, because she knows that Beethoven has always had a secret love in his heart. So Schindele set foot on the journey again.

Historical facts: The prototype of this Anna is the Hungarian aristocrat Josephine von Brunswick, and her relationship with Beethoven began at 1804. At that time, she was an attractive young woman. She once married a nobleman 30 years older than herself, and recently became a widow, living alone in Vienna with three children. Beethoven fell in love with her on 1805 and wrote her many love letters. But she made it clear that she was not prepared to further develop relations with Beethoven. She said: "My love for you can't be expressed in words, just like a gentle soul loves another person," and stressed: "Can't you accept such an agreement?" Her relationship with Beethoven didn't last long. She married another aristocrat at 18 10. Seeing this, perhaps we will understand why Beethoven, who swept Europe in music, repeatedly lost in love. In that hierarchical society with strict barriers, Beethoven, who was born in poverty, lost his right to love as a human being even though he had a broad soul, a noble soul and a passionate life. Love, which should soothe lonely souls, has become a poison, and the emotion is as intense as Beethoven's. Maybe you must drink poison to quench your thirst.

Three. "I love you like something dark is in love"-Beethoven and Joanna

Video: Under the guidance of Anna, Schindele returned to Germany and visited Beethoven's sister-in-law Joanna. Because the countess thinks Joanna is an "immortal lover". Joanna is the wife of Beethoven's late brother Jasper. When Schindele took out three letters for Joanna to confirm, Joanna admitted that she was the "immortal lover" in the letters. Schindele was shocked, and Joanna told the story. Beethoven and his brother Jasper both fell in love with Joanna, the daughter of a furniture dealer, at first sight and pursued her. Soon Joanna was pregnant with Beethoven's child, and they met and eloped at the hotel. Due to the heavy rain in Lu Yu, the carriage was stuck in the mud and failed to arrive, but Joanna, who was waiting at the hotel, thought Beethoven had broken his word and left. Joanna married Jasper by mistake, and Beethoven thought that Joanna easy virtue made difficulties everywhere and broke up with her brother Jasper. When Jasper died of lung disease, Beethoven took his nephew Carl, the illegitimate child of him and Joanna, to raise him and train him to learn music. Carl is a young man with neither talent nor ambition. Under his uncle's prodigy training plan, he felt suffocated and failed to commit suicide. Beethoven was trapped by internal and external troubles at this time, but his work "The Ninth Symphony" in his later years still caused a sensation in the whole city. After listening to his ode to joy, Joanna took the initiative to break the ice to visit Beethoven, who was seriously ill, until he died safely. At the end of the film, with the fifth piano sonata as the background, Joanna read the end of the letter at Beethoven's grave. "I should go to bed now. Don't worry, dear, today and tomorrow, I am longing for you with tears in my eyes. You ... you are my life and everything, so goodbye. Don't stop loving me, it will always be yours, mine and ours ... "

Historical facts: For any audience who has a little knowledge of Beethoven's life, such a plot design can be said to be against the world. Only a surprise screenwriter like Hollywood dares to make such a bold guess. So far, there is no data to support this conjecture, and no critics have come out to agree with this design. Because Beethoven and his sister-in-law are incompatible in history, pulling them together is like Mars hitting the earth. His sister-in-law is a very disorderly woman with a bad reputation before marriage. After her husband died, Beethoven sued her for custody of her nephew for four years. This became a big problem in his later years. He devoted a lot of effort to his nephew Carl, hoping to train him to be a musician. Carl, who failed to live up to expectations, committed suicide with a musket in order to resist his uncle's high-handed policy. As a result, he did not commit suicide, but was seriously injured. This incident almost killed Beethoven, and his health deteriorated in his later years. Once, he was caught in the rain while looking for Carl, and he contracted pneumonia, which eventually led to the acceleration of his death. This gloomy love story woven by Hollywood may be more suitable for the curiosity of the audience. I can only say that this adaptation is too Hollywood and too un-German.

Four. "Joy is like the sun running in the magnificent sky" —— Beethoven's Love in the Sky.

In fact, besides the women involved in this film, historians have other speculations about The Immortal Lover. For example, the famous "Alice"-Teresa Malfati. When she died at 185 1, she still kept the manuscript of Beethoven's famous piano ditty, which read "To Alice", and Alice was Beethoven's nickname for Teresa. And Anthony Brantano, who received Beethoven's last three piano sonatas. And Emily Seybird, whom Beethoven once mentioned to her friends. In fact, Beethoven loved countless women in his life. Because he is as delicate as a poet and as enthusiastic as a musician, his demand for emotion is particularly strong. As Zhao Xinshan said, Beethoven was a man with strong sexual desire. Some scholars believe that this "immortal lover" is not a specific woman, but a synthesis of Beethoven's inner ideal women, and a spiritual companion who transcends secular physical attraction and is highly compatible with him in spirit. Beethoven's emotional changes, just like his changes in music creation, went from the early stage of music to the classical style, to the middle stage of personal originality and classicism, to the romantic style, and finally broke the shackles of traditional forms and completely entered the romantic style.

Of course, in this film, we see not only Beethoven, but also Gary Oldman, who may suddenly look back after many years. He looked at the noisy world coldly, just as he himself looked at Hollywood as an actor. The so-called bustling, the so-called ups and downs, that is not rehearsed, that is not stipulated. He saw through all this at a glance, and that cold glance finally reminded me of him. Odeman is the kind of actor who tears up scripts. He sat quietly, and the part of the movie that belonged to him slowly passed by; He suddenly stood up, and the structure of the film immediately bumped: lens, music, dialogue. All this is just a wreck. We may realize that the song is over, but our first thought is that the madman is finally rid of it. This Beethoven, like a lion, who has been fighting with himself, the world and everything all his life, is stingy for the talent given to him by God, for God, and for him to know all the secrets clearly. Beethoven was so angry that Odeman didn't abuse him. He wrapped himself up again. Even though he was bleeding profusely, even though it was raining, he still looked at the world lightly, just like looking at his withered body. Beethoven's genius is inseparable from his personality. A living example like On Philosophy of Art can prove that a person's fate depends on his personality first, and then the choice derived from it. As Lawson said in Theory and Skills of Drama and Film, drama deals with human personality characteristics. This film is like an oil painting, slowly open. Odeman used his acting skills to sketch a Beethoven full of tension, stroke by stroke. As the film drew to a close, the deaf Beethoven (Odeman) slowly turned to the audience with thunderous applause. He was shocked, then smiled faintly: Finally, God is tired this time.

As the film draws to a close, the director also deliberately highlights Beethoven's creative innovation and personal emotional sublimation. When Beethoven conducted the Ninth Symphony in the twilight, he seemed to have returned to his scarred childhood: his widowed and frustrated father came home drunk every day and beat Beethoven up. His father asked him to practice the piano and become a musical genius like Mozart. After being beaten up, Beethoven quietly climbed into the attic and looked up at the stars. He ran to the forest in the moonlight. In a pond reflecting the starry sky, he lay on his back on the water, and the camera kept pulling up. Water and starry sky blend together. Under the background of Ode to Joy, Little Beethoven melted into the whole starry sky. This passage is the genius of the whole film, which brings into play the unparalleled realm of Ode to Joy, transcends the galactic universe and dominates all material and spiritual supremacy. At this time, Beethoven has lost his arrogance of "grasping the throat of fate" and his unruly sorrow. At the end of his life, he conveyed his love for the whole mankind and life. It is empty love that transcends all worldly shackles and achieves eternal spiritual peace. His music points out the direction for the ultimate fate of mankind, just like the song "Ode to Joy", "Ah, look for him across the starry sky, and God is in that sky!"

Fiction and truth finally passed by on the map of life again. We have a map, but we really know where we are going.